Mặt v. Trái

Oh wow. I wasn't prepared for this.

mặt = right and trái = left.

Ok. That's the easy bit done.

Now get this.

In Vietnamese, when you are trying to explain where something is, you explain it from the perspective of the object you are explaining.

I don't... I don't even....

Example:

Nhà ga ở bên tay mặt khách-sạn.

Literally:

Railway station is located side hand right hotel.

Sweet, you think. The station is to the right of the hotel.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The answer is - the station is to the left of the hotel.

How could this be, I hear you ask?

Well, when describing positions in Vietnamese, you explain where things are positioned from the viewpoint of the object you are using as a reference point. So, in this example, the railway station is on the hotel's right-hand side, so therefore your left-hand side because you are looking at the hotel.

It's like looking in a mirror.

How incredibly abstract is that concept? Does this make the Vietnamese super existential beings if they're always thinking like this?

Another couple of things I've picked up. Ông, bà and cô which are used depending on who you are talking to are also used for Mr, Mrs and Miss. That makes things easier. So Ông Phương is Mr Phương, Bà Phương is Mrs Phương and Cô Phương is Miss Phương. That makes things a bit easier.

I'm finding that the language itself is becoming easier to speak, and slightly ever more natural. Only slightly mind you. It's not the grammar that's a worry, apart from very strange directional concepts like that above (to our Western eyes at least). Even the writing is reading is becoming ok only after a couple of weeks.

It's the comprehension.

Đó là khách-sạn Majestic, phải không?

Up to Lesson 2 now (out of 5 in the elementary volume) in the Foreign Services Institute Vietnamese course.

This is the dialogue thrown at me right at the beginning of the lesson:

Xin lỗi ông, đó là khách-sạn Majestic, phải không?

Không phải. Dạ đó là khách-sạn Caravelle.

Vậy, khách-sạn Majestic ở dâu?

Ở cuối dừơng nầy, bên tay mặt.

Có xa không ông?

Dạ không, gần lắm.

Cám ơn ông.

Dạ không có gì.

Xin lỗi bà. Đó là khách-sạn Majestic, phải không?

Dạ phải.

Cám ơn bà.

Literally:

Excuse me you man, that is hotel Majestic, true not?

Not true. (Answer word) it is hotel Caravelle.

Then, hotel Majestic located where?

Located end street this, side hand right.

(Emphasis on following word word) far not you?

(Answer word) not, near somewhat.

Thank you man.

(Answer word) not anything.

Excuse me you married woman. that is hotel Majestic, true not?

(Answer word) true.

Thank you married woman.

Plain English:

Excuse me, is that the hotel Majestic?

No, it's the hotel Caravelle.

Then where is the hotel Majestic?

At the end of the street on the right hand side.

Is it far?

No, it's close.

Thanks.

It's nothing.

Excuse me, is that the hotel Majestic?

Yes.

Thank you.

I guess the key things to pick up from this part of the course are the use of extra words we don't have in English. 

Dạ seems to feature commonly as an answer word to a question - it's sort of just like saying 'it is' but only when answering a question. 

Có seems to be used when asking a simple question, followed by không which is sort of like 'not'. It's like when the French ask a question and follow it by 'non?'

The only other main grammar point seems to be the use of là, which is more than just 'is' but 'is equal to'. Tôi là Smith - I am Smith - is an example. Ở would translate to 'is' in plain English, but its exact meaning is 'located at.'

Other than than, Vietnamese seems to eliminate some of the seemingly unnecessary little words we use in English. Once again, the main problem here is memorising the dialogue and mastering it - especially playing the part of one person in the dialogue and answering at the speed of a normal Vietnamese speaker.

 

Tôi đi lại nhà giăy thép

Tôi đi lại nhà giăy thép - I'm going to the post office. Who thought I'd be able to say that after less than two weeks?

So the Foreign Services Institute runs you through the basic dialogue, like the one I did yesterday, then really expands on it - really drills it into your head. You have to participate in the conversation like you're the other person so you have to think quickly on your feet.

The basic conversation yesterday was just a couple of lines:

Chào ông, ông mạnh giọi không?
Dạ mạnh, cám ơn ông. Còn ông?
Dạ tôi cũng mạnh. Ông đi dâu dó?
Tôi đi lại nhà ga.
Vậy thì hay lắm, Tôi cũng đi lại nhá ga.

