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.
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.
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