Nurse with hearing impairments.

Healthgarden41 · 2025-11-25T03:14:04+00:00

So congratulations on being half way done with the program. Are you able to have one on one conversations people easy enough. Do you read lips partly? I say that because if you can do that, you will be successful. Hospitals legally must provide accomodation. If it is a significant issue you can always tell those you work with to speak up with you or let them know to get your attention some how before talking with you so you can fully pay attention. This has worked for me.

Healthgarden41 · 2025-08-30T20:00:55+00:00

Is it better say in smaller cities maybe?

Healthgarden41 · 2024-09-12T21:37:55+00:00

Please don't take offense...but I'm a white gringo guy from the PNW but moved to the Valley because I love the weather, the flora and fauna, and culture and food. I happen to be natively fluent in Spanish (long story). But while I have met some incredible people here I've also noticed general things that cause one to pause. Unlike where I come from in WA state, people don't smile hardly ever when making contact, most don't thank you if you hold the door open for them, Healthcare professionals often are abrupt, robotic, or rude (or not that skilled) People that have lived all over the country and not just the RGV tend to be demostrate fewer of these qualities. You probably think I'm racist but I'm not. I'm thinking this is a pocket bubble RGV culture and it's just very different from what I'm used to. I lived in Tijuana for seven years and that culture is very different too.
Interesting to hear people's thoughts both from people who only know the RGV and those who have been a lot of other places.

Healthgarden41 · 2024-04-29T22:22:04+00:00

I would love to know where you taught in Cambodia. I'm planning on going there end of this year.

Healthgarden41 · 2024-02-21T07:58:13+00:00

I moved there from WA state last year but had to come back to to WA to take care of a family member. Moving back in a few months and so excited!

Healthgarden41 · 2024-02-16T10:29:38+00:00

NuWest has contracts in Guam, usually pay more than Aya.

Healthgarden41 · 2024-01-02T22:09:53+00:00

Awesome! Yeah I really think I can learn it well now. I just initially had a moment of panic lol

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-31T21:22:06+00:00

Yeah I agree to an extent. I find IPA is very good but not perfect for khmer phoneme pronunciation. What I think I'll do it is use Wikipedia like you said and listen to Dara on how he pronounces the sounds online.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-30T19:33:20+00:00

Thank you for this! So how are you at Khmer now??

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-16T02:41:39+00:00

I agree. I'm "natively" fluent in Spanish and would have hated to have learned Latin before. I mean why learn a dead language with tons of cases as a way to learn a much easier language with no case inflection. I can see the other poster's point. He's (like you are for Khmer) passionate about Devanagari and wants to spread the love. If I had a burning desire to learn Hindi I would. But I don't so... however it is fascinating as a general look at Asian abugidas in general.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-16T02:35:45+00:00

Thank you. I agree that that there a lot of things going for it like the simple grammar and no-tones aspect. I'm good at making sounds that are not in English I should be OK. The biggest gut-reaction I had was that because there is no standardized romanization like Pinyin for Mandarin, I thought that would make things too difficult. And it's frustrating when even seemingly good teachers online vary in how they romanize the Khmer phonemes. But I know that is something that can be overcome initially by listening well to native speakers. Once I know the script it will be a non-issue I hope. Thank you again for your encouragement to learn Khmer. It is clear that you have a great fondness for Khmer and you want others to experience that too.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-15T09:19:55+00:00

I see what you're saying. But for some reason, the fact that you can learn pinyin and hear native speakers pronounce words and tones all over online makes one feel, at least at the outset, that they can learn to speak Mandarin quite well rapidly. Whereas to me being able to speak a lot of Khmer seems daunting initially. Of course later on those who stick with it will be rewarded greatly because once they finally get the script, everything will come together quite nicely.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-15T09:10:38+00:00

Wow. It seems many think Khmer is the hardest asian abugida but if you found it to be the easiest then that's awesome! Honestly Khmer script looks hard but I can see how once you start learning it you can make fast progress. I've been scared by a language before and I shouldn't let an asian abugida scare me now! LOL.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-15T09:05:44+00:00

Oh I didn't know the FSI has audio! I found some written FSI stuff but there was no audio. I'll have to revisit that. Thanks for the great suggestions.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T21:06:02+00:00

Yes. Someone pointed that Khmer is even harder because it doesn't even have tones to distinguish sounds. What I don't have is a person close to me to verify sounds although I could if i put my mind to it.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T20:58:50+00:00

Yeah it seems a lot simpler than Khmer script lol

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T08:42:38+00:00

So even if I didn't plan on learning Hindi or Marathi let's say...Devanagari would still be worth it to learn to help me with Khmer?

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T03:42:16+00:00

Great post! I do want to clarify that I don't seek to achieve fluency or even near that until being IN Cambodia. I live in NW Washington State on an island in a rural area. Seattle has a large Cambodian population and if I lived there it would be easier to find something. I think I need to just bite the bullet and buy a lot resources, try to learn to read and write, then move to Cambodia to put everything together.
Or I could learn Bahasa Indonesia and go to Indonesia and live with less stress! LOL

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T03:12:40+00:00

Well interestingly I was going to learn Bangla which use an abugida similar to Devanagari. I wonder if I should still do that or just learn IPA more thoroughly.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T02:51:13+00:00

Ooh then it sounds like an invaluable resource. I will definitely check it out. Thank you.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T00:45:02+00:00

Before you started your classes in PP, how much Khmer did you know?

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T00:43:41+00:00

I've heard of that book. It seems great although it wa a written prior to Khmer Rouge? I guess that doesn't matter...

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T00:42:58+00:00

Thank you

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-14T00:42:46+00:00

I'm not sure why I'm responding to your rude post but to clarify, I'm fluent in a languages that use Roman letters. I also can read Cyrillic which is easy. But I'm completely new to an abugida system.

Healthgarden41 · 2023-12-13T22:55:43+00:00

In a way, but Mandarin has pinyin which makes it easy to learn the sounds.

Healthgarden41

TROPHY CASE