be your side, by your hand

i was on the back of a motodop the other day on my way to school, when i caught a glimpse of the sign for some asian bank here in phnom penh. it read: "be your side, by your hand." this is not the only creative use of the english language i've seen here this month, but i find it the most entertaining (with the sushi restaurant's "enjoy your new fresh flavor" coming in a close second). of course, i don't judge. every other sentence i attempt is awkward or inappropriate or flat out wrong, so who am i to throw linguistic stones?

i'm three weeks into my crash course in beginning modern khmer, and here is a list of sentences i can say with relative confidence:

i am not hungry.
i am american but i live in australia.
my vietnamese better than my khmer.
my cat's name is bob.
i do not have any brothers or sisters.
mango is orange.
i can't swim. 
please slow down.
she is a sex worker.
i am learning khmer in order to research cambodian literature and film (this is not exactly true, but it'll be years before i can explain my research interests in khmer)
i'm tired.
maybe i have malaria.

oh yes, and how could i forget: i'm sorry. i don't understand. could you say it again?

khmer is heavily influenced by sanskrit and pali, and in contrast to vietnamese, is not written in a modified roman alphabet. there was considerably more resistance during the colonial era to french linguistic elitism in cambodia, and in addition to preserving their language, the cambodians seem to have adopted fewer words from french (although i was delighted to learn this morning that, like the vietnamese, the cambodians call a spark plug a "bougie," which is french for candle). and whereas vietnamese, lao, and thai are all tonal languages, khmer is not. of course, they have more than made up for the lack of tonal variation with their vowels, of which i count 36! this switch from tones to such vowel complexity has thrown me a bit, but i'm starting to get the hang of it. now, instead of offending people with my tonal gaffes, i do it with incorrect vowels and/or consonants: the difference between "apple" and "fart," for example, is a simple aspirated "p." and good lord knows i won't be asking anyone for help here, because "please help me" becomes "please f*ck me" with the slightest change of one teensy little vowel sound...

the other night kp asked if i was learning to write, and i wanted to reach through the computer and smack him (sorry babe, but it's true). i am almost 37 years old, and i have just taken on my 4th language. this entire venture is a exercise in appreciating the limits of one's own abilities. i am barely hanging on here with my wild phonetic transcriptions of the simple sentences above. i have a book for writing, and i'd like to learn the basics... someday... but i think i'm at capacity.