2.6 Combination of Consonants and Combination of Consonants with Diacritic “់”

Combination of Consonants

Please note that when final consonants—ក (kɔɔ)​​, ង​ (ngoo), ត (dtɔɔ), ញ (nhoo), ម​ (moo), ប (bɔɔ), ល​ (loo), ន (noo)—occur at the end of a word, their sounds are slightly changed from when they occur at the beginning.

Examples:

  • បង​=​​ bɔɔng (not bɔɔ-ngoo)
  • សក= sɔɔk (not sɔɔ-kɔɔ)
  • ចត= jɔɔt (not jɔɔ-dtɔɔ)
  • សម= sɔɔm (not sɔɔ-moo)

Use the audio and Table 1 below to learn how to pronounce the words and the final consonants.


Table 1
No.  Combination of Consonants English
1 ចត to park
2 សក to shed
3 លង to haunt
4 ទង stem
5 គង type of Khmer musical instrument
6 កង bracelet
7 កក frozen
8 ឆក bald
9 ដក to subtract (from)
10 ពក bump
11 ដង carrying stick
12 ចង to tie up
13 សង to pay back
14 ពង egg

1. Reading and Writing

Read the words in Table 2 and provide the missing consonants. Then check your answer against Table 1.

An example is given.

Table 2
Word Missing consonants
to park ច+ត
to tie up _+_
to pay back _+_
to haunt _+_
to subtract from _+_
to shed _+_
bald _+_
frozen _+_
egg _+_
carrying stick _+_
bracelet _+_
bump _+_

Combination of Consonants with Diacritic Bɔntɔk “់”

The diacritic Bɔntɔk “់”​ is placed over the final consonant symbol to shorten the vowel sound of that syllable and change the meaning of the word completely.

Examples:

  • កក​​​​ “frozen” to កក់ “to book”.
  • ចង​ “to tie up” to ចង់ “to want”.

Use the audio and Table 3 below to learn how to pronounce the combination of consonants with diacritic Bɔntɔk “់”.

Table 3
No. Combination of consonants with diacritic English
1 សង់ to build
2 សក់ hair
3 ទង់ flag
4 លង់ to drown
5 កក់ to book
6 ឆក់ to be electrocuted
7 កង់ bicycle
8 ចង់ to want
9 ចត់ bitter

2. Reading

Match the Khmer words with the English words.

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Basic Khmer Copyright © 2022 by Vathanak Sok is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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