VIETNAMESE VS ENGLISH: FUNCTION WORDS

VIETNAMESE VS ENGLISH: TONE OR INTONATION

In response to my students’ complaint about the fact that Vietnamese tones are so difficult, I say: Yes, they are, but you still make them every day in English.

Vietnamese has six tones from low to high: low constricted tone (nặng), falling tone (huyền), level tone (ngang), rising tone (sắc), falling rising tone (hỏi) and high rising tone (ngã).

The tones are different from but actually similar to intonation in English.

VIETNAMESE VS ENGLISH: SHORT VOWELS AND LONG VOWELS.

Vietnamese doesn't have "Short vowels" like foot and "Long vowels" like food which is different from English. That's why many new English Vietnamese learners usually say "foot" and "food" the same.

Need /niːd/ was one of the words that I was struggled with. If I didn't really pay attention to my pronunciation, the sound I made would be knit /nɪt/

VIETNAMESE VS ENGLISH: ENDING SOUNDS

Do you know that when you say "Vietnamese"? We pay more attention on how your voice goes up or down to recognize the intonation than the "ese" sound at the end.

This occurs because we don't have ending sounds such as the "s" sound at the end of cats, "d" of God, "sh" of cash, "kst" of text or "ng" of "sing". So don't be surprised when you can hear different ending sounds from the same word said by different Vietnamese people. My advice is "Ignore the ending sounds".

VIETNAMESE VS ENGLISH: VIETNAMESE IS VERY EFFICIENT

Like German, we seem to shorten sentences as much as possible. We don't waste time with filler words and many of the pleasantaries of English. But we do have many personal pronouns which in some ways are less efficient than English but they are probably the exception.

Instead of "Could you please pass me the phone?", we will say "Pass me the phone với" 

Vietnamese learning embarrassing mistakes

Please don't discourage yourself from speaking Vietnamese because of this article. Tones are important, but contexts are more important in Vietnamese.

01. Calling your wife/husband/friends' mother a "ghost".

Má with low constricted tone (Mother) vs Ma with level tone (Ghost)

02. Calling your wife/husband/friends' uncle a "dog" or "breasts".

Chú with "ch" initial consonant (Uncle in father's side) vs dú with "y" initial consonant.

1. Harry, Ruby gặp Tuấn

     Harry: Xin giới thiệu với Tuấn, đây là Ruby, bạn tôi.

      Tuấn: Chào chị Ruby. Rất vui được gặp chị.

      Ruby: Chào anh. Rất hân hạnh được làm quen với anh.

 2. Gặp Tuấn

     Harry: Xin chào Tuấn. Tôi là Harry, tôi là học sinh.

      Tuấn: Chào Bạn Harry.Tôi là Tuấn, tôi cũng là học sinh.

      Harry: Rất hân hạnh được gặp bạn.

      Tuấn: Tôi cũng vậy

 3. Harry, Ruby và Tuấn xem bản đồ thành phố Đà Nẵng.

 Tình huống 1

      A: Taxi!

      B: Anh đi đâu ạ?

      A: Chở anh đến sân bay nhé.

      B: Vâng.

 Tình huống 2

      A: Taxi

      B: Anh đi đâu ạ?

      A: Chở anh đến địa chỉ này.

      B: Được rồi.

 Tình huống 3

      A: Taxi

      B: Em đi đâu ạ

      A: Anh cho em xuống ở chỗ căn nhà màu xanh kia nha anh.

      B: Đây đúng không em?

      A: Dạ đúng rồi. Bao nhiêu tiền vậy ạ?

      B: 50.000 đồng.