|
Job Discussion Forums "The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
View previous topic :: View next topic |
How much Vietnamese do you speak? |
I'm a native/Viet Kieu raised in the language. |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
I'm a fluent non-native speaker. |
|
6% |
[ 1 ] |
I can hold a reasonable conversation but no academic. |
|
20% |
[ 3 ] |
I can get my point across. |
|
20% |
[ 3 ] |
I can barter in the markets/know a few words and phrases. |
|
20% |
[ 3 ] |
I know a few key words but not much more. |
|
33% |
[ 5 ] |
I couldn't speak it to save my life. |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
|
Total Votes : 15 |
|
Author |
Message |
RustyShackleford

Joined: 13 May 2013 Posts: 449
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 1:44 am Post subject: So just how many foreigners in VN speak Vietnamese? |
|
|
It's interesting.. half the posts on any given Japan, Korea or China forum are about learning the language and how this helps with the lifestyle there, connect with the locals etc. etc. But I notice how little discussion about this goes on in Vietnam-centric forums.
I've been studying Vietnamese for a while as I prepare to move and, while challenging, I notice there aren't any hubs for learning it the way there is for the CJK tongues. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
charlesmarlow
Joined: 17 May 2013 Posts: 68
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 5:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
I alwyas tell people not to learn Vietnamese. If you can speak it, what you will find is some of the most disrespectful people on the planet.
In fact. it goes beyong disrespect, diabolical. What you will hear from the Viets is a complete verbal attack of foreigners in the area, clothes, looks anything and if they will be saying negative things about you to your face if they don;t think you can understand them. If you are a teacher and can speak Vietnamese tell your students that you dont understand a single word and you will not only be amazed and what they say about you but you will get very angry. I know a few teachers who learned Vietnamese in the States and came to Vietnam to teach and they left very quickly because of the above. It doesn't bother me anymore listening to an uneducated or "educated" piece of flesh talking about me, my wife, children etc, just keep these people out of the gene pool. Dont learn Vietnamese then you can live in a fantasy world about how great erc etc the Viets are. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
skarper
Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 477
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 5:59 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've given some thought to why this is so hard here.
I spent less time in Korea and could manage better in Korean than I can here in Vietnamese. (not much better but better)
I spent about 6 months in Japan and was getting along quite well - though I did make more effort and found a competent teacher. I tried to find teachers in Hanoi and Seoul but the Korean teacher in Seoul was utterly useless and the young woman I had lessons from in Hanoi was very intelligent but had no interest in teaching. Can't blame her for that.
One thing is that it is quite easy to get by with no Vietnamese or just a few phrases to be polite. The locals we deal with day-to-day have enough English and for us to acquire enough Vietnamese to do better in Vietnamese is a LOT of effort - about 2 years of part time study for most of us.
It takes a bout a year to be able to hear the sounds of spoken Vietnamese distinctly - often more if you are not exposed to a much.
Personally, I am comfortable in my bubble and don't want to interact much with the locals who can't communicate in English already. I don't want to hear what they say about me behind my back as I walk around - it's probably not going to make me feel good!
I once designed a 20 topic syllabus for an EFL teacher to use with a native speaker to cover the topics we actually need to communicate rather than the topics you find in the materials produced (they often try to inject cultural aspects into the lessons and use too high a level of politeness when in fact we will mostly be dealing with younger people and we will be the customer).
They also try to force full correct sentences on us when we will be using single words and short phrases for the most part. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
ExpatLuke
Joined: 11 Feb 2012 Posts: 744
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 7:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
Vietnamese is probably one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn for an English speaker. There are 6 tones and multiple vowel and consonant sounds that don't exist in English. You can say the same word with 6 different tones and the meaning is completely changed each time. This coupled with the fact that Vietnamese don't seem to be able to logically figure out what you mean based on context makes communicating here extremely difficult.
I studied with a pretty good tutor for a year in Hanoi and still consider my Vietnamese ability to be elementary at best. I can usually understand what others are saying if they speak slowly enough, but it's rare that I can always be understood.
