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.

• Starting with level tone, you can try to be a “robot”, speaking with a monotone. Or please say the words: “I, you or No” without any emotions, I’m pretty sure that you did the level tone successfully. To make the level tone, make sure that the starting point of your word is the same as the ending point of your word.

• Moving to the falling tone, as the name of the tone says, your tone has to fall down. It sounds like you are walking slowly downhill or you’re informing sad news. For example, if someone asks me whether I passed my driving test and because I failed and I am very sad, I will answer: No with falling tone, it can be level tone to some people, but definitely not NO with the other tones. Also If the starting point and ending point of the level tone are equal, the ending point of the level tone must be lower, here. So in Vietnamese, the word watermelon with a level tone will be Dua whereas coconut with level tone sounds Dua.

• To make the falling rising tone, try to imagine the word you want to say being put at the end of a question, you will find your tone go down then up like this:

What

• The high rising tone is quite similar to the falling rising tone, all you need to do is choose a higher level to start your word with and end it with. Actually we don’t really make the high rising tone with the Southern accent.
• With regard to the rising tone, choose a starting point then try to rise intonation up, exactly like the way you say the words: wet, pet or set in English. Your tone can never go down.

Wet

• Now please try to say the word: “Logistics” in English. You will find your tone go this way:

 Lo   gis   tics

• Do you know that it’s not easy for us to make three different tones in just one word like this? And you can do it easily.

It is my own experience after nearly 10 years teaching Vietnamese and English. They are also common mistakes and opinions from my lovely students. Please source it and put the link at the end if you use any of these ideas as your reference.