Learn Khmer!

I am back. And now we're going to learn about subconsonants because they come up frequently in Khmer.

What's that?

Subconsonants --- or ជើងអក្សរ (jerng 'aksar) which literally means "foot letters" --- are consonants that combine with other consonants to make longer sounds.

For example,

គ (k) + ្ន (sub n) = គ្ន (kn)

ក្នា (knea) means "everyone"

The regular version of ្ន looks like ន (no)

Every consonant has a foot version. Here they are:

*PS there's 33 consonants so in case that's too many, just focus on the few that I randomly embiggened for you

ក -> ្ក

ខ (kha) -> ្ខ

គ -> ្គ

ឃ (kho) -> ្ឃ

ង (ngo) -> ្ង

ច (cha) -> ្ច *sometimes written as ja

ឆ (chha) -> ្ឆ

ជ (cho) -> ្ជ *sometimes written as jo

ឈ (chho) -> ្ឈ

ញ (nho) -> ្ញ

ដ (da) -> ្ដ

ឋ (dha) -> ្ឋ *the more accurate transliteration is "tha" but I'm writing it this way so it doesn't get mixed up with ថ, which you'll learn later

ឌ (do) -> ្ឌ

ឍ (dho) -> ្ឍ *usually written as tho but again I don't want to cause a mix up with ធ

ណ (na) -> ្ណ

ត (ta) -> ្ត

ថ (tha) -> ្ថ

ទ (to) -> ្ទ

ធ (tho) -> ្ធ

ន -> ្ន

ប (ba) -> ្ប

ផ (pha) -> ្ផ

ព (po) -> ្ព

ភ (pho) -> ្ភ

ម (mo) -> ្ម

យ (yo) -> ្យ

រ (ro) -> ្រ

ល (lo) -> ្ល

វ (vo) -> ្វ

ស (sa) -> ្ស

ហ (ha) -> ្ហ

ឡ (la) -> ្ឡ *you'll almost never see this one so don't worry, but yeah it looks exactly like ទ (to) + ្ប (sub b) for some reason. I have no idea why

អ ('a) -> ្អ

Words you can spell with the embiggened letters + what you've already learned!!

ឆ្មា = chma (cat)

គ្មាន = kmean (none)

អក្សរ = 'aksar (letter)

Now I'm not going to give you the pronunciation, just the translation. Try to read and figure out the pronunciation. Later, click to see the answers.

ស្មា = ? (shoulder)

ផ្សារ = ? (market)

ស្រី = ? (woman)

ឆ្ងាយ = ? (far away)

ផ្កាយ = ? (stars as in "rate me 5 stars")

WORTH BONUS POINTS: អង្គរ = ? (can't tell you or it'll give it away)

Last time, we learned 5 letters (or two consonants and 3 dependent vowels to be more exact): កគ ាិី.

Instead of learning new letters too soon, I want to show you how to make words.

First of all, Khmer is an ABUGIDA like Japanese. That means each consonant has an inherent vowel. Did you notice how there's ka and ko instead of just k? You can change the a/o into a different sound by adding a dependent vowel like ា, ិ, or ី, but my point is, even if you don't add anything, it still already has an inherent vowel. And that's why...

ក (ka) is a full word, which means neck! 💆‍♀️

However, if a consonant is at the end of a word, and it does NOT have a dependent vowel after it, it just gets shortened. Ie, it loses the inherent vowel. So...

កក (kak) is read as kak instead of kaka. This means ice btw! 🧊

Now let's try to do some words WITH dependent vowels (ាិី)

កាគី (kaki) = khaki like the color

គីគី (kiikii) = Kiki like the name

Those are pretty much the only words you can make being limited to 5 letters. Sorry it's only four but I hope you get the idea.

Next, try to transliterate all of these combos. Most aren't real words, but you can still write how they would be pronounced. Bonus points if you translate the 3 (4?) real words.

ក = ?

គា = ?

កី = ?

គិ = ?

កក = ?

គគ = ?

គាក = ?

កីគ = ?

កាក = ?

គីគី = ?

កាកា = ?

គាគី = ?

កាគី = ?

Today, we are going to learn 5 letters:

ក គ ា ិ ី

ក = ka // as in car

*Sometimes this is also transliterated as kaw or kor because Khmer sounds are hard to adapt perfectly into English. I will be exclusively calling it "ka" in my lessons to avoid confusion, but please note you might see it written differently elsewhere!

គ = ko // as in coat

ា = a // as in car (again)

ា = ea // as in idea

*"Wait why are there two sounds for the same letter?" You must be wondering. It's because if you combine ា with a consonant that ends in a, like ក (ka), it becomes កា (ka). If you combine ា with a consonant that ends in o, like គ (ko), it becomes គា (kea). This is tricky for new learners, but bare with me! You'll get used to it.

ិ = e // as in jet

ិ = i // as in win

*កិ ke, គិ ki

ី = ei // as in freight

ី = ii // as in Hawaii

*កី kei, គី kii

Disclaimer:

As I mentioned earlier, Khmer is very difficult to transliterate because the sounds are so different from English. I did my best to find English words that sort of give you an idea of how each letter is pronounced, but I highly recommend watching a video of a native speaker saying them because this isn't 100% accurate. Also sometimes you will see people transliterating letters differently even though they're talking about the same letter. For example, ក can be written as ka, kaw, or kor, and ី can be written as ei, ey, or ay. Nobody is changing the pronunciation. It's all the same!! But the "proper" romanization isn't agreed upon.

Exercise

You are going to write the transliterations for the following consonant/dependent vowel combos.

For example, if you see កិ, you are going to write ke. When you're finished, scroll down to see the answers and check your work!

កា = ?

គា = ?

កិ = ?

គិ = ?

កី = ?

គី = ?