I did have a friend who was very musically minded who learned the language within 2 years to near fluent levels, but he lived with a Vietnamese family for a year and studied the language full-time.
charlesmarlow wrote: |
I alwyas tell people not to learn Vietnamese. If you can speak it, what you will find is some of the most disrespectful people on the planet.
In fact. it goes beyong disrespect, diabolical. What you will hear from the Viets is a complete verbal attack of foreigners in the area, clothes, looks anything and if they will be saying negative things about you to your face if they don;t think you can understand them. If you are a teacher and can speak Vietnamese tell your students that you dont understand a single word and you will not only be amazed and what they say about you but you will get very angry. I know a few teachers who learned Vietnamese in the States and came to Vietnam to teach and they left very quickly because of the above. It doesn't bother me anymore listening to an uneducated or "educated" piece of flesh talking about me, my wife, children etc, just keep these people out of the gene pool. Dont learn Vietnamese then you can live in a fantasy world about how great erc etc the Viets are. |
This is a classic case of a foreigner, who probably has no cross-cultural training, coming to a new country and trying to fit the actions, ethics, and cultural norms of the locals into his home-country's standards.
Pay him no mind. In cross-cultural terms, he's taken the second path to dealing with his culture shock. While most people pass through the initial "hate" phase and have their worldview expanded, he has rejected the culture entirely.
Like I said, it a classic case. It's like reading it from a cross-cultural text book. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Anh Dep
Joined: 16 Mar 2013 Posts: 56 Location: Bangkok Thailand
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 7:16 am Post subject: |
|
|
Agree with Luke, its a damn hard language, what makes it even harder is if you dont say it 100% you will get the hand flick. I do find most Vietnamese a bit lazy when it comes to trying to figure out what you are saying, I do my best when they mispronounce words, but its not reciprocated.
As far as them talking about you and being unpolite, very true, a friend of mine reads,writes and speaks fluent VN and is always pulling them up for saying things that they think will not be understood.Life is much easier when you can converse here in the local language. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
charlesmarlow
Joined: 17 May 2013 Posts: 68
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 7:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
The Vietnamese language has six tones in the North of Vietnam. However, in Central and Southern Vietnam there are only five tones due to the hoi and nga tones merging in these regions. And in fact, my in-laws merge the nga and the nang tones. Always interesting speaking to a variety of Vietnamese speakers. Check out Hoi An and try to figure out if the speakers are talking about an orange or a piece of candy.  |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
I'm With Stupid
Joined: 03 Sep 2010 Posts: 432
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
Before I reply, I'd just like to point out that this is all excuses. It's entirely possible to learn if you put the effort in, and I certainly haven't put the required effort in.
But anyway, some things that I've found difficult:
- Locals often refuse to speak to you in Vietnamese, even when they clearly understood what you were saying, and even sometimes when they don't speak any English themselves. I'm sure we've all asked for the price of something and have someone write it down rather than just telling you. I've got no idea what this is about.
- The teaching standards are awful. I don't claim to be the best teacher in the world, but I don't expect to just go through a list of words and their English translations and be told to memorize them, with very little practice in class from a teacher that spends most of the class speaking English (even in a class where there were non-English speakers).
- It's hard to even be understood at the beginning, so it's quite demotivating. In most languages, you can at least get a few stock phrases down pretty quickly, but in Vietnamese, it takes quite a lot of intense pronunciation practice to reliably say that phrase you thought you already knew.
- Vietnamese people don't have much practice hearing foreigners speak their language, so they're not particularly good at inferring meaning from context or listening to foreign pronunciations of familiar phrases. But I guess even a Vietnamese person learning English would have a lot of trouble being understood by anyone other than their teacher at beginner level.
- The resources are pretty bad. I once went into Fahasa and I wanted to buy some stickers, but I didn't know the word for sticker. So I got a dictionary off the shelf, looked it up and asked the woman (and even showed her the dictionary entry when she inevitably didn't understand me). I ended up with a roll of sticky tape, followed by glue. The text book I use at my Vietnamese school is awful. The language is presented in no sort of context, just a list of words, a couple of sentences to show the grammar and a mountain of grammar exercises. Although the university book is a bit better and actually comes with a CD (which is absolutely essential for Vietnamese AFAIC).
