Wednesday 8 October 2014

Getting to know ya

Lesson 3:

Xin lỗi ông. Ông tên gì?
Tôi tên là Hải. Còn ông, ông tên gì?
Tôi tên là John Smith.

Ông là người Anh, phải không?
Không phải. Tôi là người Mỹ.

Ông dến Việt-Nam hồi nào?
Tôi mới dến hôm qua.

Ông nói tiếng Việt giỏi lắm. Ông học ở đău vặy?
Dạ tôi học ở Mỹ.

Literally:

Sorry you. You named what?
I named Hai. And you, you named what?
I named John Smith.

You person English, true not?
Not true. I person American. (Not sure of the literal meaning of là yet).

You come Vietnam when?
I just come yesterday.

You speak language Vietnam good very. You study where then?
(Answer word) I study in United States.

Transliterally:

Excuse me, what's your name?
I'm Hai. And you, what's your name?
I'm John Smith.

You're English right?
No, I'm American.

When did you arrive in Vietnam?
I just came yesterday.

You speak Vietnamese well. Where did you study?
I studied in the United States.

This literal translation is pretty easy to decipher in normal spoken English.

My favourite sentence by far is "Dạ tôi học ở Mỹ" - "I studied in the United States" - because when you hear it in Vietnamese spoken at a normal speed it's just so much quicker than saying it in English. This is probably because the Vietnamese have ingeniously shortened 'the United States' down to a fantastical 'Mỹ'. But their language also just seems so much more, I guess, 'efficient' than English.

Another point here is that you always put người in front of the place you're from to indicate your nationality, and tiếng to indicate language. E.g. người Việt, tiếng Việt = Vietnam, Vietnamese

The other place names and nationalities the Foreign Services Institute course provides are as follows:

Pháp - France
Tàu - China
Bắc - North Vietnam
Trung - Central Vietnam
Nam - South Vietnam
Hoa-Thịnh-Đốn - Washington
Nữu-Ước - New York
Cựu-Kim-Sơn - San Francisco

I must admit the last one is a bit of a mystery.

Of course being a New Zealander I had to find out what the Vietnamese call us. But guess what? I can't seem to find the translation anywhere, so I'll keep looking.

Does this mean no one from Vietnam has ever had to say the name of this small south Pacific country before? I can see why it probably wouldn't crop up in conversation much in the streets of Vietnamese towns and cities such as Hà-Nội, Sài-Gòn, Huế, Đà-Nẵng, Đà-Lạt, Nha Trang or Biên-Hòa ̣(see what I did there?)




No comments:

Post a Comment