The Khmer alphabet is written from left to right. Words inside a sentence or phrase are usually run together with no spaces between them. Within a word, consonant clusters are "stacked," with the second (and possibly third) consonant written in reduced form beneath the primary consonant. For example, krahok means "crab" and kek chak means "hermit crab." There are 29 letters in the Khmer language. A complete list of words in the dictionary includes their definitions. Learning these words will help you understand what people are saying when they talk about things that are common or important to life in Cambodia. Knowing how to say something in Khmer also helps people understand what you are trying to tell them. Within most conversations, people will mention certain subjects or topics of interest. If you don't know the word for it, you won't be able to discuss it with your friend or family member. As well as being useful for communicating with others, learning some basic words in Khmer is helpful when looking up information on the internet. Some websites require you to register before you can view their content. Having an email address is one way websites use to identify users and give them access to restricted areas of the site. Having an understanding of how to write emails in Khmer will help you communicate with webmasters when they reply to your messages.