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Easiest Vietnamese Dialect to learn?
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bludevil96

Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 82

Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 9:48 am Post subject:

Jbhughes wrote:

HTV as in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_City_Television ?

Listen to VTV1:

http://www.tv14.net/vtv1/

Yes, vtv1 is hanoi accent but that is one station. Clicking on the other regions on your right and you'll see what I mean. A typical southerner will understand about 70 percent of the Hanoi accent and that number will go down sharply as you get outside of Hanoi and moving down toward Hue. Even according to your example, if you were to compare the technical accuracies between someone who is speaking in a standard Hanoi accent versus a southern academic accent, the southerner is so much more accurate that it's not even close.

The bottom line is that someone from the north can understand 100 percent of what someone from the south is saying but it's not the same the other way around.

toiyeuthitmeo

Joined: 21 May 2010
Posts: 213

Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 12:36 pm Post subject:

Here's my totally non-linguistic take on this. Saigon=more liberal, more exciting, more modern, more culturally advanced than Hanoi or Danang, so if you like terms like that, learn Saigonese. Vietnamese is also chock full of youth-derived and ever-changing slang, which you'd be very lucky to be taught by any formal teacher. You're going to learn this language by keeping a curious ear to the streets, making friends, and secretly starting to understand what your students are chatting about before you remind them of the "English only!!" rule. Oh and all you need to know is "Xin loi, khong muon." And "Troi oi!" And "May biet o dau co sua tuoi khong co duong?"

bludevil96

Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 82

Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 4:32 am Post subject:

I have to say that you do have interesting observations here.

[quote="Jbhughes"]

andwar wrote:

1. New phonemes

Quote:

"[i]Unless you learn VNese from Hue or some similarly obscure version, the 'new' phonemes you need to learn compared to English will be the same in pretty much whatever version of VNese you decide to learn. You won't really have more of less to learn in any particular dialect.[/i]"

There isn't any new phonemes; just 3 distinctive dialects. The rest are very minor derivatives of the Vnamese version of the Chinese language "chu nom". The current latin version is Portuguese based implemented by a French missionary as interpreted from "chu nom" by Alex De Rhodes.

Quote:

"There are plenty of differences between North, South and Central - however they can be summed up in the following way - do you prefer /z/ (zoo) sounds (learn Northern) or /j/ (yes) sounds (learn Southern/Central)"

It's not a matter of preference. The OP was looking for a mainstream Viet accent that will be understood by most if not all. The answer is "southern".

2. Tones

Quote:

"I don't really see any particular difference in difficulty (seemingly impossible initially) in learning either set of tones."

From a Vietnamese standpoint, it's a big difference. It literally tells people where you're from and if you're educated or not. From a foreigner's point of view, perhaps not so much.

Quote:

" 3. Who you will be conversing in VNese with.

I would put an exception to this if you are going to travel around or live in different places. I've encountered VNese having a lot of difficulties understanding people who aren't from their province. "

This answers the OP's question. If you're from Saigon, ALL regions will understand you.

"The accent they seem to have least problems with is the Northern one (in my experience at least). "

Not to contradict you again or to continue this argument, live in the south and ask the southerners and you'll see.

Quote:

"This is partly because there are pockets of northerners everywhere, it may also be due to what they study in school (I don't have much info on this), northerners also travel a lot on holiday it seems - any tourist place I have been to seems just totally full of northerners during holiday periods! This is also because Northern Vietnamese is the actual 'correct' form of VNese, in the same way that RP is the 'correct' version of British English."

This has more to do with history. There were 2 huge migration movement from north to south. The first was in 1954 after the French defeat of Dien Bien Phu. The second is in 1974 after the fall of Saigon. Those in the north who were wealthy, Catholics or did well during French colonialism moved south for obvious reasons e.g persecutions. The catholic migration were tied to southern anti-communist propaganda like leaflets that would say, "Jesus doesn't like communism" or "the Virgin Mary moved south". Those who stayed and not supporting the communist movement were to do so at their own risk. There were a lot of wealthy people, including the business class that moved south at this time.

