Pronunciation Complexities

Friend and I were talking about the ch and c sounds.  He insists that they are more like J and G than like English.  I can't hear it.  "Con jaw" doesn't sound like dog to me. 

Again, I studied with a university-educated man from Hanoi in the USA.  I haven't talked to any northerners in a while.  I wonder if this is one of those differences.

ChrisFox: the Vietnamese itself is not easy to learn/pronounce. Also, we have "northern"/"southern"/"central" regional Vietnamese and splitted into many local words (từ địa phương) in each province: for example: the people from south-east regions (like Bình Dương, Đồng Nai) pronounce differently from the south-west regions (like Tiền Giang, Đồng Tháp, Cần Thơ, Sóc Trăng, etc.); and even the south-west areas pronounce differently - if you listen carefully, you will see the differences from pronounciation of An Giang/Tiền Giang people and Cần Thơ/Sóc Trăng. And it's the same with Huế diferent from Quảng Nam/Quảng Ngãi or Nghệ An/Hà Tĩnh tho those are "neighbour provinces", just like people from Hải Dương/Hải Phòng speak diferently (pronounciation) from Điện Biên, Lai Châu, etc. Fortunately, not much Vietnamese people can tell how it's different.

Further, Vietnamese people from the south may meet a lot difficulties in listening and understanding from what people in the central/the north are talking

Saying so just want you to take relax in your Vietnamese pronounciation practice. I think you may start by firguring out which regional sound/language you prefer using, stick to its wording and pronounciation. It may be easier. And tell yourself that "ok, Vietnamese people cannot understand all pronounciation of the whole Vietnam, so I am still that good! Just need to focus on the southern/northern/central Vietnamese".

Some of my foreign friends they start learning Vietnamese with a Hanoi/northern teacher and end up living in Ho Chi Minh City feel lost with the southern Vietnamese pronounciation. So, since you are in Cần Thơ, I think you may want to start pronounciation lession with a real southern people

Good luck with your Vietnamese learning

Well .. I've noticed many times that southern people trying to teach Vietnamese fall into a "babytalk" that amounts to ... the envelope, please! ... the northern pronunciation.  I've noticed this a lot of times.  The man who a moment ago said BAY-yuh says BAY-zuh when trying to speak more clearly for me.  I hear plenty of northerners down here, and they seem to be understood OK.  The news is in northern.  Government announcements. 

I may not be able to hear these minute consonant differences but I have no trouble recognizing accents.  My friend in TPHCM has a GF from near Hanoi, the first time I heard her speak I knew she was from the north, the glottal stop on the nặng and ngã tones is unmistakable.

I've noticed that a lot of northerners end up hybridizing, keeping the northern tones but taking on the southern consonants.  My impression is that people down here are going to understand Hanoi dialect a lot more than people in Hanoi are going to (acknowledge that they) understand the southern.

(Sigh) Rivalry, rivalry ..

Yes! You may see that the northern language (Hanoi if you prefer) are used more popular because it is "official Vietnamese language" (chữ quốc ngữ). Meaning, on the Goverment documents, they must use "tàu bay" not "máy bay" (aircraft) or "cái bát" not "cái chén" (a small bowl), etc... A lot of words

My book is based on Hanoi and uses máy bay.  I was just reading the chapter on travel terms today, in fact. 

I hadn't heard those others, though.

ChrisFox wrote:

My book is based on Hanoi and uses máy bay.  I was just reading the chapter on travel terms today, in fact. 

I hadn't heard those others, though.

Your book must not be "governmental document"?!? Check out some legal documents or official letters/guidelines from the Government, you will see the differences

While I like the sound of Hanoi speech, most Vietnamese I know use Southern or Central speech. Speaking of which, why do so many people on this site refer to Saigon as TPHCM? Everyone I know, and this includes VC era and later VN Army veterans, refer to it as 'Saigon'. (except a small minority who continue to refer to it as Prey Nokor).

Are we not allowed to call a spade a spade?

hi Chris, what is the name of your book?, i tried cd`s and couple of books but perth VNs look at me ,huh

mark stutley wrote:

hi Chris, what is the name of your book?, i tried cd`s and couple of books but perth VNs look at me ,huh

This is it ... VERY good.  Intermediate, but not hard.

http://www.amazon.com/Chung-Noi-Convers … ung+ta+noi

[moderated: no free ads + pls post in the right section]

Moderators don't like advertising here

Quach Thao wrote:

[moderated]

If you're sorry, then stop doing it.

Maximilien told you what to do in your last post when he closed your "add" 

Maximilien wrote:

Hi Thảo,

Welcome to Expat.com

You should post your resume in the Language teacher jobs in Vietnam section please

Best of luck !

Thank you

Maximilien
Expat.com Team


[Thread Closed]

Quach Thao wrote:

[moderated]

Geez!
Best of luck with that.

Thanks!

I have just posted my add in the right place (the Language teacher jobs in Vietnam section).

Thanks for your advice!

