Khmer vowels and consonants on the iPhone

After considering jailbreaking my iPhone so I could install Khmer fonts on it, I decided to wait until May. I'm heading up around then, and will be able to get it done by one of the experts at Surya as well as pick up some more Khmer software.

In the meantime, I found and bought two small apps, both by the same guy, Phal Ngim, who has quite a few small iPhone apps. I had his iSpeakKhmer which is decent for phrases but was very basic tourist stuff that I already know.

iKhmerABC and iKhmerVowel are each $0.99 and are basically flashcards and an overview screen. They're nicely done and the pronunciation is clear.

I'll be using this over the next couple of weeks to memorize the alphabet. I'm not quite sure what the best way to learn it is - probably flashcards and practice handwriting.

Right now, as I struggle with the keyboard, I'm muttering "the little basket with the fish hooks, now the dancing ribbon..."

Equipment!

I have several Khmer-English dictionaries. The one I have used the most, back when I first learnt Khmer and as a reference since then is the Tuttle Practical Cambodian Dictionary. The big advantage of this one is that it is very tiny and the Khmer words are indexed by an approximate english version, rather than the Khmer script. The downside is that it's tiny.

I also have the Oxford Student's Dictionary, an English-Khmer one which I'm pretty sure is a photocopy (the markets in Phnom Penh sell a lot of counterfeit books) but has a big vocabulary. The explanation of what the various khmer translations mean is in khmer, so it's limited in its usefulness for now.

I have the New Oxford Picture Dictionary in English/Cambodian. We had the Vietnamese/English one for our kids which was really helpful early on when they were learning English. I don't think I'll use this as much, but for my sons who are interested in learning Khmer, it might be useful.

And, my current favourite: the GF 386, or the CanaTech English-Khmer and Khmer-English electronic dictionary. I bought this in Phnom Penh at the Peace Bookstore, but I gather you can buy it at Sorya and the other big bookstores now. Mine cost US$190 a few months ago. Cambodian friends went through and said that the spoken translations are good. They can be hard to hear without earphones, but I find them pretty clear. Using it is a bit fiddly at first, and then the index makes sense.

I also have a small pile of Cambodian first-readers, meant for kindergarten children, a children's bible in Khmer and a pile of magazines and (thanks to my daughters) enough Cambodian pop music to sink a ship.

I have both Huffman's Modern Spoken Cambodian and the Everyday Khmer book, the two guidebooks that are most commonly used for Cambodian learners. I'm not planning to use them until April however.