Language School

I am looking into language schools to 'officially' start learning Khmer.  I think a school setting with books and structure is going to be the way to go for me.  Spanish was relatively easy for me to learn in high school, but there are a lot of similarities between Spanish and English.  They share the same alphabetic letters and there are a ton of cognates that make some things easy to figure out.  Spanish has a few sounds that are different but relatively easy to pick up (except for that double r trilling thing.)

Khmer is a whole different story.  The Khmer language gives a whole new meaning to dipthongs.  The vowel sounds have such subtle nuances, that you can say two totally different words and not even notice the difference.  When trying to pronounce some of these words it feels like my mouth has to do contortions I've never asked it to do before. Then, once you've got it, you have to send those sounds up through your nasal cavity to make the proper sound.
I've been told the Khmer script is related to Sanskrit.

Well I'd like to share with you a few things I've learned so far.  Note that this is not how Khmer words are spelled, it's just my phonetic interpretation.  Enjoy trying to pronounce them.  

Useful words for a tuk tuk driver:

baht s'dam:  turn right
baht sh-weng: turn left
tow trong: go straight
chope: stop
ohr kuhn:  thank you

Greetings:

chum rup su-a: Hello, formal greeting
sok sa bai te?: informal greeting
Soo-a sa day: How are you?
aron soo-a sa day: Good morning
jah: yes (female speaking)
Knyom chomurrah Kim: My name is Kim 


Other words:

chngan: delicious

This one is tricky to say.  We have all these sounds in English, but the order makes it difficult.
/ch/ as in church
/ng/ like the end of ring
/a/ as in apple
/ny/ like the first n in onion

Ok lets put it together.  Front of the mouth /ch/, top back of the mouth /ng/, short vowel /a/, and finish at the front with the /ny/

Having fun yet?  I've got a great one for you.  Here are two of my students' names class.  They are twins actually. 

Oudompheakdey
Phearydeykalyan

Believe it or not, I can actually say their names.  Telling them apart is another story.