QT

Haha languages is pronounced by tongue so just in case of being boiled pronunciation is flexible

The best way to learn Vietnamese (or any foreign language) is to listen that language everyday and speak it whenever you can.
when trying to speak a foreign language, your goal is to imitate the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of native speakers, so that your way of speaking is correct and natural.
It’s pretty obvious that, in order to talk like the native speakers, you have to listen to the things they say and read the things they write. When you do so, you learn new words and grammar structures that you can use to express your thoughts.
You told that your hearing is weak and you studied with a university-educated man from Hanoi in the USA but then you went to HCMC and have been living there, I supposed that's why you can't hear Southern accent well.

The best way to learn Vietnamese is to go deep into the countryside as far away from the city as possible. They don't take context Vietnamese as well.

khanh44 wrote:

The best way to learn Vietnamese is to go deep into the countryside as far away from the city as possible. They don't take context Vietnamese as well.

My partner, born in Ô Môn, can't understand people out in the country.

Exactly I was born in Long My which is like an hour south west of Can Tho and they can't understand a single word I say. Everytime I'd open my mouth they'd give me those two hands surrender and shake. Guess I need to be more precise with my tonals.

funnybear92 wrote:

The best way to learn Vietnamese (or any foreign language) is to listen that language everyday and speak it whenever you can.
when trying to speak a foreign language, your goal is to imitate the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of native speakers, so that your way of speaking is correct and natural.
It’s pretty obvious that, in order to talk like the native speakers, you have to listen to the things they say and read the things they write. When you do so, you learn new words and grammar structures that you can use to express your thoughts.
You told that your hearing is weak and you studied with a university-educated man from Hanoi in the USA but then you went to HCMC and have been living there, I supposed that's why you can't hear Southern accent well.

My reading and writing are way ahead of everything else and when I write a letter to my teacher in the USA he says I write better than over 90% of American-born Vietnamese, and probably better than most people here.  I make some mistakes but I can spell.

I can make myself understood; my vocabulary is OK and growing fast now that I học tập chuyên cần again.  That's just memorization, though, and you know, "use a word three times and it is yours."

But ... listening comprehension is amazingly hard.  First of all, people tend to talk really fast and it's very hard to get them to slow down.  Since words are monosyllabic there is more meaning per second than in English and the words fly by.  Yeah, I know, practice practice practice.  I do. 

But .. my problem isn't that I learned the phát âm Bắc and live in Nam, it's that the speech is harder to distinguish down here.  The ngã and hỏi have merged, and v- sounds just like d- and gi-.  I also have trouble hearing the nặng down here, though I can finally pronounce it.  I practice every day.  I speak every day, I buy stuff at stores without anyone translating for me.

Two things.  One, the responses I and my friends get.  Some people are gratified to run into a NNN making the effort, others just go right to "your pronunciation is wrong" and don't say how it's wrong or offer correction.  My friend ordered a sinh tố xoài with perfectly clear pronunciation, the right tones, and the waitress just did the waggle.  My partner, who's Vietnamese, got mad and said there was nothing wrong with his pronunciation and kind of barked at her for not even trying.  I had just ordered my coffee in Vietnamese so the idea that a westerner might speak the language didn't catch her off guard; she understood me.

Two, there is a HUGE variation in pronunciation down here, HUGE.  My partner is a native speaker and he can't understand people out in the countryside sometimes.  And he speaks too fast for me to ever understand.  Given that you can walk down the street and hear people who sound as different as Danish and Hindi, why should our own little variances be so completely incomprehensible? 

But once in a while it just works.  I'll go to a store and have a complete conversation and the miscommunications are small, infrequent, and we both laugh.

ChrisFox wrote:

it's that the speech is harder to distinguish down here.  The ngã and hỏi have merged, and v- sounds just like d- and gi-.  I also have trouble hearing the nặng down here, though I can finally pronounce it.

Northern dialect is much much less ambiguous. The only trouble you'd have is possibly remembering
which to write r, gi, d because in the north they're all pronounced z. Another difference is that the Northern accent does not have retroflex consonants, so and are pronounced the same (pronounced x) as well as and (pronounced z) and and (pronounce ch). Northern accent is really close to the writing and original Vietnamese language.
Living in the Americas, the Northern dialect is absolutely useless and you're lucky enough when you found a Northern Vietnamese teacher in the USA and especially he speaks Ha Noi accent. If you speak straight up Hanoi dialect, most people will be able to guess what you're going for, but if you pronounce it funkily, they'll be absolutely lost in every way. (I guess you leaned Ha noi accent and live in Nam, so your pronounciation is complex, when you can't speak with the correct accent, you will not be able to hear them well )
My biggest recommendation for you would be to pick a dialect and stick with it Just learn the one you want and slow down your speech when speaking to southerners. Might be hard to keep your northern accent though from hearing the words pronounced differently around you.
I'm quite fond of Hue dialect, sounds soft
And yes, I totally agree with you, there is a HUGE variation in pronunciation down here.

Thanks for a courteous and detailed answer.  I'm sticking with speaking the northern tones because I think in another generation that's going to be the more commonplace, and also while the northern is easily understood down here, the southern is not well understood up north.  What you said about the R ... I've always heard it as like R in English in the north, and sometimes here, though a lot of southerners say it like a G.  Rau comes out like Gau. 

