Suggestions with 'តោះ' (Let's) — Khmer Grammar

To propose doing something together — English "let's …" — Khmer opens the clause with (tɑhtah). It is a friendly, everyday particle that includes the listener in the plan.

'តោះ' + Verb

តោះញ៉ាំបាយ
tɑh ñam baaytah nam baay
Let's eat.
តោះទៅផ្ទះ
tɑh tɨw phtĕəhtah tuw phteeh
Let's go home.
តោះទៅឆ្នេរសមុទ្រ
tɑh tɨw chnee saʼmottah tuw chnee samot
Let's go to the beach.

Urging Action

It frequently pairs with (tɨwtuw) ("go") to push a shared action along, "come on, let's go …". The tone is casual and encouraging.

តោះទៅ!
tɑh tɨwtah tuw
Come on, let's go!

Compared with 'សូម'

Keep (tɑhtah) apart from the polite (soum). (soum) asks the LISTENER to do something ("please sit"); (tɑhtah) proposes an action the speaker joins in too ("let's eat"). One requests, the other includes yourself.

សូមអង្គុយ
soum ʼɑngkuysoum angkuy
Please, sit.

(tɑhtah) is the standard spelling; you may also meet the colloquial texting/social-media form (tɑhtah), pronounced the same.

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Khmer course

13 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 49. A few of them, with the words “Suggestions with 'តោះ' (Let's)” is about in bold:

ចាស។ តោះញ៉ាំម្ហូបចិន។
caah. tɑh ñam mhoup cən.caah. tah nam mhoup cen.
Yes. Let's eat Chinese food.
Lesson 127

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