What’s the best way to learn Khmer as a foreigner? Phnom Penh-based English Professor James Fountain is learning the language and offers some personal and professional tips.

Surely the most important place to start learning Khmer is the classic Tuttle Khmer dictionary, written by David Smyth and Tran Kien, and for sale at around $5 from booksellers around the city.

This has about 5500 useful entries, with the numbers, days, months and seasons in the appendix. Anyone who carries this around with them and using it at restaurants and cafes when ordering with servers will stand a chance of learning some Khmer.

If you can find a like-minded Khmer language exchange buddy (or perhaps more than one) who you can meet with regularly to practice speaking with, this would be very useful as well as both economical and friendship-forming.

It would be far more effective than investing in expensive DVD-based or online language courses, many of which overcomplicate the language.

Similarly, YouTube language learning can often be misleading.

Google Translate is useful for quick-fire language conversions on the street and also for checking pronunciation. It may seem obvious, but this secondary function has dramatically improved over the years and become an indispensable tool for many expats and tourists.

Carrying a notebook will help ensure you don’t forget certain words and phrases you use regularly. The process of writing them down will aid memory.

To go further into the language, and form sentences in the correct grammar and context, you will need to take lessons.

If you prefer group learning, there are options available. Your workplace may offer informal classes (often for free). These are worth investigating, but despite their best intentions, you might find these gatherings aren’t serious or regular enough for you to learn effectively.  

You will find much more structured courses in language centres or universities, mainly to be found around Phnom Penh.

The Royal University of Phnom Penh offers intensive 8-10-week courses, with 1.5 hours each weekday. Each term contains one level and cost $200 each ($800 for one year). Some students attend two classes a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

The Khmer School of Language offers flexible, tailor-made courses at a time and place of the student’s choosing, prices varying according to the student’s need.

Gateway to Khmer (G2K) also offers classes from beginner to advanced level, in a “professional and friendly environment.”

Khmerlessons.com is a Facebook-advertised company boasting 26,200 followers, and will connect students with private one-to-one tutors. And peak Like Khmer Language School offers classroom lessons in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap as well as online lessons.

Each of the Phnom Penh-based language schools is centrally located, many between the Olympic Stadium and the Russian Market area in Tuol Toum Poung.  

A private tutor might be the way to go. These can cost anything from $10 to $30 per hour, but the advantage is the sessions will be one-on-one and intensive.

You are pretty much guaranteed to start speaking sentences in Khmer that will be useful in your everyday life. Whatever you pay for your learning, and however much you learn, it will certainly be worth it.

As someone who went down this route, I would advise that the learner sign up for an initial two hours per week, either separately or together, to kick-start their learning and immerse themselves in the sound of the language.

Correct pronunciation is the tricky part of any language, but also the most vital.

You’ll then need to try out what you have learned—this requires courage. Conduct your trials at work, ordering at coffee shops, paying at supermarkets, in restaurants, or in bars (“Som kit loi?”—which” translates as “Can I pay the bill?”).

The more you practice with local people on a daily basis in various different situations, the closer you will get to authentic pronunciation and really grasping the language.

For more advanced learners, watching Khmer TV or movies with English subtitles will help to advance your ability even further. Gaining a strong foothold (something I am far from doing after six months of learning) is, I am told, vital before learning the alphabet and written Khmer.