- There's little in the media that interests me. Other than Tran Anh Hung's films (who now makes films in English), I can't think of anything I've really enjoyed. The government censors anything genuinely interesting, so you're left with terrible comedies in which the main joke seems to be that this man is flamboyantly gay. And you're unlikely to find any of the TV programmes or films online with English subtitles so you could actually study them in your own time, because they're not good enough to get an international audience. I've not seen anything in the way of graded readers for adult learners, so you're limited to children's books. Korean and Japanese might also be difficult languages, but there's so much more there to find interesting.
All of this combined means that I don't have the motivation to put a lot of time into Vietnamese. And it's not just laziness generally, because I do spend a lot of time studying another language and quite enjoy it.
Incidentally, Vietnamese people aren't the only ones that talk about others when they think the people around them won't understand. I hear a lot of comments from expats about how "Vietnamese people" are. I've even been guilty of it myself sometimes. The only difference is that expats are less likely to be rude about an individual, and more likely to be rude about the entire population. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
charlesmarlow
Joined: 17 May 2013 Posts: 68
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:09 am Post subject: |
|
|
I have not entirely rejected the culture. Prior to Vietnam, I did not support the master and slave ideology. However, after living in Vietnam for a long time I have internalized this Vietnamese value system-you either are a slave or you own a slave. It's everywhrere in the world, its just more pronounced in the Vietnamese culture. So now, I have a maid and a cook and other types of slaves. I prefer not to have them around but my Vietnamese wife and family insists on it and I have to agree to it.
When one is on the top of the food chain concerning money and thats the only thing that matters in Vietnam, what should you do. In fact, I am completely immersed in the culture regarding the language, customs, in-laws, norms and values ect. I just don't like the taste or smell of the water. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
charlesmarlow
Joined: 17 May 2013 Posts: 68
|
Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
Quote: |
All of this combined means that I don't have the motivation to put a lot of time into Vietnamese. And it's not just laziness generally, because I do spend a lot of time studying another language and quite enjoy it.
|
Only in Vietnam
The only reason I can speak Viet is because I was forced to learn it because I have to use it every day with my in-laws and my children. Also it's such a simple language concerning vocabulary, it's somewhat juvenile. This may have something to do with the lack of sophistication of its people. As my Vietnamses friends tell me once a peasant always a peasant. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
spycatcher reincarnated
Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 236
|
Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
Agree with many of the points in this thread.
My quick take on the Vietnamese language is as follows:
Pronunciation is everything! Because pronunciation is so difficult to get right, Vietnamese is a very frustrating language to learn until one gets to a reasonable level.
Once one gets to this reasonable level, Vietnamese is a very simple language with no more grammar to learn and little more vocabulary. Vietnamese often say that one word has many meanings which I turn in to meaning that Vietnamese doesn't have enough words. Have you ever seen a Vietnamese person look up a Vietnamese word in a dictionary?
Even though I did achieve quite a good level of Vietnamese many moons ago I pretty much gave up because, it was such a boring language, most of the information available in the language was uninteresting and after having the same conversation hundreds of times about mobile phones, motorbikes and football, was bored to death.
I generally find that if Vietnamese people can't speak English then they will not know much and I will not want to be getting in to long conversations with them. If they can speak English then they may well be worth talking to, but will want to do so in English. I will also want to speak to them in English, rather than Vietnamese, because of the lack of vocabulary and the imprecision of the Vietnamese language.
More recently (last 5 or so years), Vietnamese have started talking about other things so may be worth brushing up on my vocab, but that will only take a few hours. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
skarper
Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 477
|
Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 9:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
That's pretty much how I feel spycatcher reincarnated.
My Vietnamese is limited to a very few words I use to make jokes with my wife and I have little desire to learn much more. I just don't want to know what the typical Vietnamese who doesn't speak decent English already thinks. Zero interest.
I learned French to a level where I could follow half a dozen conversations at once when travelling by metro or in restaurants and none were interesting at all..
In many ways I like being able to walk about and not understand anything people are saying to or about me. It leaves me in peace to focus on my own thoughts and admire the view.
I have heard many expats get a kind of reverse culture shock when they go back 'home' and part of this is the mindless chatter they are obliged to hear.
