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How do you learn Vietnamese?
Answer
From friends or from Duolingo online. Let's start with real live people. If you think of learning Vietnamese it's probably because you are with some Vietnamese people. Not necessarily in Vietnam. Nor planning a holiday in Vietnam. You might go to a Vietnamese restaurant. You have probably met lots of Vietnamese people before but never wanted to learn their language or thought of asking them. Now the idea is in your/my head that you might learn a few words. If nothing else, you will find out why they make certain mistakes in English. So start by asking somebody who is Vietnamese to teach you a few words.
Story
I was at a Vietnamese Toastmasters Club in Singapore. I had arrived slightly before time and they always start late. They say it's because it's Saturday morning. I wonder. Anyway, being early, eventually I thought: Why am I sitting here wasting time? I can ask the Vietnamese girl sitting next to me to teach me a few simple words: hello and goodbye; one, two, three; and please and thank you; and yes and no.
I asked, "Are any words the same in Vietnamese and English, such as hotel and restaurant?" No.
Hotel is Khách san. (I am not sure of the pronunciation but I am thinking of hotel hotel sanity kHacH SAN.)
Restaurant is nhã hãng. (No hunger. Hang in there for meal to be served. NHa HANG.)
Train is tau how. (T for train. How does it go? Tau how)
Tips
TWO WORDS WHICH ARE THE SAME IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH!
Then I asked my new friend for translations of several common words and we found two.
TAXI. TOILET / WC.
I had an enjoyable time at the Vietnamese club. The meeting was quite small. My friend explained that the Vietnamese had returned to Vietnam over Chinese New Year, not just because the Chinese companies in Singapore give workers time off, nor because once you have travelled to far, and spent the fare money, you might as well stay longer. The reason is that in Vietnam 'Chinese New Year' is a ten day holiday.
Emboldened by my first steps in learning Vietnamese, I thought I would look for Vietnamese on Duolingo. It had been available for a while but I had never previously had the urge to learn it. I thought, I shall look at the first page and learn the pronunciation and a bit of grammar. You have to scroll down the screen of the first page to find the grammar tips.
Learning Vietnamese on Duolingo
If you want to torture any adult or child, don't put them in detention or house arrest, make them learn Vietnamese. On Duolingo.
Most of the languages I've tried on Duolingo have been wonderful. But either the people doing the Vietnamese course are very strange - or the language is very strange.
The first half dozen five minute lessons include such nonsense sentences as: I am she. I rarely bother to go onto the forums which involve endless discussions, usually about the words of the language I don't speak. But this is just too puzzling. I am gratified to learn that the English speakers are as puzzled or indignant as I am. The Vietnamese speakers are arguing that the purpose is not to teach you sentences you can use but the rules of grammar. ERG! I have never before felt justified in using an entire line of exclamation marks. Is there any other way to express a scream? Will this do it - NO!
The chicken ate the fish. The mug and the fish. We then have a picture of a small girl and two small figures and have to guess which one is child. I tick the one which turns out to be girl.
Equally frustrating is the picture of bees. I see what looks like raindrops or a green field. I supposed the one of blobs must be bees and click on that. No. It must be something like raindrops. The other picture bears no resemblance to bees whatsoever. I'm completely distracted from the word for bee and have not learned it.
The sentences are making no sense. The words an and the do not appear but register as (not translated). OK.
Unfortunately it is a waste of time learning the words because I cannot hear them and probably imagine them wrongly and have not yet learned to understand the symbols.
Typing in the accents is a challenge. I am onto to the third set of exercise before my finger pauses long enough on a vowel for the vowels with accents to pop up. I then realise that my computer font programme has not only the French and German accents but most if not all of the Vietnamese ones.
I am now so cross that I have given up bothering to type in the accents or even some of the words. I don't know the answer, so I simply type in one letter of the alphabet and click on 'check' to bring up the correct answer.
To my amazement, when I get to the end of the exercise, although I do not get all the answers right, not even most of them, I have grasped one or two new words.
The moral is, even if you hat the language and 'can't do it', simply by ploughing through, eventually, some of the words will stick and the little mysteries and puzzles will be resolved.
COFFEE TIME -
The biggest revelation, the ah ha or Eureka moment, is the Vietnamese word for coffee. Two syllables. Like ca-fee. Click. A two syllable word is divided up into one syllable word. That's why I am getting three syllables for a simple word which is one syllable or two in English. Opposite of German, where two words are run together (like kindergarten which was originally child garden). Instead Vietnamese divides the words up.
and I have a third word I recognise with no effort. Total three.
TAXI. COFFEE. TOILET. TAXI.
Those four words are enough to provide an afternoon's outing in Vietnam. I can ask for a taxi to a coffee bar. Ask for a coffee. Ask for a toilet. Ask for a taxi home.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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