Like the other stories, the short story is told and then retold with the circling technique, asking a lot of questions about each sentence, right after each sentence.
Note that the English and Khmer translation do not always match word for word. You can use the English as a guide for the general meaning of each sentence, but it’s best to let the meaning of words become clear by hearing them again and again in various contexts.
A Picnic
ពិចនិក
It was a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon.
អាកាសធាតុក្តៅនិងមានពន្លឺថ្ងៃនៅរសៀលថ្ងៃសៅរ៍
Bob and Alice were taking a walk outdoors.
ប៊ប់និងអាលីសកំពុងតែដើរលេងនៅខាងក្រៅ។
Because the weather was so nice, they decided to have a picnic.
They sat down at a table inside to finish their meal.
ពួកគេអង្គុយនៅតុមួយក្នុងផ្សារញ៉ាំអាហារពួកគេអោយអស់។
They were soaking wet from the rain.
ពួកគេទទឹកជោកដោយទឹកភ្លៀង
The food was also wet, but it was still delicious.
អាហារក៏ទទឺកសើមដែរ ប៉ុន្តែ វានៅតែឆ្ងាញ់។
English recordings of the story for English learners
The following videos have English recordings of the story that learners of English can use to practice listening as well as speaking and thinking in English through answering the questions. Khmer learners of English can use the Khmer translation to understand the story better.
As usual, any comments, corrections, and suggestions are welcome.
Here’s another story that I’ve had translated into and recorded in Khmer to go with the collection of “mini-stories” I shared and the one I wrote about buying coffee.
Entitled “Smartphone Addiction”, this one is a somewhat silly story about an obsession with mobile games taking its toll on a relationship.
I had written it without a particular country or culture in mind, but I’m told that it’s relatable from a modern Khmer perspective, as smartphone use has become so widespread and popular in Cambodia as with many other countries, with even many older people becoming highly attached to their devices.
Like the other stories, the short story is told and then retold with a lot of questions about each sentence, right after each sentence.
This technique makes the story easier to understand because there is a lot of repetition of language, and gives you practice in listening to Khmer as well as thinking in Khmer by listening to and answering the questions.
Smartphone Addiction
ញៀននឹងទូរស័ព្ទដៃទំនើប
Tom was addicted to his smartphone.
ថមញឿននឹងទូរស័ព្ទទំនើបរបស់គាត់។
Every day, he would spend 16 hours playing games on it.
English recordings of the story for English learners
The following videos have English recordings of the story that learners of English can use to practice listening as well as speaking and thinking in English through answering the questions. Khmer learners of English can read the Khmer translation to understand the story better.
Again, any comments, corrections, and suggestions are welcome.
Like the mini-stories, this story is told and then many questions are asked about each sentence in the story.
For this story, many different questions are asked for each sentence from the story: Yes-or-no questions, and who, what, when, where, and why questions.
An advantage of this kind of content is that you are hearing the same language over and over again in different ways.
All this repetition makes it easier to follow and understand the story, and also helps you to remember and pick up the words and structures that are used.
You also get to hear many common grammatical forms again and again, such as how different kinds of questions are asked in Khmer.
By paying attention to the questions and trying to answer them, you are also learning to think in Khmer.
Enjoy! Any corrections, suggestions, and feedback are welcome. As well, I would welcome additional recordings of these stories, so that learners can hear a variety of voices and speaking styles.
Buying Coffee
រឿងទិញកាហ្វេ
It’s nine o’clock in the morning.
ម៉ោង០៩.០០ព្រឹក
Chris arrives at his office.
គ្រិសមកដល់ការិយាល័យរបស់គាត់។
He has to work, but he is too tired.
គាត់ត្រូវតែធ្វើការ ប៉ុន្តែគាត់ហត់ពេក
He feels very tired because he didn’t sleep enough last night.
I’m happy to share with you a new set of free Khmer learning materials, which includes over 180 minutes of audio recordings with transcripts.
These materials comprise 60 short stories that are designed to help you pick up Khmer through listening with minimal effort.
