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TAC 2012: Team 德 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Magdalene Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5028 days ago 119 posts - 220 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, German, Modern Hebrew, French | Message 25 of 66 20 December 2011 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Depends on what Asian language you compare it to...out of the Asian languages with a large amount of speakers, Cantonese probably provides the most fruitful comparison. Vietnamese has six tones, similar to Cantonese (between six and nine tones, depending on how you look at it). Vietnamese has TONS of vowels: i, ê, e, ư, â, ơ, ă, a, u, ô, o. And those are just the monophthongs! The consonants aren't a walk in the park either, at least for native English speakers; a lot of the consonants are unaspirated. Vietnamese is spoken lightning fast and not necessarily how it's spelled (not to the same degree as English, which is a nightmare in this respect, but enough so to make it really difficult for learners). Vietnamese vocabulary, like I mentioned earlier, is up to 60% Sino-Vietnamese, but the similarities between the Chinese and Vietnamese words aren't exactly self-evident, particularly for Mandarin speakers. The discount appears to be greater for Cantonese speakers, as the words are more similar to each other. Grammar-wise, Vietnamese is an isolating language (like Mandarin, Cantonese, and, more and more, English) with an SVO word order, although in Vietnamese, modifiers follow the modified. Vietnamese has a classifier system. One of the most difficult parts of Vietnamese are the forms of address, which vary depending on the genders, ages, and intimacy of the speakers. For instance, I'm chị (older sister) to my younger siblings and friends; em (younger sibling) to my older siblings, friends, and male partners; con (child) to my parents; cháu (grandchild, niece/nephew) to my grandparents or my friend's parents; cô (aunt, miss) to my nieces, nephews, and students; bạn (friend) to some acquaintances; and Magdalene to close friends (ex. "Magdalene khỏe không?" means "How are you?" when a close friend says it to me). And those are just the ways to refer to myself! I probably missed a few, too. :P It's a really cool feature of the language, and it takes a while to wrap your head around. One of the things that makes Vietnamese so difficult, regardless of any features of the language itself, is the comparative lack of resources. The textbooks that are out there focus mainly on the northern (Hà Nội) dialect, which is the prestige dialect in Vietnam. Most of the speakers you'll meet elsewhere, though, speak the southern (Sài Gòn) variety of the language. (The central [Huế] variety is neglected almost entirely in the materials I've seen.) The northern and southern varieties of the language are mutually intelligible. There are vocabulary and pronunciation differences between the two; the southern variety even drops one of the tones sometimes, pronouncing bả ("poison," which uses hỏi, "asking tone") and bã ("residue," which uses ngã, "tumbling/falling tone") both as bả. So these differences aren't insurmountable by any means, but the dearth of good (or even abundant) resources makes learning the language that much harder. Vietnamese is an amazing language spoken by amazing people (aren't they all?), and I fully recommend studying it if it catches your fancy. Wow, long post is long...I hope that answered your question. Let me know if you have any more questions about the language; I might be able to answer you. _____ In other news, I find it funny that about half of this thread is given over to wanderlust musings. Keep it together, people! ;) 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4951 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 26 of 66 20 December 2011 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Temptation is so hard to resist...I foresee some of us learning Navajo by the end of TAC (I better stop, I'm giving people ideas haha!). On a more serious note, that was a very interesting description of Vietnamese - I actually did not know much about that language at all until now. Edited by NickJS on 20 December 2011 at 6:56pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5343 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese | Message 27 of 66 21 December 2011 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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That was a very good explanation Magdalene! Thanks! I thought there were more tones in
Vietnamese, but maybe they were just more difficult than those in Cantonese for example. Vietnamese sounds like a very interesting language! :) Maybe I'll have time to study it one day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 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 28 of 66 23 December 2011 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm in! Thanks for letting me join, despite not studying a Sinitic language :P
I'll be learning German and Danish, flirting with Dutch. And dad gave me a book to read on the logic&combinations of the hanzi/kanji (for Japanese learners). i hope the team name character will be explained there too :) it's really kind of ridiculous how much I'm struggling with German. I'm sure seeing everyone's progress in far more difficult languages will motivate me <333 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4951 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 29 of 66 23 December 2011 at 2:08am | IP Logged | ||
Good to see you here Serpent! There is definitely some difficult languages on this team ...Not to mention all of our wanderlust too haha! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5343 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese | Message 30 of 66 23 December 2011 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Serpent, I don't speak Danish but I am Swedish so I might be able to help you if you have
any questions :) I have also studied German a few years at school, but I have forgotten a lot :P 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4951 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 31 of 66 24 December 2011 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||
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I was wondering, will we be putting the links to our separate TAC logs on the first page
of this thread? I think I'm going to write mine out on Christmas day :P. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hidden Groupie Joined 4881 days ago 42 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin | Message 32 of 66 24 December 2011 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for letting me join you, even though I'm only studying German. :)
I look forward to seeing how people tackle the other languages here as well, as I'd like to learn some of them myself one day. :) Edited by Hidden on 24 December 2011 at 4:31pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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