|
 |
Vietnamese: how far in two weeks? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5218 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 1 of 11 26 April 2012 at 8:16pm | IP Logged |
|
I've just been told that my company want me to go to Vietnam in two weeks time. I don't speak any Vietnamese and have been avoiding tonal languages out of sheer cowardice.
This one will be a short trip and fairly safe (English) linguistic environment but I just wondered how far I can stretch myself in the weeks before the trip and while I am there? Can someone point me at a decent quality Vietnamese audio lessons. The FSI tapes are not high quality and everyone on the tapes sounds bored! I did find this thread from a search for "2 weeks" http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=20578&PN=1 Regards Edited by maydayayday on 26 April 2012 at 8:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5668 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 26 April 2012 at 9:11pm | IP Logged |
|
Vietnamese has some very strange sounds - the letters have sounds that will be very foreign to you - and take quite some time to get used to. Also, it is a tonal language, and that takes quite some time too.
Without good pronunciation, vietnamese people will not understand what you are talking about, and getting pronunciation right takes time. I started out with Teach Yourself Vietnamese, but dropped it pretty quickly, since I found it didn't spend enough time on pronunciation. I switched to Elementary Vietnamese (available from Amazon) and found it to be fantastic, despite it getting low scores on amazon. Perhaps the problem is that without the supporting audio you will not get far with it. If, though, you get the audio it is excellent at teaching you the unusual sounds of vietnamese. The elementary vietnamese course alone took me six months (albeit working slowly through it). My level of vietnamese now is probably still only A1 (or A2 at a stretch) so I can have very simple conversations in restaurants and so on). However, I see you only have two weeks. My honest opinion is that you will not get anywhere in vietnamese in two weeks. You could learn some very basic phrases, but risk not being understood at all. Given two weeks, I would recommend the Pimsleur Vietnamese course, since at least you can listen and try to imitate what they are saying. However, don't expect miracles. It is a very challenging language. Edited by Splog on 26 April 2012 at 9:13pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5218 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 3 of 11 26 April 2012 at 9:42pm | IP Logged |
|
Splog, thanks for your comment.
I like a challenge. I am not expecting the world but a few simple phrases - pronounced well - and a grasp of the six (?) tones - pity I don't know any Vietnamese people. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5177 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 4 of 11 26 April 2012 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
|
Well, There is some youtube videos on Vietnamese.
Evil Cat Or learnvietnamese channel THe problem with VIetnamese is that some people teac SV and some NV. DLI courses teach SV, while most modern courses (not all) deal with NV. There is some free course on seasite website SEA site Vietnamese I think there is a lot of valuabe content at this website, but they should update it - the audio won't play from the spot -you click the button, download the file, and then play it in some player. Edited by clumsy on 26 April 2012 at 10:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 11 26 April 2012 at 10:38pm | IP Logged |
|
I recommend book2.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Nguyen Senior Member Vietnam Joined 5092 days ago 109 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Vietnamese | Message 6 of 11 27 April 2012 at 5:05am | IP Logged |
|
Hi Mayday. Admittedly, two weeks is a very short time. I don't really know much about resources for learning Vietnamese as I learned almost from birth. I have been exposed to the FSI stuff though and this is what Vietnamese sounds like at normal speed, though alot of the vocabulary is quite dated so learning it would be like picking up vocabulary from an 1890's English grammar book. Odd but understandable.
Don't worry much about Northern and Southern dialects. They are universally understood. The Central Dialect near Hue is a completely different story; however, I don't think that anyone actually teaches this. Something I have noticed about foreign language programs that I have encountered is that the conversational sections have a tendancy to be on the formal side when addressing others. It turns out that people end up calling someone an old man or woman. This is actually mildly insulting, a bit like calling a woman Granny who is still in her forties, but foreigners are forgiven for this. That is why when meeting strangers a person will ask how old you are to settle things. If you make the effort to use a few Vietnamese phrases you can expect to be rewarded for your efforts. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5218 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 7 of 11 27 April 2012 at 10:49am | IP Logged |
|
Many thanks to you all: I'll let you know how I get on when I get back!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5218 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 8 of 11 21 May 2012 at 2:04pm | IP Logged |
|
Well, I'm back.
I survived my brief spells of trying to speak Vietnamese and the locals were very patient with me and strangely delighted that I was even trying to speak. I have never been patted on the back and had my hand shaken SO MUCH. I think I will stick with Vietnamese as my foray into tonal languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
