Basic communicative functions
The materials here are based on a set of illustrations covering basic communicative functions, inspired by a list published by the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota. They are designed with mainland South-East Asia in mind but should work for many more languages.

Supporting materials
For each topic, there's a two-page worksheet with written sample dialogues, cultural notes and key vocabulary written by Ms. Aing Heak from Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Note that the worksheets are meant to present colloquial spoken Khmer. In cases where the pronunciation of spoken Khmer differs from the written language, a phonetic spelling is used and a reference to the written form is provided in the vocabulary notes.

See also the corpus for this project, containing the worksheets and some topics of the SEA Illustrations project. All words are translated and linked to pages with other usage examples from the corpus.

Topic	Download
Accepting direction
Admonishing someone / saying "Don't do this!"
Answering the phone
Apologizing
Asking and saying whether something is correct
Asking "Do you have X?"
Asking for directions 1
Asking for directions 2
Asking for help 1
Asking for help 2
Asking for repetition
Asking "How do you write this?"
Asking "What is he/she doing?"
Asking "What is this?"
Breaking appointments
Calming someone down
Comparing or contrasting things 1
Comparing or contrasting things 2
Complimenting someone
Consoling someone
Discouraging someone from pursuing a course of action
Establishing guidelines and deadlines for the completion of actions
Excusing oneself
Explaining how something works
Expressing anger
Expressing cold
Expressing concern for other people's welfare
Expressing disappointment at another's misfortune
Expressing dislikes 1
Expressing dislikes 2A
Expressing dislikes 2B
Expressing fatigue
Expressing fear
Expressing frustration
Expressing hunger
Expressing joy
Expressing joy at someone's success
Expressing likes 1
Expressing likes 2
Expressing love
Expressing pain
Expressing sleepiness
Expressing sorrow
Expressing surprise
Expressing thanks 1
Expressing thanks 2
Expressing thirst
Expressing warmth
Forbidding someone to do something
Getting someone's attention
Greetings and leave takings 1
Greetings and leave takings 2
Identifying items or people 1
Identifying items or people 2
Indicating agreement
Indicating disagreement
Introducing oneself to others
Introducing someone else to others
Inviting someone to eat together
Issuing a command
Lying
Making appointments for meetings
Making excuses
Making suggestions in which the speaker is included
Offering food or drink and accepting such an offer
Offering food or drink and declining such an offer
Offering help
Receiving/welcoming visitors and paying visits to others
Refusing direction
Remembering
Requesting and granting permission 1
Requesting and granting permission 2
Requesting information
Saying "A moment, please!"
Saying "Have a good trip!"
Saying "I don't know"
Saying "I don't understand"
Saying "I want X"
Talking about the taste of food 1
Talking about the taste of food 2
Warning someone