Khmer Classifiers

Brief introduction to Cambodian Classifiers

Specific words that are used to identify nouns are called classifiers. The Khmer language commonly uses classifiers for some words, but sometimes they are not used at the speakers discretionary. Confusing I know!

English does have it’s set of classifiers like glasses of beer, pairs of shoes, and rolls of toilet paper. This page is going to try to list some of the most common Khmer classifiers so you can try to use them or when you hear the term in daily conversation you can understand it’s purpose.

Ta!

Vocab List of Khmer Classifiers

Nek – People

son-lek – sheets of paper

gbaal – animals and books

dung – number of times

dom – piece, roll, bunch

jaan – plates of food

gaew – glasses of beer, water, coke

daab – bottles of beer, water, coke

guu – pairs of things

groab – small round things like candy, seeds, pills

joan – floor as in what stories is your office on

yaang – kinds, types, ways

bon-dtub – rooms

jbab – documents, copies

jam-net – slices

daum – sticks, guns

gii-loo – kilo (kind of like some speakers have a g and not k on kit luy

maet – meters

gii-loo-maet – kilometers

baaw – bags of rice

gam-plee – set of clothes

How to use Khmer Classifiers

So now we know some Khmer classifiers how do we use them? Well, usually the classifiers comes at the end of the sentence of phrase.

For example, sbaek-jong bpii guu (two pairs of shoes). This sentence goes noun + the modifier + classifier.

Sometimes Khmer classifiers are used in a sentence or phrase when their English equivalent phrase or sentence would not use a classifiers.

For example, tnam bey groab which is 3 pills.

One more example of a Khmer classifier in a sentence form. Kynum jong dtin coca (dtek-krooik) bpii daab. I want to buy 2 bottles of coca cola. Coca cola is pronounced with just the first word as in Coca like the coca plant. Also if you wanted to say pop, soda, the generic term is dtek-krooik.

I hope this article helps a little bit on learning the Cambodian language and the small nuances the language contains.

To Know and How to use the Cambodian word howie

To Know:

The first word Cambodian word we are going to learn is the three different ways to say to know.

The first one is jeh or Ja. This means to know how to do something.

The next word is dung, which is to know knowledge about something. For example kynum dung. I know something, and conversely kynum min dung dtee is I dont know. Some speakers also use awt dung.

The last way is about knowing someone (a person). The Cambodian word is sgoal. Dtau look sgoal bong Timmy dtee. The translation is, “Do you know Timmy?”

Howie

The first meaning for the Cambodian word howie is already. Gee jeh ni-yiay howie. He already knows how to talk. Kynum muhl gon nih howie. I have already seen this movie. When howie is representing always it is usually at the end of the sentence.

Howie can also be used to talk about the past. Khmer verbs do not have conjugation to show tenses like past, present and future. The listener has to go off of context and sometimes classifiers. Howie is one of these aforementioned classifiers. kynum tov psaa howie, which means i went to the market already, thus past tense.

If you don’t know what a classifier is, or want to know more about Cambodian classifiers this article, “Khmer Classifiers” contains an introduction to what a classifier is. It also explains where the classifier is used in the sentence structure and also has a vocabulary list of the most common Khmer classifiers.