The second movement in 1974 were more economic related. Many of these people had hardships to the devastation of the bombing campaign by the U.S. The U.S., in a sense succeeded in starving the VC through bombings and chemical warfare but at the same time punished everyone who were not part of the war or supporting the VC.

There is a current continuing stream of migration into HCMC. Most of these people are from the Central regions and northern areas outside of Hanoi. The Quang Ngai area represented the most for those here selling lottery tickets where other regions come to do manual labor work such as construction and contractors selling petty stuff that you see i.e. fruits, peanuts, and side of the road stuff. Economically in these regiodns, there are no jobs available to the uneducated peasant. Those with and education will stay and live in the City while sending money home. Without this, there are no viable income to speak of.

Quote:

"If for some reason you will likely be conversing with officials, you will almost certainly find Northern VNese better as you will be talking to Northerners."

This has to do with politics of course. Although almost all of the prime ministers, including the top 2 (Nguyen Tan Dung/Nguyen Minh Triet) are southerners. The key positions spread all over the country are held by northern "revolutionaries" and their families/friends. For example, just to be a traffic cop requires 1. a strong family connection to the gvt. 2. Have training in the army 3. Not a catholic and lastly 4. have some money. If you have 1 and 2, you're golden. 2 and 4 is the second best. If you're a 3 and 4, it's still possible through the reference of friends who hold good positions in gvt. Because of the history under Ngo dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu and their oppression of the buddism (sic), being a 3 pretty much guarantees that you won't get any where in the current gvt.

4. How differentiated sounds are.

"Get a Southerner to say these words sentences somehow: bịnh, bạnh, bận, bệnh. They sound the same I swear it! Bun bun bun bun."

You are right about the word, "bệnh" but not the rest. "bệnh" means, "sick" and it's pronounced like, "bịnh" as in "binh vien" which is a hospital.
But listen closely and you see that the other regions don't say it correctly as well. What you'll hear is a twang of "binh" and not benh. It has more to do with your listening than fact.

"Listening to Northerners, I find they pronounce vowel or vowel + final consonant combinations a lot more distinctly. bing bang bun bain(g).
This is a double-edged sword - if you learn the Southern accent you can get away with amalgamating a lot of different spelling combinations as basically just one sound and Southerners understanding you. Will you understand them though?"

The northern accent is spoken with a twang and in the Vietnamese language, this is what confuses the southerners. For example, someone in Hanoi will say, "T�i C� - I have" will actually say, "T�i C�". "C�" means grass and combine that with "T�i " doesn't make sense. Same thing happens for the central regions. This "twang" keeps the people in the south guessing. The south will say the "co" with each of the accent correctly i.e. c� c� cỏ cọ c� c� cơ. Each of these words have a different meaning as you apply the accent. What you hear is what you get and that isn't so with the other regions. Thus, this is why ALL REGIONS can understand the southern accent but not vice versa.

Quote:

"Personally, I don't see any particular dialect or accent easier to learn for an English speaking person - but the above might help you make a decision.

There's a lot to learn my friend. Just trying to understand the language itself tells me you have respect for the culture and people. Good for you.

Here's the southern viewpoint of the North and Central people:

The northern people (Hanoi) are generally arrogant, lazy and calculated. They good at telling people to do things but are incapable of doing it themselves. Very quick to judge and ridicule those around them. Look down on those who are less fortunate. They are less forgiving and corrupt. The central people are still viewed as the heart and soul of Vietnamese culture. They are seen as extremely hard working, intelligent, and loyal. The south considers themselves to be: open, more honest, more educated and laid back than their brothers. They still hold great disdain and distrust of the northern people as well.

yogurtpooh

Joined: 26 Oct 2010
Posts: 85

Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 5:58 pm Post subject:

Learn the southern dialect- it's definitely more useful outside of Vietnam.