I've got to the point now where I can transliterate all this, so, literally, word for word, this is the above conversation:

Greetings you, you healthy good? (Don't know what không is literally yet)
Indication of politeness and respect good, thank you. And you?
Indication of politeness and respect I also good. You go where there?
I go reach train station.
If it is like that it is very good. I also go reach train station.

Now properly translated:

Hello, how are you?
Good thanks. And you?
Also good. Where you are going?
Train station.
Nice. So am I.

No wonder language is such a barrier, and why it seems impossible that Google translate will ever work.

But now the course picks up the tempo a bit. All the 'ông's up there? That's just when you're talking to a man. You use bà for an older/married chick and cô for girls and young/unmarried women. So in the following exercises you replace all the ông with bà and cô.

Keep in mind, however, this course was written in 1968 and this could have very well changed.

The other thing they throw in are a few place names, not just the ol' nhà ga but:

nhà băng - bank
nhà giây thép - post office
nhà thương - hospital
tiệm ăn - restaurant
khách-sạn - hotel
bén xe dò - bus station
trừơng - school

So mix these in with the existing conversation template and you got yourself some basic Vietnamese.

Solid word count of at least 30 words now. Now just to remember all this stuff when I start jabbering to the next Vietnamese person I see.

Chảo Ông

There's a fair amount of reading before you start the first lesson on the Foreign Services Institute Vietnamese course. Above all, the writer of the course stresses you must completely master one lesson before moving on to the next.

The first dialogue is as follows:

Chào ông. Ông mạnh giỏi không? Hello. Are you well?

Dạ mạnh, cám ơn ông. Còn ông? Fine, thank you. And you?

Dạ tôi cũng mạnh. I'm fine too.

Ông đi đău đó? Where are you going?

Tôi đi lại nhà ga. To the railroad station.

Vặi thì hay lắm. Tôi cũng đi lại nhà ga. Oh, that's great. I'm going to the railroad station too.

Pretty simple stuff right? Well, I'm going to do what the man says and learn it off by heart and be able to respond at normal talking speed to the man in the recording.

While I do this, on a side note I found a link for how long the Foreign Services Institute thinks it should take an average English speaker to master a language here.

Vietnamese? 1100 hours apparently - a Category II language. Not quite a Category III - Arabic and Mandarin - 2200 hours. But not a Category I either - French and Spanish, etc - ̉600 hours.

Still, to think that Vietnamese could be on a par with Polish? And that it's not considered the most difficult language for English speakers to master, not by a long shot? Very reassuring.

Vietnamese sentences

Well it has taken over a week just to get through the Vietnamese pronunciation part of the Foreign Services Institute course but I've done it.

Eight tapes - I reckon about 3 1/2 hours - just learning how to use the Vietnamese alphabet.

Of course the time to get through them takes at least twice that amount as you stop and start, rewind, and listen again because of how foreign this language really is to the ears of an English speaker.

I've spent at least an hour a day on this over 9 or 10 days.

The last part of the the pronunciation guide was just a ton of Vietnamese sentences to repeat after the man on the tape says them. It starts off with two syllable sentences and works up to six syllable sentences. At the beginning I was wondering why we needed to go over these again, but by the end I was grateful.

Try saying ̣'Đó không phạ̉i là trường học' at the speed of normal spoken Vietnamese (let alone type the bloody thing).

So I appreciate what this course has been trying to do. It has devoted 60 odd pages to pronunciation alone from what seems to be a 300 page volume - 20% of the course. Think about other language books - the pronunciation guide is usually only couple of pages.

It's very repetitive but frankly I can't even imagine starting this course without having gone through all of that. Any other language, possibly - but not Vietnamese.

And despite not knowing any actual words in Vietnamese after a week of study, which seems like a very strange predicament, I feel very well prepared and inducted to begin the course. I honestly believe pronunciation is probably the most difficult part of this language so it's good to get that out of the way first.

Plus you feel like a real pro once you're able to say 'Đó không phại là trường học' at speed - even if you have no idea what it actually means.

