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How to ask what accent you speak in Vietnamese?

Last activity 04 August 2014 by Dejavu.dot

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andrewr756

Hi all,

I would like to start learning the Vietnamese but from my research I have learned pretty quickly that there seem to be several different accents (Northern, Central and Southern seem to be the main 3) in Vietnam which make a big difference to how they are spoken. For example, 3 people may speak English with an American, British or Australian accent etc, they will sound different but if you speak English you can understand all of them. I get the impression that if you learn Vietnamese in one regional accent, you will not be able to communicate with the others because they are very different - is my understanding correct?

I need to ask a Vietnamese person which accent they speak with.
Can someone please translate the following for me:

"Which accent do you speak with? Do you speak Vietnamese with a Northern, Central or Southern accent?"

Many thanks for any replies, your help would be greatly appreciated!  :)

ameet4luan

Bạn nói giọng miền nào?
Giọng Bắc hay Nam?

ynhidh

From my observation, most foreigners start learning Vietnamese are taught in Northern accent because it is considered the formal accent of Vietnamese. It is just like Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam so the Hanoinese is the preffered accent. Also, from my point of view, the Northern sound is the clearest and easiest to understand.

saigonlovely

Dear,
I speak southern accent. You can be understood by either northern or southern language as long as you pronounce the word clear enough. As for my self, i can not understand the northern people bcs they speak fast and not clear. And sometimes they use slangs, native words...

Ngan Khanh

Vietnamese from North, South and Central still can understand each other. However, there are also some dialects in some regions that would give you a hard time trying to understand them. I have traveled to everywhere in Vietnam and found out that people can't understand me just as I can't understand them.

It's hard to say which one is the main accent in Vietnam because each has its own characters! I'm from Saigon so I speak Southern accent. There are more than 10 million people in Saigon only (not sure about other provinces in the South) so if you plan to move in Saigon and want more people to understand you, you should learn Vietnamese with Southern accent and vice versa. I love to listen to Southern accent the most (sure!) and enjoy the accent from Central Vietnam too.

Dejavu.dot

Hi,

I speak Southern accent but I pronounce Vietnamese correctly. I was told so by many Vietnamese. The funniest thing of my recent trip is that 2 Middle Vietnamese boys talked about cheating my family because they thought I couldnt understand what they discussed. :lol:

By the way if you want to study Vietnamese, it is better for you to study in the south so all Vietnamese can understand you clearly. Talking about accents, there are just 2 accents for me: South and North as "clear Vietnamese" and " unclear Vietnamese". The north here includes Middle and North of Vietnam. In the North, the accent can be different every each 60 kms.

Regards

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