Job Discussion Forums

[Jbhughes]

Is anyone aware of any accredited certificates or qualifications in Vietnamese?

If not, any other practical way of including proof of one's Vietnamese skill on one's CV (resume for the Atlantically-challenged ) or an interview.

Before anyone says it, I'm not exactly going to be parading my Vietnamese skills in front of a potential employer here, rather to prove to a potential employer in a new country that I took interest and applied myself in learning the local language while I was working here.

cheers.

[toiyeuthitmeo]

I believe it's normal to list languages spoken on one's CV, with the use of words such as "Beginner / Elementary / Conversational/ Intermediate / Advanced / Fluent." I usually place this in my Personal Details section.

VLS (Vietnamese Language Studies) www.vlstudies.com offers programs in Vietnamese and it seems quite on the up-and-up. You'd probably get some kind of certificate of completion.

[I'm With Stupid]

[toiyeuthitmeo]

Yes, in general it is a terrible idea to misrepresent your language skills on a CV, especially if the proof is right in the document itself. As the world gets more globalized, chances are someone will call you out on the languages you list, and perhaps expect you to use them! I figure a nice "Able to speak and read Elementary / Basic level..." is fair enough. Makes you sound worldly and interesting without someone sending you to Tokyo and expecting you to lead business negotiations in Japanese.

[kh1311]

The University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Truong Dai Hoc Xa Hoi va Nhan Van) offers a proficiency test once a month for the students who are studying Vietnamese there for a nominal fee. The test is given for 3 levels, A-B-C, which would correspond to Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. The test covers all 4 skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing and each section must be passed at the same testing session in order to pass the test. I've been using this on my CV since I passed the test over 3 years ago.

[I'm With Stupid]

To anyone who takes Vietnamese lessons, how much do you pay? I've contacted VLS, but the cheapest they offer is $7 per hour, which adds up quite quickly. They also open classes when they've got just 3 students, which suggests that it could be much cheaper with a slightly bigger class size elsewhere.

[kh1311]

The University of Social Sciences and Humanities is cheaper, with classes running about 3-4USD/hour. Here's a link to their website. I also need to amend my earlier post which stated that they offer the certification test every month. It is now every other month, and you don't have to be a student there to take the test. Although if you are a student there, it is 50% cheaper for the testing fee.

Tuition Info
http://www.vns.edu.vn/vns/vietnamese-courses/vietnamese-language-program/tuition-and-fee#

Certification Info
http://www.vns.edu.vn/vns/en/vietnamese-courses/vietnamese-language-program/certification

[Jbhughes]

Many thanks for your replies.


Purely out of interest, I looked up University courses in Vietnamese.

I could only find one UK uni that offers courses - the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). They offer combined honours Vietnamese BAs with a range of different choices for the other subject (including Linguistics, interestingly enough).

Here's the link - http://www.soas.ac.uk/sea/programmes/bavietnameseand/

Quite frankly, with only a quarter of the whole degree being devoted to Vietnamese, this just seems like a BA in South East Asian Studies andwith a sprinkling of Vietnamese thrown in. Perhaps it's normal for film and literature modules relating to a language's region to make up the bulk of a language degree? no idea.


I only found one course in Australia - http://www.vu.edu.au/unitsets/aspvie , this is actually a 'unitset', which you can take as part of BAs offered by Victoria University, Melbourne.

I couldn't find any relevant information about courses offered by US institutions - how do Americans search for courses?

[kh1311]

Here's a site that lists the major univerisities in the US that offer courses or degrees related to Vietnamese.

http://www.public.asu.edu/~ickpl/guava/index.html