The stories come from the collection of “Mini-Stories” that were created for the language-learning site LingQ and have been translated into many languages.
I’ve had them translated into Khmer and recorded so that Khmer language learners can now benefit from them.
Contact me if you have any corrections, suggestions on formatting, or would like to contribute, for example by providing further recordings for this material, or are interested in creating and sharing similar material.
It would be helpful to hear these stories recorded with a variety of voices and speaking styles, and the more materials there are like this, the better.
How the Mini-Stories work
“Mike is a cook at a restaurant. Is Mike a cook? Yes, Mike is a cook at a restaurant.”
The stories provide a source of listening input that uses language in a highly repetitive yet meaningful way that’s different from ordinary language learning materials.
This repetition, achieved through retelling the stories using different perspectives and many questions, makes them easier to understand and makes it easier to remember and pick up the new words and structures that you hear.
Understanding the stories from different perspectives and answering the questions also helps train you to think in Khmer.
To better understand how they work, let’s look at the first Mini-Story in the series, called “Mike Is A Cook”.
The story is first told in the third person, telling us about Mike:
Mike gets up at 6:00am every morning.
ម៉ៃក្រោកពីគេងនៅម៉ោង០៦.០០ព្រឹកជារៀងរាល់ព្រឹក។
He makes breakfast and drinks a coffee.
គាត់ចំអិនអាហារពេលព្រឹក និងផឹកកាហ្វេ១កែវ។
He drives to work in his car.
គាត់បើកឡានទៅធ្វើការ។
His work starts at 7:30am.
ការងាររបស់គាត់ចាប់ផ្តើមនៅម៉ោង៧.៣០នាទីព្រឹក។
Mike is a cook at a restaurant.
ម៉ៃជាចុងភៅនៅភោជនីយដ្ឋាន។
He makes food for hungry customers.
គាត់ចំអិនអាហារអោយអតិថិជនដែលឃ្លានបាយ។
The customers are from many countries.
អតិថិជនមកពីប្រទេសជាច្រើនផ្សេងៗគ្នា។
They speak many different languages.
ពូកគេនិយាយភាសាជាច្រើនខុសៗគ្នា។
Mike can meet many friendly people.
ម៉ៃអាចជួបមនុស្សរួសរាយរាក់ទាក់ជាច្រើននាក់។
Mike is happy when he talks to the customers.
ម៉ៃសប្បាយចិត្តនៅពេលគាត់និយាយាជាមួយអតិថិជនទាំងនោះ។
Next, we get to hear the same story told again, but this time in the first-person perspective, with Mike himself telling the story:
All of the Mini-Stories follow this basic structure of the story told twice from different perspectives followed by a series of questions, but the higher levels add more variations.
For example, instead of just first-person then third-person, the first two stories might be told with a different pair of perspectives, such as third person singular, then third person plural, where another character is included.
Questions go from simple yes/no questions in the first level to questions asking who, what, when, where, and why.
In later stories they also can shift perspective, for example by putting the story in the past or in the future.
To pick up words and structures in a language and use them naturally, you need to hear them many times and often in different contexts.
The different perspectives and many questions provide a lot of repetition to help you achieve this, and they train you to think in Khmer.
Using the Mini-Stories to learn Khmer
The LingQ Approach
The LingQ website and app are built around listening to materials in the language you’re learning with transcripts that you can study by highlighting and saving words to learn what they mean and review them.
The approach advocates spending a lot of time listening repeatedly to interesting content in the language you’re learning on your smartphone or MP3 player, and spending some time on the site reviewing the transcripts and learning new words to gain better understanding of what you’re listening to.
The idea is by becoming familiar with the language, its patterns, and how words are used through listening a lot first, you will gradually be able to speak more and more without a lot of effort.
The freemium site covers and includes content for many languages, but like most Southeast Asian languages, Khmer is not among them yet.
For example by using Chrome’s Google Translate plugin, you can highlight an word or phrase you don’t know in Khmer and get an English translation.
By repeatedly listening to the recordings while looking up unknown words in between, the meaning of what one is listening to should become clearer and clearer over time.
