Thida Men has the gentle voice of a patient teacher and a sly smile. She also likes to teach foreigners to cuss. Thida puts the focus on “street language”, lending her students – mostly expatriates – lessons they aren’t likely to get from a more traditional kru. She is unique in her pedagogy: putting everyday slang, simple pronunciation and even dirty words first. “What I teach is different. I encourage the students to ask me things that they don’t know – even if they are strange – and especially about pronunciation,” she said this week. “There are words that expats always mispronounce.” In class, Thida clears up these common mistakes. She promises her students won’t get strange looks from co-workers again when they say “Cheers!” over an after-work beer. She also fields questions of some consequence: from women who want to tell off the tuk-tuk driver on their block, or people who think they’re being ripped off at the market because of their rudimentary Khmer. Thida works a day job at a travel agency and is a business partner at arts space Cloud, where she has held her classes twice a month since January. But her passion is languages: she studied English and French at the Institute of Foreign Languages in Phnom Penh, and she began teaching in her spare time a couple years ago. She realised there was something missing: a space where all questions were welcome. For now, Thida thinks she’s settled on an effective method. After all, it worked for her. “The thing that made me want to study French – which was hard – was that I learned some bad words,” she explained with a grin. “And then it was fun.” Thida Men teaches Khmer street language on alternate Wednesdays at 7:30pm at Cloud, #32 Street 9. Her next class is June 29.