You know the old, potato(po-tay-to) - potato(po-tah-to), tomato(toe-may-toe) - tomato (toe-mah-toe) thing? Which is the correct way to say it thing?
Well, I'm about to educate you on somthing I wouldn't have even known unless I'd lived in Cambodia and learned to speak the langauge, (which is Khmer and not Cambodian).
How would you pronounce the word: Khmer?
Like it looks, Kuh-mer, right?
Except, that's how the french pronounce it...in french.
The correct way to pronounce it is: Kuh-mai.
If you said Kuh-mer to a Cambodian they probably would have no idea what you're talking about.
Normally it's not something that really bothers me, but with the death of King Sihanouk recently there's been a lot of stories about Cambodia in the news, and I have yet to hear one journalist get it right. More than one of them have even lived in Cambodia. Really, guys, really? How can you report on Cambodia and something as big as the Khmer Rouge when you're pronouncing the name of their langauge and culture wrong?
Wikipedia gets it right. [pʰiːəsaː kʰmaːe]
That other word on the phonetic is the phonetic for the word langauge in Khmer.
Now consider yourself educated and spread the word. Please feel free to correct people when they mispronounce it, and feel free to use me as a very credible reference :)
Soap box Complete.
Well, I'm about to educate you on somthing I wouldn't have even known unless I'd lived in Cambodia and learned to speak the langauge, (which is Khmer and not Cambodian).
How would you pronounce the word: Khmer?
Like it looks, Kuh-mer, right?
Except, that's how the french pronounce it...in french.
The correct way to pronounce it is: Kuh-mai.
If you said Kuh-mer to a Cambodian they probably would have no idea what you're talking about.
Normally it's not something that really bothers me, but with the death of King Sihanouk recently there's been a lot of stories about Cambodia in the news, and I have yet to hear one journalist get it right. More than one of them have even lived in Cambodia. Really, guys, really? How can you report on Cambodia and something as big as the Khmer Rouge when you're pronouncing the name of their langauge and culture wrong?
Wikipedia gets it right. [pʰiːəsaː kʰmaːe]
That other word on the phonetic is the phonetic for the word langauge in Khmer.
Now consider yourself educated and spread the word. Please feel free to correct people when they mispronounce it, and feel free to use me as a very credible reference :)
Soap box Complete.
3 comments:
I've been saying it the wrong way in my head when reading your posts! At least I know now. Ha :)
Love this post! That is annoying they can't get it right...
Oh gosh, I'm exactly the same way girl! I get really weird when people pronounce certain things wrong. Thank you for teaching me something today ;)
xo TJ
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