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Vietnamese Self-Study Methods | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6230 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 1 of 15 07 August 2012 at 7:27am | IP Logged | ||
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So I decided to try to learn me some Vietnamese for the latest 6WC.
My question is : which (if any) materials are good for self-study? I saw that Professor Arguelles made a video with 2 Vietnamese women who both said that Teach Yourself and Colloquial were horrible. They also said that DLI and FSI were "OK" but were conducted in very outdated speech. I ordered Assimil Le Vietnamien Sans Peine, but it won't get here for another couple of weeks. In addition, is see that DLI is taught in the Northern/Hanoi dialect and FSI is taught in the Southern/Ho Chi Minh dialect. Does it matter which dialect one starts with? Is one more prevalent in the US? Does anyone out there have experience teaching themselves Vietnamese? THANKS!/Cam on ban! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6380 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 15 07 August 2012 at 9:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know much about Vietnamese so this information is mostly from other threads I've read here. The northern dialect is the standard dialect, but most Vietnamese in the US are southerners. A lot of Vietnamese movies are made outside the country and those tend to use the southern dialect as well. I believe that Colloquial, TYS, and Assimil all teach the northern dialect. A popular book that teaches the southern dialect is Vietnamese for Beginners, which generally gets good reviews, and is actually on my shelf but I haven't used it yet.
It seems like a very interesting language and I hope to get to it someday! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pigsonfire Newbie United States Joined 5076 days ago 26 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Cantonese | Message 3 of 15 08 August 2012 at 5:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Which is better between FSI and DLI? Has anyone used these?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Peewee Newbie United States Joined 5440 days ago 4 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 4 of 15 08 August 2012 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||
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My Vietnamese is probably around A2 at best, so I'm certainly not an expert. But, my 2
cents: If you're not living in Vietnam, it's better to learn Southern Vietnamese because it's a lot more common (most Vietnamese who left after the war were from the South). Within Vietnam I think most people have few problems understanding the dialects (possible exception for the Central dialect), but I've heard second generation Vietnamese Americans complain about how hard it is to understand Northerners. As a beginner it might not be a big deal though (everyone will have problems understanding you, regardless of dialect). I like the FSI Vietnamese course. It's strengths are also it's weaknesses. It's the Southern dialect and it has a ton of audio and drills (I think there are three hours of pronunciation drills before you even get to lesson one). That probably makes it good for self study, but it can be slow and boring. Some of the language is outdated, but it's not a huge problem because a lot of the older vocabulary is still used by Vietnamese Americans. The audio quality is mediocre. Jake Catlett's Vietnamese for Beginners is good. It's one of the few courses that teaches Southern Vietnamese and it's more up to date than FSI. It moves a lot quicker than FSI. From what I've seen of DLI it's similar to FSI. A lot of drills and audio, somewhat outdated vocabulary, and mediocre audio. The big difference is that it's Northern Vietnamese. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pigsonfire Newbie United States Joined 5076 days ago 26 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Cantonese | Message 5 of 15 12 August 2012 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
Hmm, interesting. It does seem like the FSI Vietnamese is one of their better offerings. I ve heard that they only teach 800 or so items of vocabulary. Oh well. You can't have it all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tyeers Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4606 days ago 2 posts - 5 votes Studies: Spanish* | Message 6 of 15 15 August 2012 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congrats on learning Vietnamese! I feel very excited for you. Here is how I feel. I actually like the DLI more than FSI. But I listened to a bit of the audio for both, and they are both fine. The accent from the FSI is a general southern accent and DLI is a general northern accent. If your accent were like either you'd be fine.
What you want to stay away from is having a very thick accent either way. Some people from the south pronounce the V like a Y. So they say..I'm Yietnamese. That is awful. People with thick northern accents pronounce a Y sound (the letter g is used for the y sound) as a Z. That is awful too. I feel it would be ideal to learn all 6 tones while staying away from the above mentioned problems. The advantage of DLI, and the northern accent, is that it is supposed to teach you all 6 tones. While the FSI will only teach you 5 tones (the southern accent only has 5 tones). The central dialect has 4 tones, but like Peewee said, the central dialect is very difficult to understand, even my parents have problems understanding it. As for the vocabulary. Both the FSI and DLI vocabulary seem fine to me..but I've never had to use the Vietnamese word for reserve company. But I do use the non military words. The sterotype is the people from the north are more formal, those from the south more relaxed. If you speak in an formal way, people might just assume you're from the north. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pigsonfire Newbie United States Joined 5076 days ago 26 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Cantonese | Message 7 of 15 16 August 2012 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Tyeers, what is your background in Vietnamese? Do you speak it at home? If so, which dialect did you grow
up speaking? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tyeers Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4606 days ago 2 posts - 5 votes Studies: Spanish* | Message 8 of 15 16 August 2012 at 3:23am | IP Logged | ||
Hey pigsonfire. My parents don't speak English, at least not with me. So I have to speak Vietnamese with them. Both my parents are from the north. But my family migrated to the south. I really like the accent my family uses. We use all 6 tones but our accent is soft. And we use words that are generally considered southern words. I would say that Vietnamese accents and dialects are like English accents and dialects. There are people who have very thick and heavy accents, and you can place them right away. And then there are people who have more neutral/general accents. The FSI and DLI speakers use the general accent. If you want to hear a thick northern accent check out the Vietnamese news podcast from NHK world. It almost sounds like a dialect of Chinese to me. If you would like to hear a thick southern accent check out the podcast viet times radio. Have Fun...And feel free to ask anymore questions. Edited by tyeers on 16 August 2012 at 11:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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