Yesterday I was leaving a coffee shop and the parking attendant was chatting with me. Although my Khmer is still pretty limited, I can do short, basic conversations-- names, ages, I live in Cambodia, work for an NGO, I only speak a little Khmer--this usually earns me mild approval and even some respect from people I meet. Lyhov was no different.
So we were proceeding through the intro information, when he asked me a question about my house (bptea... a word I recognize). I didn't quite get his meaning, so he tried again, something to the effect of "Do you live with your husband (padei)?" I shook my head no, starting to laugh, and replied "K'nyom aht rivpkah" (I'm not married). His next question--and I should have seen this coming-- "Why don't you have a husband?"
My vocabulary is not nearly large enough to even begin to answer that. At least he didn't ask me to marry him.
2 comments:
I just spent half an hour trying to find a website that would translate the following phrase for me in Khmer: "Will you marry me?" No luck. Sigh. Pretty bad for a Khmer tutor, eg? :)
Luckily, I already know the how to say, "No, thank you!"
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