And it’s not just nouns that are simple…. If you think this would get confusing, ask yourself: can you remember a single time in your life when you heard someone talking about “the sheep” or “the fish” and you got confused because you didn’t know how many animals they were talking about? It is difficult to both produce and detect the different tones. Some examples of common single syllable words can be seen below. Culturally, Vietnam is a fascinating place. It operates under the 80:20 Pareto principle, in that 80% of your languages needs are covered by 20% of the functional language. Tôi hy vọng bạn vui khi đọc! The only thing waiters understand of my Vietnamese is "ca fe sua da" - iced coffee! A corollary to this is something that will give anyone’s who’s studied a European language a sigh of relief: Vietnamese tenses are so easy it’s practically cheating. You need to be patient, persistent, diligent and consistent but if you keep it up, you will eventually get there! — There is no use for the be verb in this type of sentence. Vietnamese Is Not Difficult to Learn Vietnamese Has No Confusing Verb Endings. The Vietnamese language has far fewer words to learn compared to English. Vocabulary is very far from English's, although newer terminology tends to be borrowed from English. Vietnamese was originally an oral language which ran alongside the written language of Vietnam which was classical Chinese. Girls talk with higher tones of … In 111 BC, the Han Dynasty of China added Vietnam into their empire. It is easier for you to learn Vietnamese when you live here. Speaking Vietnamese and understanding spoken Vietnamese makes Mandarin look easy. 1 The Hard Part: Pronunciation In Vietnamese. Pity the poor learner of Spanish. However, I have found it an incredibly hard language to master, and I am sure many of you have experienced similar feelings when learning English or another language. Spoken Vietnamese is actually harder to learn than Chinese, because Vietnamese has six tones whereas Chinese only has four, and 90% of all Chinese words are only one syllable in length. In 1858 the French came to Vietnam. depends on your mother tongue. Here's the good news: Vietnamese is a completely non-inflective language – no word ever changes its form in any context. Just take the original verb, e.g. 13. You can now express yourself in Vietnamese in any tense! Vietnamese has 33 phonemes made up of 21 consonant sounds and 12 vowel sounds. It's true that, with six tones and a plethora of strange vowel sounds that we don’t have in English, pronouncing Vietnamese can be tricky. He speaks four languages and has dabbled in another five, and has been to more than forty countries. Hopefully I've managed to undo some of the myths and misconceptions you may have held around Vietnamese, and given you an insight into how the language works. mới = in the recent past, more recently than đã, Tôi mới ăn cÆ¡m = I just ate rice, I recently ate rice, Tôi đang ăn cÆ¡m = I am eating rice (right now), Tôi sắp ăn cÆ¡m = I am going to eat rice, I am about to eat rice. I nói, you nói, he or she nói, we nói, you all nói, and they nói. In her view, Vietnamese is not harder than any other language to learn. In particular, in the areas of science and technology. Urdu. Initially these loan words were Chinese as China had pretty sizeable influence over Vietnam for much of its history. Here are nine reasons why Vietnamese is easier than you think: If you've ever learned French, Spanish, German, or just about any European language except English, you just breathed a huge sigh of relief. So with that in mind, I feel able to answer the question, how hard is Vietnamese to learn? You can focus your energy on pronunciation because Vietnamese grammar is in many ways simple and predictable. It is the native language of the Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a first or second language for other ethnic groups in Vietnam. Vocabulary – The words in Vietnamese are often formed in a very logical manner. Learning Vietnamese is possible and well worth the effort. The answer is that Vietnamese, if you are able to move past the initial difficulty of the tones, is in many ways a reasonably straight forward language to take on. The same happened to Clairol when it attempted to sell a curling iron called the “Mist stick” to German markets. Wasn’t that simple? Learn Vietnamese with a friend or family member. English isn’t nearly as inflective as Spanish, but we still do it to some extent – for example the word “speak” can inflect to “speaks”, “speaking”, “spoken”, or “spoke”. Verbs – Verbs are pretty straight forward in Vietnamese. The written Chinese was read with Vietnamese words. In English, when we want to make something plural we usually stick an “s” on the end of it. It is a tonal language which means it is musical. The letters f, j, w, z are not found in the native Vietnamese alphabet however they are used for names and loans words from other languages. Heavy – start low, fall lower then stop –, Asking – begin low, dips a little then rise to a higher pitch – bả – poison, Tumbling – begin above mid level dips slightly then rise sharply –. And unless you can get to grips with them, nearly everything else falls by the wayside. Just how difficult is the Vietnamese language? This was a type of Chinese hybrid with many new characters created by Vietnamese. The tones of Vietnamese pose a serious challenge. It has maritime borders with Thailand in the Gulf of Thailand, and the Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia in the South China Sea. In many languages there are both genders and associated articles so you not going to be slowed down having to learn these. Well, was it close, or did you close? They rate Vietnamese as a category 4 language along with languages like Hebrew, Russian and Urdu. Take the food as an example, there are so many. The capital city is Hanoi, however the largest city is Ho Chi Minh City in the south of Vietnam, sometimes called Saigon. đã word to denote past. Admittedly, a somewhat sobering introduction. This means no complex verb changes. Practice speaking with each other on a daily basis, and frequently quiz each other over new vocabulary. Did you present the present, read what I’ve read, or object to the object? “Dog” becomes “dogs”, “table” becomes “tables” and “house” becomes “houses”. Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language. Each person has their own motivation for taking on a language, but without a doubt i’d say there are three important reasons why people might learn Vietnamese. Even the same letter can be pronounced a ton of different ways – like the letter “a” in “catch”, “male”, “farmer”, “bread”, “read” and “meta”. Auxiliary verbs – They precede the main verb, this is very simple. Vietnam has a vibrant and growing tourist industry. This is why you'll often hear Vietnamese people using incomplete English sentences like “no have” or “where you go?”. But people tend to lack dedication because you can live a perfectly convenient life in Vietnam without speaking a word of the language. But this means that, of the Vietnamese who speak English, the majority are concentrated in this one sector. A lot of the vowel sounds combine together in Vietnamese so keep an eye on that. It would be difficult to master Vietnamese at the level of native speakers (well as for any languages a foreigner want to learn), but if you want a level for communication like my English level here only, it could be a piece of cake. In later years still, as with many languages, English also had a significant impact. As we will see, many more aspects of Vietnamese grammar are dễ rather than khó. First of all, some good news. Answer 1 of 14: Hi.....probably a questions geared towards all the expats here! There aren’t that many vowel or consonant sounds in Vietnamese that you don’t find in English, in terms of consonants some people have trouble with the ng sound. Also, there are no articles for Vietnamese. The answer is that Vietnamese, if you are able to move past the initial difficulty of the tones, is in many ways a reasonably straight forward language to take on. Everything on the menu is in English, there are usually even pictures in the menu list. This is actually just one example of a wider point: Vietnamese grammar is incredibly simple. So with that in mind, I feel able to answer the question, how hard is Vietnamese to learn? 14. In terms of learning to read, Korean has a relatively straightforward alphabet that doesn't take too long to learn, unlike the characters used in Chinese and Japanese writing systems, so you can start sounding out words pretty quickly. I hablo, you hablas, he habla, we hablamos, and the list goes on. The surprise was that Vietnamese wasn't only about many accents, It was about pronunciation and ages as well. The word người, which I’ve already mentioned, can be used for both “people” or “person”; “chó” is “dog” or “dogs”, “bàn” is “table” or “tables”, and so on. If this is the case, then you probably haven’t been to a real Chinese restaurant. I only know basic words but I'm trying very hard to … There are classifiers for many things from bottles, to flowers to vehicles. Người can mean both a person or “the person”, and you never need to worry about the distinction. It is the underdog Chinese language to the big brother Mandarin and is in many ways a more fascinating and challenging language to take on. “ăn” (to eat), and stick one of the following 5 words in front of it: (There are a few others, but with these 5 you’ll be fine in 99% of situations.). Over the last 5 years, at various points I have tried to learn Vietnamese so that I can integrate better with my family in-law and experience more of Vietnamese culture. This script shares many letter from the English alphabet while at the same time adding additional letters for long and short vowels and diacritics to denote tones. However, there are many exceptions. My hovercraft is full of eels – Tàu cánh ngầm của tôi đầy lươn. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. But is it really that important whether you’re talking about “a” something or “the” something? You may be able to learn Vietnamese faster as well. The Vietnamese alphabet, as literally known as “national language script”, is the modern writing system for the Vietnamese language. Pity the poor learner of Spanish. Around as many people live in Iceland as live in Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland. In the modern era government-controlled media has kept a strong grip on national cultural values while in recent years Southeast Asian, East Asian as well as Western culture have played a increasingly influential role. Answer 1 of 14: Hi.....probably a questions geared towards all the expats here! If 1 is super easy and 10 is some super hard tribal language based on clicks then spoken Vietnamese is probably an 8, maybe 9. But most expats in Vietnam (of which I was one for a year) fail to realise that the pronunciation is just about the only difficult thing about Vietnamese. They’re just translating directly from how they’d say it in Vietnamese, forgetting to apply the much more complicated rules that English insists on. Canadian Mist, a brand of whiskey, failed in German markets because “Mist” in German means “manure.” It features six tones (two of which are particularly tricky), a large number of vowel sounds and several sounds that are unlike anything in English. I later got to practice speaking and listening first hand around 12 years ago when I visited the country. The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has put together a relative comparison of world languages including Vietnamese. Vietnamese is a tonal language, and in total there are 6 tones. The Vietnamese language is truly a fascinating language to take on. I would say it is very different from English, due to its tonal features. [...]. Consonants IPA – m, k, j, w, n, t, l, s, ŋ, h, f, ɲ, ʔ, z, v, x, ɣ, c, tʰ, ɓ, ɗ. Vowels IPA – e, o, ɛ, ɔ, ɪ, ʊ, ʌ, ɤ, ɐ, a̟ː, ɯ̞, ʌ̯. Vietnamese is really hard to learn, if your native language is English. Word Order – Vietnamese grammar has a subject-verb-object word order, which is of course similar to English. Quick question: how do you pronounce the English words “read”, “object”, “close”, and “present”? Job done! Problem No. Below, I’ll be sharing the easy and hard aspects of learning Vietnamese, along with some ideas to help make the hard parts easier for English-speakers. Adjectives/Adverbs – Adjectives and adverbs are interchangeable and they are placed after the noun or the verb that they are describing. Doing the maths, just 0.005% of the seven billion people on this globe speak Icelandic. Is Vietnamese a Difficult Language to Learn? Shutterstock/Eiko Tsuchiya. As you build up a foundation of basic words, they become more than the sum of their parts as you automatically unlock hundred of new translations. Even to say something as simple as the word “speak” (hablar), he or she has to learn five or six (depending on dialect) different verb endings for the present tense alone . Have I convinced you yet that Vietnamese just might be easier than you previously thought? The Range of Vocabulary is Quite Manageable. I already mentioned how Vietnamese lets you leave out the tense word (like saying “I eat rice yesterday”) if what you mean is obvious from the context. 1.0.1 Diacritical marks for tones in Vietnamese; 2 Getting started with learning Vietnamese. In fact, learning to read Vietnamese is actually easier than learning to read English, because…. Questions – To form a question you need to do the following. In Vietnamese, everything is like a sheep. Clairol and Canadian Mist’s German Blunder Are you inspired to study Vietnamese after reading this article? In 938 AD the Vietnamese defeated the Chinese and gained independence. Uzbek. The language deconstruction method is by no means exhaustive, but it is a good base for understanding Vietnamese. The English language has a lot of weird spelling, grammar, and pronunciation rules. Next, the following are Vietnamese compound words formed from two existing words. It’s simpl(er than you think)! Prepositions – There are a whole load of prepositions to be learnt and they are placed before whichever word they are referring to. 15. Not impossible though but tones are everything. The way it rolled off people’s tongues and the way the words carry more weight to them because of subtext. The country of Vietnam has a land border with China in the north, and the countries of Laos and Cambodia to the west. This is one of the major stumbling blocks for speakers with a non tonal native language. This isn’t something that’s often talked about, so let me clear the air and say it straight up: Whether you succeed (or fail) at learning a new language has a lot to do with how you manage your emotions. Conclusion: Is Vietnamese Hard? In order to understand the grammar of a language it is necessary to deconstruct the basic sentences to observe how the language functions. The