Jbhughes

Joined: 01 Jul 2010
Posts: 254

Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 8:32 pm Post subject:

bludevil96 wrote:

I have to say that you do have interesting observations here.

Jbhughes wrote:

1. New phonemes

Jbhughes wrote:

"Unless you learn VNese from Hue or some similarly obscure version, the 'new' phonemes you need to learn compared to English will be the same in pretty much whatever version of VNese you decide to learn. You won't really have more of less to learn in any particular dialect."

bludevil96 wrote:

I'm wondering if I've used a linguistic term incorrectly here? The point I was attempting to make was that when an English speaker learns Vietnamese, the number of new individual sounds they will need to learn won't increase because they have chosen a particular variety of Vietnamese (not including Hue or some other weird).

For example, everyone I've heard speaking Vietnamese appears to pronounce the 't' - as in tiếng - pretty much the same. This sound (phoneme?) isn't exactly the same as the English /t/ (BrE anyway) and therefore should be learnt - whether someone is studying N, S or C. I termed examples like the Vietnamese 't' as 'new phonemes' because they should be new to an English speaker.

I was replying directly to the OPs question regarding which dialect to choose and suggesting that from this aspect an English speaker would find each dialect (not Hue or similarly obscure) to have a similar difficultly level.

Jbhughes wrote:

bludevil96 wrote:

It's not a matter of preference. The OP was looking for a mainstream Viet accent that will be understood by most if not all. The answer is "southern".

I can only re-iterate that my experience is different to this.*

2. Tones

Jbhughes wrote:

"I don't really see any particular difference in difficulty (seemingly impossible initially) in learning either set of tones."

bludevil96 wrote:

From a Vietnamese standpoint, it's a big difference. It literally tells people where you're from and if you're educated or not. From a foreigner's point of view, perhaps not so much.

I agree. However, in terms of difficulty - would you not agree that each set is the similarly hard for an English speaker? Remember, I was replying to the OP's original question.

Jbhughes wrote:

bludevil96 wrote:

This answers the OP's question. If you're from Saigon, ALL regions will understand you.

Jbhughes wrote:

"The accent they seem to have least problems with is the Northern one (in my experience at least). "

bludevil96 wrote:

Not to contradict you again or to continue this argument, live in the south and ask the southerners and you'll see.

Jbhughes wrote:

bludevil96 wrote:

An interesting recount of recent history and the current situation. Have you also noticed a lot of Northerners on holiday too? Would you not agree that the amount of Northerners everywhere would not lend support for learning Northern Vietnamese for the travelling foreigner? I'm not outright supporting this 100% myself, but I think there's a case for it. Overall, I do believe one should learn the dialect/accent of where one is living (despite the fact that I don't actually do that myself!)

Jbhughes wrote:

"If for some reason you will likely be conversing with officials, you will almost certainly find Northern VNese better as you will be talking to Northerners."

bludevil96 wrote:

I wasn't aware of the religious aspect of the political scene. I notice different types of pagodas around - do they correspond to different forms of Buddhism / Confucianism? Is one flavour considered tastier than the others with the current establishment?

4. How differentiated sounds are.

Jbhughes wrote:

"Get a Southerner to say these words sentences somehow: bịnh, bạnh, bận, bệnh. They sound the same I swear it! Bun bun bun bun."

bludevil96 wrote:

You are right about the word, "bệnh" but not the rest. "bệnh" means, "sick" and it's pronounced like, "bịnh" as in "binh vien" which is a hospital.
But listen closely and you see that the other regions don't say it correctly as well. What you'll hear is a twang of "binh" and not benh. It has more to do with your listening than fact.

Jbhughes wrote:

"Listening to Northerners, I find they pronounce vowel or vowel + final consonant combinations a lot more distinctly. bing bang bun bain(g).
This is a double-edged sword - if you learn the Southern accent you can get away with amalgamating a lot of different spelling combinations as basically just one sound and Southerners understanding you. Will you understand them though?"

