How Much/Many Questions

The word bonman ប៉ុន្មាន basically means how much/many, and it is used in a variety of questions that have numbers as an answer. Lets look at some examples:
How much is this? – neeh tlai bonman? នេះ ថ្លៃ ប៉ុន្មាន?
Expensive – tlai ថ្លៃ

Literally translated, this means – this expensive how much? The expected answer would be a very specific price.

What is your phone number? – doorosap roboh bong layk bonman? ទូរស័ព្ទ របស់ បង លេខ ប៉ុន្មាន?
Phone – doorosap ទូរស័ព្ទ1
Possesive – roboh របស់2
Number – layk លេខ

Again with the above question, the answer is expected to be a very specific number, and not open to interpretation.

However, when we want to ask how much something is, and the answer is not going to be a specific number, or will be something relatively subjective, we use the word bonaa ប៉ុណ្ណា. In order to use this word in a sentence, we simply place it after the adjective to which it is referring. For example –

How big is his house? – p’deah roboh go-ad tom bonaa? ផ្ទះរបស់គាត់ធំប៉ុណ្ណា?

The adjective is big, and so the word bonaa simply follows it. In English this would be the other way around, as how is followed by the adjective. The answer here would generally be subjective – big, small, massive, quite large etc. However, it is still possible for people to give a specific answer (the square footage of the house for example), although this would be quite uncommon.