Forming Questions

In Khmer, a yes or no question is made by simply adding two words to a statement in the following way:

daer តើ + subject + verb ... day/ot ទេ/អត់?

The first word ‘daer’ cannot be directly translated into English, it basically serves as a question marker. This question marker is common in formal speech, but it is frequently dropped in general conversation. Notice also that you have a choice of two words which you can use to end the question, either ‘day’ or ‘ot’. Either of these is ok, but ‘ot’ is more informal and more commonly used in general conversation.

Can you speak Khmer? - daer bong jeh peeasaa Khmer ot? តើ បង ចេះ ភាសា ខ្មែរ អត់?

Do you know Dara? - daer neak skoal Dara day? តើ អ្នក ស្គាល់ ដារ៉ា ទេ?

Because both ‘ot’ and ‘day’ are used to form the negative, it helps to think of them as adding ‘...or not?’ on to the end of the statement you are saying, thus forming a yes/no question. To aid in understanding this we can look at one further option which is used to create a yes/no question in Khmer:

daer តើ + subject + verb... reu day/reu ot ឬទេ/ឬអត់?

In this case there is only one small addition, and that is the word ឬ (reu). This word means ‘or’ in English.

Do you like to work in Phnom Penh (or not)? - neak joal jut twer gaa nau Phnom Penh reu ot? អ្នកចូលចិត្តធ្វើការនៅភ្នំពេញឬអត់?

Now that we have looked at the most common ways of forming yes/no questions, lets have a look at how to answer those questions.

Yes (if you are male) - baard បាទ
Yes (if you are female) - jaa ចាស៎
No - day/ot/ot day ទេ/អត់/អត់ទេ

Although you might expect the above translations to be used to answer yes and no questions, this is not usually the case! The word for ‘yes’ is actually most commonly used to respond when somebody calls your name, or if somebody says something and you didn't hear/understand it. This is much the same way in which we would use the word ‘what’ in certain situations in English. The most common way of responding to a question positively is to repeat the verb (or adjective) from the question as follows:

Do you know Dara? - daer neak skoal Dara day? តើ អ្នក ស្គាល់ ដារ៉ា ទេ?
Yes – skoal ស្គាល់

Notice that the response is simply repeating the verb. The question is ‘do you know Dara’, and the response given is simply ‘know’. The negative is formed in the same way in which we formed the negative sentences given back in chapter 1:

Do you know Dara? - daer neak skoal Dara day? តើ អ្នក ស្គាល់ ដារ៉ា ទេ?
No – ot skoal day/mun skoal day អត់ ស្គាល់ ទេ/មិន ស្គាល់ ទេ

While these are the most common patterns, it is also possible to insert the word for yes/no in front of the sentence if you wish to give a longer response (but it should not be used in isolation to give a positive response to the question), in the same way you can also add in the subject if you feel the need. Commonly in Khmer sentences are made as short as possible. This means that if the subject is already known from the context, it can be dropped. Here is an example of the previous sentence given in its fullest form:

Do you know Dara? - daer neak skoal Dara day? តើ អ្នក ស្គាល់ ដារ៉ា ទេ?
Yes, I know Dara – baart knyom skoal Dara បាទ ខ្ញុំ ស្គាល់ ដារ៉ា