learning the lingo

I think the problem with the Vietnamese language is it lacks of comprehensible input materials (on the internet), as well as the language itself is not a thing that many people want to learn like English. For example, as I see, it's extremely hard to find any podcast in real Vietnamese. In additions, if you turn on the TV and start watching, you might realize that the content is far more comprehensible or not interesting for the learner. The same thing apply to newspapers, books, etc. So, it could be hard to prepare material for learning by yourself.

I think comic books could help, some daily conversation phrases books could help, making friends with native speakers could help, at least they could guide you through the beginner phase and intermediate phase (A1, A2, B1 ad B2). But how a foreigner could achieve a high proficiency or an advanced level (C1 and C2) is a very big challenge. Surrounding your self with native speakers, using the language everyday just bring the learner to B1 and B2 level.

But anw, just do it, do whatever you can with the language. I believe that the acquisition process takes time and patience. Vietnamese language is not hard as many people say.

There is another thread about why Vietnamese don't understand foreigners speaking Vietnamese but I never bothered to post on it.  I think this thread looks like it is off to an interesting start.

I notice that the previous comments about self teaching are true and can be just as easily applied to Vietnamese trying to teach themselves English.  The only difference is that Vietnamese children have another tool which is The Disney Chanel.  As banal as it seems to adults, I do know that it helps children with pronunciation.  In fact I had one very fluent 6th grade student who spoke with a mild "Valley-girl" accent that she had picked up on Disney.  Her accent was so American that I had to ask her if she had spent time in the US.  That was when she told me about Disney.

A few other anecdotal observations.  I lead by saying they are anecdotal so that no one takes them as dogma on my part. 

Vietnamese has 6 or 8 tones depending on who you ask while Mandarin has 4.  I have been told by a native Mandarin speaker that he can't manage Vietnamese tones.  From what he said if one gets the Mandarin tones incorrect, you can still be understood but it would be like speaking with a strong accent.  By comparison, a wrong tone in Vietnamese often or even usually changes the meaning of a word completely.

There is a Viet Kieu gentleman in Honolulu who has a speech impediment.  I once asked another Vietnamese if he was easier to understand when he spoke Vietnamese.  They said he was actually a lot worse and was in fact easier to understand in English.  Again mispronunciation of vowels in English does not always change meaning the way it usually does in Vietnamese.  In a similar vein, I once asked on of my college student TA's how does a partially deaf Vietnamese learn to speak and he replied that they don't.  That may not have been entirely true but it is illustrative of the problem. 

I doubt this is how a linguist would put it but meaning in English is carried in the consonants and Vietnamese is vowel based.  I had an exercise for my intermediate students based on the way American teens write text messages (txt msgs) with vowels removed.  I had an English sentence printed out with the vowels removed and they could read it easily.  I gave them the same, translated into Vietnamese with the vowels removed, and they could make no sense of it at all.  My pedagogic purpose was to have them see the reasons why they need to try not to elide consonants in English as many Viet speakers do.

Sadly I have partial hearing loss due to too many hours on farm machinery, so I despair learning to speak Vietnamese at my age.  Add to that, the fact that nobody should try to learn from their wife the same way they should not be the one to teach her to drive a car.    I do think that I may take a stab at basic reading and grammar when we move back.  I am able to distinguish basic signage going down the road but I should do better.

THIGV wrote:

I doubt this is how a linguist would put it but meaning in English is carried in the consonants and Vietnamese is vowel based.  I had an exercise for my intermediate students based on the way American teens write text messages (txt msgs) with vowels removed.  I had an English sentence printed out with the vowels removed and they could read it easily.  I gave them the same, translated into Vietnamese with the vowels removed, and they could make no sense of it at all. 
.

Agree with almost everything you said (except the part about text messages.) Vietnamese (youth, adults, and even older people in their 60s) have a system of message short cuts in which many letters (vowels and consonants both) are removed. It has been used and understood in texts, forum postings, and email for I don't know how long (almost 10 years since I've known about it).

The system actually has its own rules so newly created short cut could be understood by all.

Some examples:

Beginning of words: K in place of KH; G in place of GH; C in place of K; NG in place of NGH; Q in place of QU; 

Middle of words: S in place of OC; J in place of ƠI; many N, NG, and H are omitted completely

Ending of words: G in place of NG; H in place of NH; K in  place of CH; IW in place of IÊU; Z in place of ƠNG

Other rules: KO to replace KHÔNG; TRYL to replace TRUYÊN; CIW to replace KIÊU; TYD to replace TUYÊT

There are many, many, many more. They're not Internet abbreviations (AFAIK, OTOH, IIRCC, AFAIC, FWIW, etc,) but single words with omitted letters that are understood just as they're correctly written.

There is an expat in Ha Noi who explains things quite well. His website is Hanoihappy.com, he gives you some tips that are helpful. Many of the tips won't be given by local teachers unless they have a good understanding of teaching methods.

I think you meant Happyhanoi.com.

Yes correct, that's dyslexia for you.

colinoscapee wrote:

Yes correct, that's dyslexia for you.

You have a peech imspediment?

eodmatt wrote:

colinoscapee wrote:

Yes correct, that's dyslexia for you.

You have a peech imspediment?

Im Chinese, I always right wong.

I saw a bloke yesterday who was so fat he had more chins than the Chinese telephone directory

Ciambella wrote:

Agree with almost everything you said (except the part about text messages.) Vietnamese (youth, adults, and even older people in their 60s) have a system of message short cuts in which many letters (vowels and consonants both) are removed. It has been used and understood in texts, forum postings, and email for I don't know how long (almost 10 years since I've known about it).