My overall point is that I find the vowel sounds in Northern Vietnamese a lot easier to differentiate than the Southern vowel sounds. 'Bịnh' and 'bệnh' sound massively different - 'Bing' like the website and the word 'bane' but ending in an 'ng' sound rather than a 'n': /bəɪŋ̟/. I find similar differences in clarity with diphthongs and triphthongs too - it's almost like you can hear the individual vowel sounds popping out at you crisply, whereas the Southern sounds in diphthongs seems to slur together the sounds, sometimes it seems to me that they even omit one.
Take the name 'Loan' for example.
I just cannot hear the 'a' when a Southerner says it, all I hear is can can can can. When my boss, a Northerner says it, it almost sounds like a disyllabic word!

I will readily admit that this could be my ear and with more exposure to the South and practice I'm sure I would hear the difference eventually. Contextually, most of the time I am able to do this already. This is just one persons experience (well actually others have said the same to me too, but still) and that doesn't equate to fact. However, I'm surprised that this experience is not more widespread.

bludevil96 wrote:

The northern accent is spoken with a twang and in the Vietnamese language, this is what confuses the southerners. For example, someone in Hanoi will say, "T�i C� - I have" will actually say, "T�i C�". "C�" means grass and combine that with "T�i " doesn't make sense. Same thing happens for the central regions. This "twang" keeps the people in the south guessing. The south will say the "co" with each of the accent correctly i.e. c� c� cỏ cọ c� c� cơ. Each of these words have a different meaning as you apply the accent. What you hear is what you get and that isn't so with the other regions. Thus, this is why ALL REGIONS can understand the southern accent but not vice versa.

I'll assume you mean 'cỏ' as this is the word for grass. I agree that the Northern dấu sắc and the Southern dấu hỏi sound very similar. I also agree that this can be a source of confusion for Southerners and Northerners alike.
Honestly, I'm not sure what you mean by twang. Do you mean glottal stops?

I've read from a number of sources and also from my own experience that dấu hỏi and dấu ng� are pronounced the same in Southern Vietnamese. Do you concur? In Northern Vietnamese, they are markedly different.

As for your list, I wasn't aware that 'c�' is a word and of course you could have added aunt and ancient and flag/chess etc etc, but it sounds like you've studied a lot of Vietnamese and are well aware of that. Your argument seems to be that Southerners pronounce the different tones correctly therefore everyone can understand them - but if they pronounce 2 of them exactly the same, surely this is a potential source of confusion?
Still - if one party pronounces a completely 'new' tone then the other party will also be confused. For example - A Southerner is talking about his father's horse and the Northerner thinks he's talking about his father's grave. The Southerner re-iterates horse so the Northerner replies 'ah.. horse' the Southerner then hasn't got a clue what he's on about and continues to reiterate horse and they are back to square one.

Personally, I don't think that people from different parts of the country are particularly capable of understanding each other well at all. I went to do my laundry in HN once and listened to a male Southerner attempting to get his done too. The Southerner was going 'giặt ủi' 'giặt ủi' 'giặt ủi' 'giặt ủi' and the perplexed Northerner was replying 'l� hoi' 'l� hoi' 'l� hoi'. The poor guy took longer than me to sort it out, the women was far from helpful rabbiting on at a million miles per hour like Hanoians do.

My point is that in my experience, it seems that Northern is perhaps the 'least' difficult for most Vietnamese overall to understand. Perhaps I'm wrong. I do get comments of 'chuẩn' and 'rang' (could you tell me how to spell this word correctly - I still haven't worked it out yet?) when I speak Northern to Southerners. Again, this is only my experience of what I've noticed in various parts of the country.

Jbhughes wrote:

"Personally, I don't see any particular dialect or accent easier to learn for an English speaking person - but the above might help you make a decision.