The best media for learning Khmer

We tracked down 5 of the best media for learning Khmer, including 3 you can use for free. Our top picks right now are RFA Khmer — វិទ្យុអាស៊ីសេរី, VOA Khmer and Easy Languages. Every entry below is hand-checked, and the ones that teach you come first — with free options ahead of paid ones wherever they are as good.

5 resources · 3 free

Daily Khmer news with a great deal of audio and video.

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Media Free IntermediateAdvanced
ReadingListeningImmersion
Details

Radio Free Asia's Khmer service, publishing news in Khmer script with radio broadcasts and video attached to most stories. The pairing of text and audio on the same piece is the most useful property for a learner, and Khmer has few enough sources that it stands out.

A second Khmer news service, also heavy on audio.

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Media Free IntermediateAdvanced
ListeningReadingImmersion
Details

Voice of America's Khmer service, covering Cambodia, the diaspora and international news. Worth having alongside RFA for a different subject mix and a second set of voices.

Easy Languages

Multi-language

Street interviews with dual subtitles, produced in dozens of languages.

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YouTubeMedia Freemium IntermediateAdvanced A2–C1
ListeningImmersionVocabulary
Details

A franchise of local producers filming unscripted street interviews, each episode subtitled in the target language and English, which is the closest free thing to hearing how people genuinely speak. All YouTube episodes are free; membership adds transcripts, vocabulary lists and exercises. Real-speed unscripted speech is hard early on — start with the slower 'Super Easy' episodes if you are below B1.

Lingopie

Multi-language

Licensed TV shows with interactive subtitles in 15 languages.

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MediaApps Paid IntermediateAdvanced A2–C1
ListeningImmersionVocabulary
Details

A streaming service where every show has clickable dual subtitles and saved words become flashcards, covering 15 languages with apps on phone, Roku and TV. It solves the 'what do I watch' problem for languages where Netflix's catalogue is thin. The library is much smaller than a mainstream streamer and it is subscription-only — if you already pay for Netflix, Language Reactor's free tier does most of the same job.

LibriVox

Multi-language

Free public-domain audiobooks in 40+ languages, read by volunteers.

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Media Free Advanced B2–C2
ListeningImmersion
Details

Thousands of public-domain books recorded by volunteers, downloadable as MP3 or M4B with no account. Pairing a LibriVox recording with the matching free Project Gutenberg text gives you a full audiobook-plus-ebook study set for nothing. Two caveats: recordings are volunteer-quality and vary a lot reader to reader, and everything is out of copyright, so the language is often a century old — great for literature, poor for modern slang.