country was broken into two parts with Communist North Vietnam and the anti-Communist South. In truth, like many people, I first heard the language in the Vietnam war movies of the 80s and 90s. But, if you dedicate the time and effort to learning the 6 tones then the rewards are fantastic. George is a polyglot, linguistics nerd and travel enthusiast from the U.K. Even to say something as simple as the word “speak” (, ), he or she has to learn five or six (depending on dialect) different verb endings for the present tense alone . Vietnamese, on the hand, has none of this nonsense. The first dynasty of Vietnam is considered to be Hong Bang Dynasty. It is also commonly spoken in Cambodia, Laos, China, the USA, and France. To give you some concrete examples (“tôi” means “I”): Better yet, you can often skip these words entirely if it’s obvious from the context – for example “tôi ăn cÆ¡m hom qua” – “I eat rice yesterday” – is perfectly valid Vietnamese. Natural sights include the National Park of Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng, some coastal regions like Nha Trang, and the awesome caves at Hạ Long Bay. They believe it would take 44 weeks (1100 hours) to achieve a L3 proficiency in speaking and reading. Even to say something as simple as the word “speak” (hablar), he or she has to learn five or six (depending on dialect) different verb endings for the present tense alone . Cantonese is a must learn language for anyone with an interest in Hong Kong, or southern China more broadly. Pity the poor learner of Spanish. I think American people studying Vietnamese just have to go through as much difficulty as Vietnamese learning English do. The technical term is that Spanish verbs (and nouns, and adjectives) inflect, meaning the same word can take different forms depending on the context. That’s dozens, if not hundreds of hours of work saved compared to learning almost any European language. Learning Vietnamese is not very difficult because it has syllables and rhymes. 12. Here are 11 of its anomalies that make it difficult to learn. 2.0.1 Picking up one of two beginner’s coursebooks in Vietnamese; 2.0.2 Do another beginner’s course in parallel ; 2.0.3 Assimil for Vietnamese; 2.0.4 FSI Vietnamese; 3 Improve your spoken comprehension, grammar and tones with Glossika if ur from countries where people dont use tones in their languages then its really hard. So if you’re learning Vietnamese, or thinking about learning, it’s likely that all you’ve been getting so far is discouragement! The combinations are somewhat logical and make forming memory mnemonics pretty straight forward. The reason? Learning Vietnamese can make you feel a part of a tight-knit community that honors your effort to learn their language with patience and kindness. You can just learn the word as it … Factor in different tenses and subtleties like the grammatical “mood” (indicative vs subjunctive), and a single Spanish verb has over fifty different forms that learners have to memorize. The same letter is always pronounced the same way no matter what the word or context (disclaimer: this holds true more for Hanoi Vietnamese than Saigon Vietnamese, which has a very small number of inconsistencies), and you can always tell from reading a single Vietnamese word exactly how it’s supposed to be pronounced. The supposed difficulty of Vietnam's official language is a point of national pride amongst its 90 million inhabitants, and locals are happy to tell you “tiếng Việt khó!” (Vietnamese is hard) at every possible opportunity. Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips. Pronouns – This is where things can get tricky. Easy. With Vietnamese vocabulary, words are either single syllable or formed through compounding or reduplication. Don't believe me? The Wikipedia page on “articles”, as they’re called, is over 2500 words long! They do not change for subject, gender or tense. Some of the more popular cultural locations include the capital city of Hanoi, the bustling sprawling city of Saigon, and the imperial city of Hue. It is spoken by 85  million people. In truth, there are 90 million people in Vietnam and by learning the language you can better understand a more diverse bunch of people. Congratulations! Around the 13th century Vietnamese began to be written in a script called Chữ-nôm. In attempting to learn anything it is best to first deconstruct the problem and then break down the learning task into manageable chunks. Answer 1 of 14: Hi.....probably a questions geared towards all the expats here! Today, that’s been 100% superseded by a version of the Latin alphabet (i.e. Though we have listed ten reasons for why Vietnamese is difficult,，here is actually one major reason: the pronunciation. PRODUCTS • ABOUT BENNY • MEET BENNY • CONTACT • SPEAK IN A WEEK • LANGUAGE HACKING BOOKS • PRIVACY POLICY. The north of Vietnam was dominated by China for much of its history while the central and southern parts of Vietnam also have a Champa and Khmer influence. In the 1960’s, Pepsi took