Vietnamese diphthongs

Not as hard as they sound. When two vowels are sitting next to each other, e.g. hai, thôi, người, and so on, you just blend 'em all together.

In reality it's a lot more complicated than this but as a beginner this is pretty much what I picked up and it's a pretty good rule of thumb.

For some reason the Foreign Services Institute breaks up diphthongs into four groups - I'm not sure what purpose this serves. Maybe we'll find out later on.

Group 1 = syllables ending in 'ai', 'ui' and 'oi' sound variants
Group 2 = syllables ending in 'ua', 'ong', 'oc' and 'iet' sounds
Group 3 = syllables ending in 'iu', 'au', 'ao' and 'u' sounds
Group 4 = syllables ending in 'oy, 'oa', 'an', 'at', 'uy' and 'uyen' sounds

The writer of the course really freaks out about Group 4 syllables and how intense they are. He says all the other diphthongs 'glide' to another vowel, but Group 4 ones start with a glide. He writes an entire page about it.

I don't get the problem. You move from one vowel sound to another, so what? Who cares what you glide from and to?

I'm probably such a noob I can't hear the differences yet.

What I'm getting from all this is that of all languages I've encountered before, it seems as though pronunciation is the most important for Vietnamese. You may be able to bumble and mumble your way through English and be understood well enough, but Vietnamese pronunciation is so subtly nuanced that you could really stuff up if you don't pay attention to it.

Think about it: in a word like 'institution' you really stretch out all the sounds into a multi-syllablic word. I just looked it up in Vietnamese - one synonym is sự lặp. What a difference. It seems like in Vietnamese you really cram all the sounds of the language into tiny little syllables.

I'm really starting to like this language. It seems like nothing else on earth!

Vietnamese keyboard

On a positive side note I've found out how to write Vietnamese like a pro with my keyboard and do cool stuff like ă and ư and even ồ̀ at the touch of a button. I went to 'Control Panel', 'Region and Language', 'Change Keyboards', click it again, 'Add Keyboards', found Vietnamese and presto: all I need to do now to alternate between an English and Vietnamese keyboard is to press left Alt + Shift.

So to write Vietnamese letters you just have to push these keys:

ă = 1
â = 2
ê = 3
ô = 4
̀ (5th tone) = 5
̉ (4th tone) = 6
̃ (3rd tone) = 7
́ (2nd tone) = 8
̣(??) = 9
đ = 0
₫ (what on earth is this tiny crossed d for?) = +/=
ư = [
ơ = ]

I'm sure there are more and I'll put them up when I find them. If you're planning to undertake this mental project to learn Vietnamese with me I hope you find it as easy to convert your English keyboard into a Vietnamese one as I did.

Vietnamese final consonants and other hilariously difficult random stuff

Well. Just when I was feeling confident Vietnamese spear-tackled me headfirst into the concrete floor.

All the consonants I just learnt? Almost all completely irrelevant.

1. When they're at the end of the word, instead of the beginning, they sound different.

2. How they sound depends on what vowel comes before them.

3. Some of these 'end consonants' sound like a blend of two consonants you never thought possible to blend into a single sound.

Are you ready? This is what I've picked up for final consonants.

-m - pretty much sounds like our m at the end of the word.
-nh - now our 'n' at the end of a word
-n - the same, but only when it comes after i or ô
-ng - like 'ng' in 'song' but only after vowels which are not o, ô or u
-n - the same but only after vowels which are not i, ê, ô, u except when it is preceded by an iê or yê. Seriously Vietnamese, seriously?
-p - like our 'p' but it makes the word said very quickly, so kịp is said like you're saying it really, really quickly - essentially smashing the two consonants together while also trying to incorporate the tone.
-ch - like our 't' but with the same 'speeding up effect' as the 'p' sound above
-t - same as above but only after i or ê but not when preceded by iế
-c - our 'k' but only after vowels which are not o, ô or u
-t - same as above but only after vowels which are not i, ê, ô or u except when preceded by iế
-ng and -n after vowels o, ô or u, just in case you were wondering, is pronounced like a combination of an English 'm' and 'ng'. Digest that for a second.
-c after o, ô or u and t after ô or u is pronounced like a combination of an English 'k' and 'p'.