It’s probably possible to start as a complete beginner with this approach and these kinds of recordings and gain a good comprehension of them, however, many total newbies to Khmer who don’t know a related language may find this daunting, especially having to deal with the Khmer script.
For these beginning learners, it may be advisable to start with simpler listening materials and other exposure to become more familiar with the language first.
Compatibility with the ALG approach
While using the Mini-Stories as part of learning Khmer can be compatible with the Automatic Language Growth approach that was used by LINK (Language Institute of Natural Khmer—unrelated to LingQ although the acronym is pronounced the same way), there are some aspects of the ALG approach that should be noted.
Both the ALG approach and LingQ’s approach put great emphasis on learning through comprehensible input by listening to the language one is learning in a way that’s both highly interesting and understandable.
While the LingQ approach encourages using translation to learn new words, ALG advocates picking up words through context, especially real-life experience and meaningful happenings, for picking up words, and wants learners to avoid entirely the use of translation in their language acquisition.
The goal of ALG is to have learners of any age, starting from scratch, come as close as possible to native-like abilities in their second language, being able to use it practically as well as if it were their first language.
ALG argues that using abilities gained with maturity to study and think about language interfere with this, and explains why adult language learners tend to do worse than children.
In this view, using translation to understand and learn a language would produce a different and less native-like representation of language than learning through context.
It should be said that LingQ’s use of translation is about understanding the overall meaning of interesting texts, rather than focusing on memorizing individual words.
It thus has common ground with the ALG approach in the idea that words should be learned through hearing and understanding the word in context many times.
The difficulty in applying the ALG approach of learning a language from the start without looking up or translating words is that, as with most languages, very little material or teaching exists in Khmer that is interesting for adult learners while providing enough context to pick up the language.
LINK provided teaching like this, however, it closed in 2016.
One compromise in learning using the Mini-Stories could be to become familiar with the stories by reading them first in English (or the various translations if they exist in one’s native language), and then later listening to them in Khmer.
This would boost one’s comprehension of the stories while avoiding the use of direct translation.
Research finds that we generally remember the meaning of what we read and hear, while most details like the exact wording are discarded from memory.
That suggests such an approach of more indirect use of translation might largely avoid the problems that ALG seeks to avoid of prematurely making connections with words in one’s native language.
Using the Mini-Stories to teach English in Cambodia
If you are teaching English in Cambodia, your students may find the English versions of the Mini-Stories useful.
You can find them on LingQ.com and download them (registration required):
As with learners in many countries, many Cambodian students may have studied English academically and therefore know a lot of vocabulary and grammar but struggle to naturally understand and speak the language.
Listening to materials like the Mini-Stories, with their use of variation and repetition, and especially their use of questions and answers, can be helpful in training these learners to think in English.
Limitations
This set of Mini-Stories, while not being tied to any specific country’s culture, contain a lot of content that’s based in experiences in Western or developed countries, and as such it’s not really reflective of everyday life for most Cambodians.
This may actually be beneficial for many foreign learners who may find the content more familiar than content originating in Cambodia, and thus comprehend more, but it would be good to have further content like this that also reflects everyday life and situations in Cambodia
Although not in the format as the Mini-Stories, a lot of listening content discussing life in Cambodia this is available from Aakanee.com, which I introduced in a previous post.
Contribute
It would be helpful to have more recordings for these stories so that learners can hear different speakers of Khmer and different styles of speaking—for example, male and female, young and old, fast and slow, soft and cute or loud and exaggerated, and so on.
Hearing a language spoken by multiple speakers is very helpful for acquiring the language, especially when the sounds of the language are very different from one’s own, as is the case with Khmer for speakers of Western languages.
If you are interested in contributing or sharing recordings or other material like this, please get in touch.
Here’s yet another story that I’ve had translated into and recorded in Khmer to go with the collection of “mini-stories” I shared and the ones about buying coffee and smartphone addiction.
Here’s another story that I’ve had translated into and recorded in Khmer to go with the 
In 
