Do you like meat? What kind of meat do you like?

I'm continuing to study the Khmer language, learning lots of new words, but having trouble with pronunciation. My tutor gives me flash cards to study at home, but reading the words written in the roman alphabet doesn't tell you much about how they're pronounced (for example the word Khmer itself is actually pronounced more like K'mai). I think part of the problem is training myself to hear the sounds that don't exist in English before I can even pronounce them. I remember having Mexican students that couldn't distinguish between words like cheap and chip without practice. Some weird thing where your brain can't find what its not looking for.

So I've started recording my teacher Nim to listen to how she forms vowels. We meet in a busy coffee shop, so the sound quality isn't great, but anyway here is a rather odd, if typical sequence:

Also, I can add the following to things I've successfully communicated outside the safety net of language class:

• Turn left, turn right, go straight, stop here
• Check please
• How much does it cost?
• Beer, ice, hot coffee, iced coffee
• How are you?, I am fine
• I'm studying Khmer, a little
• Goodbye
• May I see a menu? (Not that the restaurant had menus).

traffic at Orussey market today

two minutes of chaos shot from the back of a tuc tuc

Cambodian 7-Eleven 

Don't order the deep fried morning glory

For a long time I've subscribed to the theory that deep fat frying is a culinary equalizer that makes everything good--it works the same for onions as Twinkies. However, this is one of many fronts in which Cambodia is still an alternate universe for me. I ordered deep fried morning glory in a coffee shop because it was cheap. The closest thing I could compare it to would be weeds fried in cod liver oil. I couldn't get rid of the taste and suffered greasy, fishy belches the rest of the day.

Everything else I've eaten here has been awesome though, and generally under $2 a plate (including cold tea to wash it down). This being from the equivalent of a diner or something. If I get up the courage to eat more street food it might be even cheaper.

Completely unrelated: Since I hope to learn at least some Khmer, and I am a true beginner, I thought I'd try to keep some track of vocabulary as I learn it to investigate a little about language acquisition. With Spanish, which I more or less speak, almost everyone knows some words and there lots of cognates and so on. With Khmer, I'm more like Kasper Hauser or the wild boy of Aveyron.

Words/phrases I've said and been understood: Hello, good morning, thank you, left, no.

Words/Phrases I've understood:

Hello, good morning, thank you, two, seven, eleven.