I grew up in a military family we moved to the south USA when I was nine, I hated the mushy southern accent, and took control of my accent, so I'm accustomed to controlling "how I sound" as much as "what I say." 

When in the USA I had learned enough to try out Vietnamese when buying food, I ordered my lunch in a deli and someone whirled around, astonished, "how is it you speak the northern dialect?"  I was pretty gratified that I was pronouncing clearly enough to have a recognizable accent.  I did the same with German (Berlin accent), but I had four years of German, five days a week, and this was only a few months of two hour Saturday classes. 

People who know me and talk to me a lot tend to accommodate me, or maybe I just get used to their voices, but most people down here I can't understand at all.  All I can hear are numbers.

ChrisFox wrote:

Thanks for a courteous and detailed answer.  I'm sticking with speaking the northern tones because I think in another generation that's going to be the more commonplace, and also while the northern is easily understood down here, the southern is not well understood up north.  What you said about the R ... I've always heard it as like R in English in the north, and sometimes here, though a lot of southerners say it like a G.  Rau comes out like Gau. 

I grew up in a military family we moved to the south USA when I was nine, I hated the mushy southern accent, and took control of my accent, so I'm accustomed to controlling "how I sound" as much as "what I say." 

When in the USA I had learned enough to try out Vietnamese when buying food, I ordered my lunch in a deli and someone whirled around, astonished, "how is it you speak the northern dialect?"  I was pretty gratified that I was pronouncing clearly enough to have a recognizable accent.  I did the same with German (Berlin accent), but I had four years of German, five days a week, and this was only a few months of two hour Saturday classes. 

People who know me and talk to me a lot tend to accommodate me, or maybe I just get used to their voices, but most people down here I can't understand at all.  All I can hear are numbers.

Yes, sometimes you will be able to hear it as like R in English in the north, because as you said: there is a HUGE variation in pronunciation down here but Ha Noi people just pronounce R as Z, there's no exception
You might find hard to speak Vietnamese but.. practise makes perfect You said that a lot of people tell you pronunciation is wrong but very few can explain how, or what you need to do to fix it. It's weird

Northern accent is really close to the writing and original Vietnamese language.

Are we speaking of Classical Chinese or Chu Nom in regards to the writing? And what is the percentage of Chinese roots in Northern dialect versus Southern dialect? I'm wondering if that adds to the mix.

lirelou wrote:

Northern accent is really close to the writing and original Vietnamese language.

Are we speaking of Classical Chinese or Chu Nom in regards to the writing? And what is the percentage of Chinese roots in Northern dialect versus Southern dialect? I'm wondering if that adds to the mix.

Sorry, it's my mistake. I meant "official language", not original language, I meant Northern accent is really close to the writing language, for example when you write: Vui vẻ (happy), in the North you pronounce Vui vẻ, but in the South this word will be pronounced as "dzui dzẻ". It's quite complicated and you might get confused.

Ah, the Quoc Ngu. They would have had the same problem with Chu Nom. I read somewhere that the oldest writing in Vietnamese dates from the 7th Century of the modern era. It's written in classical Chinese, but the syntax matches that of a Vietnamese speaker.

Hmm, I wonder if anyone on the site speaks Muong. I've often wondered how close their language is to modern Vietnamese. Genetically they are identical to Kinh people (give or take some gene variations among the differing regions).

funnybear92 wrote:

Sorry, it's my mistake. I meant "official language", not original language, I meant Northern accent is really close to the writing language, for example when you write: Vui vẻ (happy), in the North you pronounce Vui vẻ, but in the South this word will be pronounced as "dzui dzẻ". It's quite complicated and you might get confused.

I don't presume to argue with a native speaker but what I hear down here is v- sounding exactly like d- or gi-, which is it say, like a consonant English Y.  Đi về nhà comes out DEE yay nyah, not DEE dzay nha, unless I'm clueless here and and dz- sound other than it looks, like tr- sounding like J.

I see that excruciatingly annoying drinking chant một HAI BA Ô think written as "dzô" and I hear no consonant of any kind, just a lot of red faces and getting louder and louder.

ChrisFox wrote:

I don't presume to argue with a native speaker but what I hear down here is v- sounding exactly like d- or gi-, which is it say, like a consonant English Y.  Đi về nhà comes out DEE yay nyah, not DEE dzay nha, unless I'm clueless here and and dz- sound other than it looks, like tr- sounding like J.

I see that excruciatingly annoying drinking chant một HAI BA Ô think written as "dzô" and I hear no consonant of any kind, just a lot of red faces and getting louder and louder.

I got confused a bit, I often hear they say Một hai ba dzô, have never heard anyone say Hai ba "Ô", it sounds weird..
And yes, in HCMC v- sounding exactly like a consonant english Y, but they tend to write it as "dz", for example: đi về nhà = đi dzề nhà, they won't write "đi yề nhà" even though they pronounce like that.
And tr- sounding like J... it's possible I haven't been to Can Tho yet so I don't really know their accent well. There must have been some misunderstanding between us because it's quite hard to explain the correct pronunciation by the writing language