I wish I had your code break when I intercepted a crumpled up message that was thrown across the room at my local High School.  (Things thrown is one of my pet teaching peeves whether in VN or US.  If you want to borrow a pencil, raise your hand and ask,  don't throw it.) I showed the message to several VN adults and even my TA but none could decipher it.  My TA had been to High School in AU so I guess he missed out on that part of VN teen experience.  I do notice as you said that the VN system removes both vowels and consonants while I think the English system is mostly restricted to vowels.  Interesting.   

eodmatt wrote:

I saw a bloke yesterday who was so fat he had more chins than the Chinese telephone directory

Unless they are in the Honolulu directory in which case they are named Chen or sometimes Chun.  I had an elementary school friend named Chin who I reconnected with while we were both serving in the army in Honolulu.  He said he had met a lot of local people because he had joined his local Tong association and I asked him how could he because he was the only Chin in the phone book.  He told me that they simply spelled it Chen but it was the same character.  His family had entered through New York where US officials wrote it as Chin.

My nephew-in-law is a Cheung from Honolulu. I wonder if it's another different spelling of  the same last name.

Chueng is a fairly common name in Honolulu but usually spelled Chung.  The only real way to tell is if the characters are the same.  I used to think that the Vietnamese Nguyen and the Chinese name spelled Yuen in English were the same but I was told that the characters were different.  For that you would have to know the Vietnamese Chữ Nôm characters as well as the modern Chinese.

THIGV wrote:

eodmatt wrote:

I saw a bloke yesterday who was so fat he had more chins than the Chinese telephone directory

Unless they are in the Honolulu directory in which case they are named Chen or sometimes Chun.  I had an elementary school friend named Chin who I reconnected with while we were both serving in the army in Honolulu.  He said he had met a lot of local people because he had joined his local Tong association and I asked him how could he because he was the only Chin in the phone book.  He told me that they simply spelled it Chen but it was the same character.  His family had entered through New York where US officials wrote it as Chin.

Hmmm. No wonder they sometimes Wing the Wong number ....

According to wikipedia, these Chinese names in Roman characters are just different spellings of the same thing:

Chen, Chan, Chin, Gin, Jin, Tan, Tang, Taing, Ting, Ding, Trần, Sấn, Zen, Sen

it's probably just a matter of hearing and repeating over and over again

help if u r younger. alot

i can speak ok chinese, but, just need to listen and copy more.

if it gives any of yall honkies inspiration; it's only us honkies  that seem to show any inclination whatsoever; ive never seen an indian or arab even try/

#14 - the Genibrel 1898 chu nom dictionary gives 阮 as the character for Nguyễn, as does Google Translate.
"Yuen" is not a Mandarin pronunciation, so I can't look it up in my dictionaries.
Line Dictionary online give several characters for "yuen", including 越, meaning "Viet" as in Vietnam

ralphnhatrang wrote:

"Yuen" is not a Mandarin pronunciation, so I can't look it up in my dictionaries.

Yuen is a Chinese name not overly common in Hawaii but not unusual.  As it seems to be the name of families that have been here a while it is more likely Cantonese than Mandarin in origin.

Thaiger wrote:

it's probably just a matter of hearing and repeating over and over again

help if u r younger. alot

i can speak ok chinese, but, just need to listen and copy more.

if it gives any of yall honkies inspiration; it's only us honkies  that seem to show any inclination whatsoever; ive never seen an indian or arab even try/

The Streets of Hong Kong are infested with Indian Tailors touts and they persist in following you up the street trying to sell you shirts (in English) no matter what language you speak. I usually speak to them in German, but it doesn't make any difference.

#3 -QUOTE
Vietnamese has 6 or 8 tones depending on who you ask while Mandarin has 4.  I have been told by a native Mandarin speaker that he can't manage Vietnamese tones.  From what he said if one gets the Mandarin tones incorrect, you can still be understood but it would be like speaking with a strong accent.  By comparison, a wrong tone in Vietnamese often or even usually changes the meaning of a word completely.
UNQUOTE

A  tone is the smallest unit of meaning in Vietnamese. If you change the tone, yes, you do change the meaning.

Standard Vietnamese, that is Hanoian accent, has six tones: mid, high rising, low falling, low rising, high broken, and low broken (in Vietnamese: không dấu, dấu sắc, dấu huyền, dấu hỏi, dấu ngã, dấu nặng).  Only two of them, high rising and low falling, somewhat approximate two tones in Mandarin.

In Vietnam, as in China, the tones and tone quality changes from area to area. Some tones are not used at all. For example, people in the countryside in Phuoc Tuy Province (now Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province) 45 years ago used as few as TWO tones only: mid tone and low rising.  The Hue accent is famous throughout VN for being unintelligible to anyone else. In the Hue accent any word at all may be pronounced with a low broken tone. Not using the full range of tones can make understanding difficult, to say the least.  One Australian army interpreter, when called upon to interpret for an elderly gentleman, used his native French instead, because he couldn't understand a single sentence of the man's Hue accent.

A young Hanoian woman who used to post to the Thorn Tree forum on Lonely Planet, once wrote that when she first visited southern Vietnam neither she nor the southerners could understand each other, so she had to speak in English. In her own country !  While watching the VN national news from Hanoi on tv in Nha Trang, I asked my VN wife, "Can you understand what she's reading?"  The answer was, "No, she's from Hanoi and she's reading too fast."  So what chance did I have?

Note that, apart from the different tones and different accents, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of words that are different in the northern and southern Vietnamese.  All of which makes learning Vietnamese a challenge. And once you do learn, you can never stop learning, because new words keep coming in to the language all the time, as they do in English.