I'm dumbfounded at the complexity of the language. Is this what it's like to learn English?

I've already seen a contradiction in the rules above but it appears contradictions are allowed.

Some extra things:

'tiêm' and 'tim' are said the same
-ip and -iêp are said the same

And just a couple of extra vowels thrown in for good measure:

ă - it's a short 'a' unlike the regular Vietnamese a
â - also a short 'a', but only used before -ng or -n. Both ă and â can, for some wacky reason, be used interchangeably before either -m or -p

Which of course brings the total amount of vowels in the Vietnamese language up to about 11 from last count and consonants up to somewhere around what seems like the 30 mark.

We're talking an alphabet which appears to be twice the size of ours but attempting to use the same amount of letters as ours.

I totally underestimated the difficulty of this language just because it had an English alphabet. But I plan to see the bloody thing through.

Just when we were becoming friends Vietnamese you turn around and do something like this. I'm disappointed in you man.

Let's hope learning dipthongs is a bit cruisier.

Vietnamese tone sequences

You know what? I think I was just in a bad mood yesterday - a raging Father's Day hangover probably wasn't helping.

I've come to the conclusion that I was simply over-thinking Vietnamese pronunciation.

Yesterday I was loath to start on Vietnamese tone sequences, but guess what? Not that bad. Not bad at all.

For the first time the Foreign Services Institute's Vietnamese course has started using real phrases - and spoken Vietnamese is nowhere near as challenging as I thought it would be. Sure, the pronunciation of everything is slightly different, and there are all these wacky tones, but it all seems to come together nicely.

As it turns out, Vietnamese is a beautifully musical language. Think about it: in the Western world we have seven notes in our musical octave. Well, this language has five notes and it basically sounds like a constant song. What a pleasant discovery.

The purpose of the tone sequences part of the course is to try and get you to picture what all the separate tones sound like strung together in a sentence or phrase. It runs through each of the possible combinations in a two-syllable phrase, and then a three-syllable phrase.

So you start off with two Tone 1 words next to each other, then a Tone 1 and Tone 2, then 2-1, then 1-3 and so on. It actually makes a lot of sense when you hear it and arguably more sense than trying to teach the tones separately. It's not like the tones actually change when combined with other tones - you just sort of blend them together. Much like the words 'blend' and together' sound slightly different on their own than if you were to say the phrase 'blend together', where the 'd' and the 't' sort of mix.

What's probably making Vietnamese a bit easier is I'm getting used to all these crazy sounds and they're actually starting to sound normal.

I've made another discovery: I need to work out how to 'Vietnamise' my keyboard so that I can type the extra Vietnamese letters with all the squiggles without having to copy and paste from another text.

Only three tapes to go in the pronunciation. Crikey what else could there possibly be?

I can also proudly brag I'm about 10% of the way through the course! All in four days... so does that mean basic Vietnamese will take me forty days? That would be wicked.

Vietnamese consonants

I was delusional.

I told myself that now I was done with the vowels and the tones everything would get easier from here on in.

And then I met the consonants.

I'm told by the Foreign Services Institute course in Vietnamese that pretty much all of the Vietnamese consonants are different from the English counterparts.

I'm a little suspicious, however - especially when the course tells me that the best way to pronounce a Vietnamese 'tr' is simply to imagine it as a ''voiceless, apico-alveolar, slightly affricated, retroflex stop.' Jeepers.

So below I've explained what I personally think these damned letters sound like without all the linguistic jargon.

Of course if a linguist ever does read this they'll realise I've completely butchered his craft.

Let's start with a positive. M, ph, n, l and h seem to be the same in Vietnamese and English.

But that's it.

We learnt two other aberrations.

x = s
d and gi = 'y' as in 'yet'

Now add these monsters on to that tiny list:

b = English 'b' but more explosive

v = same as Vietnamese 'd' and 'gi', i,e. 'y' as in 'yet'. (Although it appears that in North Vietnam it is said like the 'vy' in 'revue')

t = basically our 'd'

th = like our 't'

đ = like our 'd' but more explosive, with voice

ch = like our 'j'

tr = Oh man. This one. Let's just say it's like an English 'd' with a tiny little 'j' thrown in at the end - tiny mind you.

nh = the 'ny' in menu

s = our 'sh'

r = sort of our 'r'! But if I'm going to be honest there is an 'l' in there somewhere.

c and k = halfway between our 'k' and 'g'

kh = like the 'ch' on Scottish 'loch'

g and gh = say 'g' with your throat like you're gargling, almost sounds like a 'y'

ng and ngh = the 'ng' in 'singer' except at the beginning of the word

In short: the Vietnamese alphabet bears little resemblance to the sounds in our alphabet. It might as well be a separate alphabet.