its “Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation” slogan to China, which was not well very well received. Reduplication is also very common in Vietnamese. The French continued their rule until defeated by the communists in 1954 under the leadership Ho Chi Minh. In the 80s Vietnam switched from a centralised command economy to this more mixed market economy. For instance, if I told you that máy means “machine” and bay means “flying”, could you guess what máy bay means? It is hard! So, unlike Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Thai, Cambodian, Korean, Hindi, or dozens of other Asian languages, there's no need to learn a new alphabet to read Vietnamese . I am a Vietnamese and Vietnamese is absolutely the easiest language ever. In Chinese, this translates to “Pepsi brings your relatives back from the dead.” It’s a great excuse to spend some time in Thailand! i was in a cafe the other day and a Vietnamese man who had a very sore throat was bemoaning, in perfectly understandable English that no one around could understand him if he spoke Vietnamese. Stress doesn’t play too significant a part in Vietnamese. It’s usually obvious from the context which one you mean. In 1893 the French added Vietnam to their empire of French Indochina. Basically, it's near impossible to learn it without total immersion once inside this country - even if you know proper words and accent symbols, the pronunciation is the real difficult part. Vietnamese. In recent years the country also attracts a lot of foreign investment and tourism also plays a big role in the economy. I loved the way it sounds. But it’s not too difficult for a child to be able to learn it, and if a child can learn Vietnamese, so can you. You can thank the French for this one. We must admit that pronouncing Vietnamese can be hard and arduous since it has six tones and numbers of strange vowel sounds that don’t exist in English. If someone who was studying English asked you when to use “a” before a word, and when to use “the”, would you be able to explain? Japanese has [...], If you’ve ever been to a Chinese restaurant, you might think it’s super easy to order. The Vietnamese economy is a mixed market economy. Learn the word nói, and you know how to say “speak” in all contexts and tenses for all speakers. Also, take note that the pronoun for, Nouns – In Vietnamese there are no cases that have to be learnt and plurals are formed by placing the word. It's a big disadvantage for Vietnamese people wanting to learn English, but it makes your life much easier as a learner of Vietnamese. #3 Vietnamese. Vietnamese has no concept of “masculine” or “feminine” words. Articles – In Vietnamese there are no articles. Put Mandarin spoken Mandarin at a 6. level 2 In this article, I want to give you an alternate perspective, and offer you some encouragement, because chances are that Vietnamese is easier than you think. However, a lot of Chinese vocabulary made it into Vietnamese because of the use of the written language. Statement + no (không), statement + right (phải) + no (không) or statement + can (được) + no (không). The script is written from left to right. Perhaps that’s [...], Since I was little, I’ve loved the cadence of the beautiful Japanese language. There are also question words which can be placed at the beginning or the end of the sentence. “Person” becomes “people”, “mouse” becomes “mice”, “man” becomes “men”, and some words like “sheep” or “fish” don’t change at all. This is pretty straight forward. You bet it is! And most of all, I love how Japanese describes beautiful things and beautiful feelings. Let us know in the comments. Each has some key differences from the other. The North Vietnamese eventually won and the country was united by the communists in 1975. All you have to do is learn a bunch of accent marks (technically “diacritics”), which are mostly used to denote tone, and you’ll be reading Vietnamese in no time. Up until about 100 years ago, Vietnamese was written (by the tiny percentage of the population who were literate back then) using a complicated pictoral system called Chữ Nôm that's similar to today’s Chinese characters. You just arrive, order, eat, drink and go. Learning Vietnamese is neither hard nor easy. The red script denotes the consonant symbols, the blue script denotes the vowel symbols and the green script denotes vowel markers. Vietnamese is hard to learn. 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Easier than learning to read Vietnamese is really hard to learn, when we want to make something we... Read what I’ve read, or southern China more broadly, without need... Vowel symbols and the anti-Communist South or did you close gender or tense to learn has! Green script denotes the vowel sounds combine together in Vietnamese are often formed in a •... In the economy a language it is easier for you to learn their language with patience kindness! And gained independence and frequently quiz each other on a daily basis, and website in this type sentence!