sour sounds

"Lee-hoo-ah? Ok, L-Y-H-O-U-R."

"Sr-eye-pitch-a-ra-wa-na? Ok, I think that'd be S-R-E-Y-P-I-C-H-A-R-A-V-A-N-N-A.  Oh, S-E-R-E-Y? Ok, that works too."

.....

Something funny happens when you speak a language separate from your native language.

{Technically, lots of funny things happen as you learn to speak a new language. Every day. Even two years after you've immersed yourself in that language and have begun to use nearly a third of the time when speaking with your husband. Ha.}

But that's not the point of this little ditty.

What's interesting, to me, is how I've adapted to reading the English language through the lens of Khmer.

Khmer is not a language that has adopted an English-phonetical-translation.  Not officially, anyway.  But someone- the French?- gave them a paper. And on this paper is an approximation of the English phonetics for Khmer.

And, as an American native speaker of the English language, this paper and phonetic translation is nearly the exact opposite of what I my brain tells me to write when I hear the sounds.

At least, it was the opposite two years ago.

But now? Now, I hear the name 'sr-eye-da-h' and I know to write Sreydav (yes, that's a 'v' where you, native English speaker reading this, might not think there is a need for it.)  In fact, I now have to remind myself how to pronounce an English word correctly when reading it aloud.  When I see the word 'sour' my poor confused brain has to send override signals to my jumbled mouth to read it with the strong 'ow/ao' sound and not the 'oo-ah' sound that it is interpreted to mean for Khmer speakers writing Khmer phonetically in English.

So, earlier this week, as I was helping some of the students who attended an art workshop with Chris and I a few weeks ago, it was quite second nature to have the students say their names and write them phonetically in English, and then verify with a Khmer counterpart that they were spelled correctly.

So, if you happen to hear me ignore 'v' sounds at the end of the words, or even pronounce that 'v' as a 'vw' sound, please do forgive me.  I'm having to re-learn how to read and pronounce my own language.  And it's hilarious.