<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Maybe good for the beginner...
Review: but not for the serious khmer student.
Rating: 
Summary: Probably the best available
Review: It's an excellent book for beginners. The tapes done very well using native speakers of Khmer. The English speakers have a distinctly British accent. The book uses it's own system of romanisation that is easy to learn. It covers the language basics one would need to suvive in Cambodia. The book also focuses somewhat on Cambodian culture and the Holocaust. It would be a good book for Cambodian Americans who wish to learn Cambodian Script. I would not recomend it for more advanced speakers of Khmer.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I had this two years ago!
Review: It's an excellent book for beginners. The tapes done very well using native speakers of Khmer. The English speakers have a distinctly British accent. The book uses it's own system of romanisation that is easy to learn. It covers the language basics one would need to suvive in Cambodia. The book also focuses somewhat on Cambodian culture and the Holocaust. It would be a good book for Cambodian Americans who wish to learn Cambodian Script. I would not recomend it for more advanced speakers of Khmer.
Rating: 
Summary: Four star CD, Two star book, but still useful
Review: Let's start with the positive. The CD is great. The material is practical, the pronunciations are clear, and listening to it will definitely help any student of the Khmer language. Now for the book. Although Smyth does sort of apologize for his system of transcribing the spoken language, no justification can be made for this perverse, ugly, and misleading representation of Khmer. Smyth claims that use of phonetic symbols would require too much sophistication on the part of the average user, and I agree that the level of phonetic detail would be difficult. Besides, no two linguists use the same system (mea culpa, here). However, Smyth commits a crime against the language by splitting single syllable words into two, breaking up sounds and creating a written form that looks totally alien. The real reason for the mess is an attempt to match the spoken language to the written form. This is very hard, since the written form of the language represents the spoken language hundreds of years ago. Put simply, Khmer used to have a "b" and a "p". It lost that distinction, so that the difference "moved" to the following vowel. baa and paa become paa and pie (PEE-EH). His solution is to write "bp" and "p", but in the modern language they are the same sound. In trying to avoid the historical complexity of the writing system, a monstrous alphabetic stew is created. He writes the letter "r" at the end of words, but that's just because of the writing system. It is never pronounced in Cambodian Khmer (some dialects in Thailand have it). In sum, he tried a new solution to an old problem, and failed. It is just too much of misrepresentation, and makes learning difficult. The material is otherwise good, though the grammatical sketch is a bit too westernized. It would be easier to tell the truth: there are no parts of speech in Khmer and most words can be used as noun, adjective, or verb. There are inconsistencies. Smyth correctly notes that pronouns are often omitted (in subject position) but then keeps using them, so the colloquial language becomes a bit stilted. As Smyth rightly notes, if you learn the complex Khmer script you can forget about the transcription. I'll go further. If you learn the script, this is a very useful book. If not, it is too misleading about how Khmer works. The approach taken by Huffman in his books from the 1970s is better, as is Im Proum's course if you can find it. If you can't get to those, you will find this introduction does just as good a job if you get past the transcription and learn the writing system. Good luck!
Rating:
Summary: a very useful course
Review: Tha roman-alphabet renderings of the Khmer words is misleading, but for most aspects of the course only good things can be said. The exercises are well-chosen and paced in a way that makes learning Khmer about as painless as it can be, which is still pretty painful.This book supposes no prior knowledge of Khmer. The other Khmer book I have seen, by Huffman, is very technical and seems to suppose a level of training in structural linguistics and phonetics that is beyond what most people have.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful for me
Review: This book and CD set were my introduction to Khmer. I went through the first 7 chapters before my trip to Cambodia. I was able to say a few things to people with good results.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction to khmer
Review: This book is extremely helpful for those who would like to learn enough khmer to really enjoy a trip to cambodia. It is pretty basic, but it will get you to have small conversations in no time. It's really a great introduction to a fascinating language and culture. p.s. If you are not going to be in cambodia or don't have any khmer friends, you REALLY need the tapes.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction to khmer
Review: This book is extremely helpful for those who would like to learn enough khmer to really enjoy a trip to cambodia. It is pretty basic, but it will get you to have small conversations in no time. It's really a great introduction to a fascinating language and culture. p.s. If you are not going to be in cambodia or don't have any khmer friends, you REALLY need the tapes.
Rating:
Summary: a good beginning book and tape
Review: This package is probably as good as it gets for a broadbrush presentation of Khmer. Those with several languages behind them realize that for most people it takes two thousand hours or so of study to develop a working foundation in most languages. Khmer may seem intimidating in the initial stages, but it really is an achievable goal for those who have a deep interest in the country and its people. Try "Colloquial Cambodian" on for size, and if you become infected with the Cambodia bug you can always order the full Foreign Service Institute course and pursue Khmer to the hilt. A new language gives you a new life, a new identity. A good investment! Even if you just master the material presented in Colloquial Cambodian, you'll come away with more than many official Americans assigned to the country in recent years did.
<< 1 >>
|
