Khmer Lesson 1: greetings and politeness

Part of the Khmer course for expats and travellers. Start here if this is your first lesson.

Greetings are the highest-value words in any language, and Khmer is no exception. These are the phrases you will use dozens of times a day, with hotel staff, tuk-tuk drivers, waiters, shopkeepers. Get comfortable with this lesson before anything else.

The polite particle: your single best trick

Khmer has a small word added to the end of a sentence to sound polite: “bawt” (like the English word “bought”) if you are male, and “jaa” (rhymes with “spa”) if you are female. Tack it onto the end of almost anything, a greeting, a thank you, a yes, and it immediately sounds more polite and natural, the way adding “please” does in English. This one habit does more for how you come across than any amount of vocabulary. Picture it like this: a man who just bought something politely tips his hat (bawt); a woman relaxing at a spa says everything calmly and nicely (jaa).

Core phrases

• Hello: sua s'dei (roughly “soo-a sdaay”). Works at any time of day, to anyone. Picture greeting someone with a bowl of soup, still hot, saying “soo-a” as you hand it over.
• Thank you: aw kohn (“or kohn”). Add the polite particle: aw kohn, bawt/jaa. Picture nodding “or” in agreement while someone hands you an ice-cream cone (kohn) for free.
• Yes: baat (male speakers) or jaa (female speakers), which doubles as the polite particle itself.
• No: ot te (“oht tay”).
• Excuse me / sorry: som toh (“som toh”), used to get someone's attention politely, or to apologise. Picture tapping a shoulder and saying “some toe”, as in, you just stepped on someone's toe.
• Goodbye: lea hoy (“lee-a hoy”), or simply repeat sua s'dei on the way out.
• How are you: sok sabai te? (“sok sa-bai tay”), literally “are you at peace/well”, the standard “how are you”.
• I'm fine, thanks: sabai, aw kohn.

Addressing people respectfully

Cambodians commonly use kinship terms as polite forms of address, even for strangers. The two you will hear and can safely use:

• Bong (“bong”): “older sibling”, used for anyone roughly your age or a little older, of either gender. It is the safe, friendly default, good for a waiter, a shop assistant, or a tuk-tuk driver close to your age. Picture ringing a bong (gong) to call your older sibling to the table.
• P'oun (“p'own”): “younger sibling”, used for someone visibly younger than you.

You do not need to get this precise. Most Cambodians will not mind if you default to bong for almost anyone; it is the more commonly heard term and reads as friendly rather than presumptuous.

Try it today

Next time you walk into a café, try: sua s'dei, bong (hello) on the way in, and aw kohn, bawt/jaa (thank you, with your gendered particle) on the way out. That alone puts you ahead of most visitors, and staff notice immediately.

Next: Lesson 2: Numbers and money, so you can actually understand the price someone just told you.