So - no - I'll not be putting much effort into learning Vietnamese. I don't mind if I pick up a few more words here and there but I'm happy in my bubble.
I remember in Korea it was common to be approached by middle aged 'adjoshis' who try to engage me in conversation using their pidgin English. I used to reply that I was sorry but I didn't speak Korean - and repeated this until they wandered off confused. Many of these men were 'half cut' as my mum used to say - so there really was no point in talking to them. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Mushroom Druid
Joined: 19 Oct 2009 Posts: 91
|
Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 9:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This is a great thread.
I agree with Spy Catcher and charlesarlow (and others).
I have lived in the south and the north and studied with a teacher in both.
I studied for 3 years and 8 months, and practice every day/every other day. But I make the common mistake of using what I know because it is easier to use. I am still expanding vocab.
I think that basic listening skills among the Vietnamese is not very good, even when a native speaker is communicating with a native speaker.
The conversations are shallow and repetitive. Asking about your wife, or little things.
Charlesmarlow is correct. I have 2 friends that are high level with the language and they have repeated what has been said about me, people around us, an foreigners in general.
My advice: if you get married to a VNese, getting your listening skills up to a high level, or you will be isolated and clue-less.
VNese is a challenging language, but it makes me determined to improve. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
mark_in_saigon
Joined: 20 Sep 2009 Posts: 837
|
Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 4:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
I speak a second language at an intermediate level, yet have had very little luck with VN. Not that I have been that motivated to learn, as I do find that I get by fine without it. I have seen that folks who do speak some VN are often given the treatment of "I have no idea what you are saying" by the natives. Discussing this with my VN friends, I am told that if the foreigner comes across the wrong way (and apparently many of these aggressive learners do), then the VN uses this pretended lack of understanding to not engage. I am just struck by the fact that the value of what we are doing with teaching English is so high, and then consider how little the pay is for the VN teacher of anything, even the VN teacher who is pretty good with English, and I just think the reality is that there is a lot more value for the system if we help them with English rather than having them help us with VN. Not that you should not give it a try if you have the time and inclination, it just seems that the reward is not that great. Time spent teaching English is well paid. Time spent learning or using VN is not worth much financially, though if it gives you happiness, that is of value.
With reference to the discussion about the VN as if they were slaves or whatever, I would just point out that these people are highly successful when they move to the west, they are not born stupid or evil. The system rather forces them to live the way they live, but they are people, like us, some better, some not. I would often rather hang out with them than with my own people, and not the VN with cars and big houses. Not the foreigners who view themselves as being on the top of the food chain either. We are not better than them, we were just lucky to be born into a more organized and wealthy system. Don't let it go to your head, in time, all things change.
One final point I would make, not sure what it means. I have used trusted VN to translate my more serious transactions for me, like when looking at a house to rent. I have noticed this, I will ask some question, for example: does the owner know about the requirements to report the residency of the foreigner to the police? So the translator repeats the question, they go back and forth for minutes, maybe 500 words will pass between them. Then, the translator will finally turn to me and answer my question with about a 10 word answer. It just seems crazy to me, why they will sit there and turn the air blue with their verbiage over what should be a relatively simple question and answer. Yes, the conversation could be about anything "how stupid is this foreigner, can we collude to boost the price and both take a cut out of the deal?", you know, they could be saying anything. Anyway, nothing I see going on with the way they do business really motivates me to try to put a huge effort into learning their language. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
I'm With Stupid
Joined: 03 Sep 2010 Posts: 432
|
Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 4:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Reminds me of this. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
bobpen
Joined: 04 Mar 2011 Posts: 89
|
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 7:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Lot's of really good points in this thread, but I'm with Stupid really nailed it with his post. Especially the part with how locals routinely flat out insist they don't understand you even when you've already got some phrases down as good as any self-trained foreigner could. Like someone else said above, I also speak another second language with fluency, but VNese isn't just any old language. Attend a VN language school? I'm already trying to make money as it is in Vietnam, and on my precious off days or free time I don't need added stress of traipsing across town in thick traffic. Instead I rest up for my work days. Thus Vietnam does not present a very good concoction for learning the language. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling. Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|