Language Anguish

Learning another language presents challenges.  Khmer is simple.  No verb conjugations for past, present or future tense, no plurals, no gender.  So learning should be easily accomplished.  Yes, easy after one is able to learn the consonants and vowels in a different script.  Some of the consonants and many of the vowels have sound that are not common to the English language.  The sounds of the consonants and vowels may be codified in several ways dependent upon ones native tongue.  The way I speak English and the sounds of English vowels or consonants may differ from another English native speaker.  So the International Phonetic Associations has devised a method to denote most sound of most languages.   So one may choose learn the phonetics related to the Khmer vowel and consonant sounds-thus learning two additional systems.  Others have devised differing protocols for transliteration.  I original thought I could learn the vowels and consonants and then put the language together easily.  However, many of the consonant look rather similar thwarting quick recall.  So I suffer from ALAS- acute language anguish syndrome.  Alas, I will learn the language and then possibly suffer from CLAS- chronic language anguish syndrome.  Thankfully I have made progress but desire to keeping working at the language to better communicate with the local people.