Surely, surely this must be the most onerous of Vietnamese pronunciation lessons.

But I've just scrolled down for a peek preview of the next pronunciation section. 

What I've been through so far is nothing compared to what I'm about to slam into.

Vietnamese tones

Oh man.

Vietnamese has five tones. I clearly didn't do any research before jumping into my first language.

So after what seems like hours I have managed to essentially master the five Vietnamese tones, much to the chagrin of my family.

There doesn't seem like any possible way to describe them so it's best to listen to them on the Foreign Services Institute page - the tones are on tapes 2 and 3. They only total about 30 minutes in total - you listen to them in conjunction with the student text.

The only way I can sum them up is as follows:

Tone 1: the syllable is said in a pitch higher than that you would normally talk at (Imagine yelling 'Fore!' on a golf course)
Tone 2: you start at Tone 1 pitch and rise even higher - the text even says it rises to a 'squeak' (When someone tells you something shocking and you say 'What?!')
Tone 3: start at normal pitch, go down a bit then rise up (Like asking 'What?' as well but without as much intensity, more curiosity)
Tone 4: start at normal pitch and go down (just like you talk when you're really tired - low energy, dull)
Tone 5: start at lower pitch, go even lower and then rise up (like trying to show interest in something even though you're really tired)

That's all I can do to sum it up really. It's a hell of a topic.

Vietnamese. Nine vowels, five tones.

Next stop: consonants. What the hell have you got in store next Vietnamese.

(I'm through three tapes now and have just noticed there are eight tapes for pronunciation alone.)

Vietnamese vowels

I'm sitting on my couch on a rainy Saturday afternoon reciting Vietnamese vowels over and over with my wife and child having to endure the painful repetition in our small living space. The Foreign Services Institute Vietnamese course is very thorough but very repetitive. You can see how it's designed for diplomats because only a government appointed linguist could come up with such a clinical course.

Rather than you having to go through it all yourself, here are the Vietnamese vowels in a much more concise form. But the repetitive exercises no doubt have the benefit of really driving it home.

The vowels are like this:

i = i as in 'machine'

ê = a as in 'late'

e = e as in 'keg'

a = a as in 'bah'

o = aw as in 'saw'

ô = o in 'obey'

ơ = o as in 'throw' (teensy difference to the above one)

u = u as in 'thru'

ư = u as in 'sugar' (this one is hard - the way it works best in my mind is like saying the normal 'u' but as if you were stuffy from a cold)

What is that, like nine vowels? What are you doing Vietnamese people? Nine? Seriously?

On the plus side most of them seem pretty manageable. ô and ơ are annoyingly similar - they're both said the way we say it when we recite the English alphabet. But ơ seems to be more accentuated - much like when Cleveland on Family Guy says 'Oh Nooo!' - that's ơ.

u and ư. This one is a real pain in the ass. u is really like 'ooo' and ư less so - ư is more like a mild grunt.

The two other things I've picked up are that a Vietnamese 'x' is just an 's', and 'd' or 'gi' are just 'y' as in 'yet'. All the other consonants I've seen are the same as English.

By the way I'm on page 13 of 370 pages.

Kick off

6,900 languages to master and only presumably 50 odd years left to do it.

Might as well start with the world's 16th biggest language - Vietnamese. 

Why Vietnamese?

I was scrolling through Wikipedia's list of the world's biggest languages and out of fear and laziness have opted for a language which uses the English alphabet. You'll notice German, Spanish and Malay/Indonesian feature higher and also use the English alphabet.

My reasons aren't clear. Let's be honest, I just chose it at random.

So here we go. Vietnamese.

I'll have a crack at the ol' Foreign Services Institute website. 

(Reading......Reading......Reading.....)