Cambodian Writing System

Intro to Khmer reading and writing

The Cambodian writing system looks way different then English, Spanish, French or any romanticized language. The good thing is Khmer is phonetic and thus easy to learn how to pronounce and spell the words easily.

There are few exceptions to Khmer grammar rules and not like English with many exceptions like I before E unless after a C. There are 33 simple consonants in the Cambodian writing system. Also there are 32 lower case sub consonant symbols.

Khmer Vowels

There are more vowels then English with 24 vowels in the Cambodian writing system. Also there are 11 additional independent vowel symbols.

Then there are the unique punctuation marks that English does have. Thankfully Cambodian writing system has adopted some of English’s punctuation and familiar items like ? ! “are used now.

It is important to be able to read the letters as it helps with obviously signs, menus, and such things like those. Also, there is another reason to learn the characters as it will give you the 100% correct sound. The romanticized transliteration can only be about 95% and sometimes more like 75% correct since English doesnt have the same alphabet.

The consonant classes

There are two consonant classes. The first one contains the AU sound as in AUgust or A-koo-sa.

The second class contains the oo sound like in shOW. There are 15 AUgust consonants and 18 shOW consonants. The AUgust consonants will emit a natural AU sound, while conversely the shOW consonants will emit a natural OW sound.

Don’t worry! It sounds confusing, but it is not.

So when you are ready to learn your first consonants go here for the first ten Khmer consonants