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Loanwords in Vietnamese | ||
Tags: Loanwords | Vietnamese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| bjornbrekkukot Newbie United States Joined 4723 days ago 25 posts - 58 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 5 24 December 2011 at 4:55am | IP Logged |
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I live in Southern California, where there is a local FM radio station in Vietnamese. Since I've recently started
learning this language, I find myself listening to the station quite often, and I must say that about 25% of what I hear is loanwords from English, relating to business, marketing, etc. To keep it short, this use of English, hearing phrases like "hardwood flooring," "home loans for cheap," "short sale," etc every few seconds, makes the language sound extremely unattractive. Basically, I'm wondering if Vietnamese, as spoken and written in Vietnam, uses a large number of loanwords as well, or if this is just a Southern Californian phenomenon. Or, is it simply a product of people who live between the two languages, as I suspect? When I listen to radio stations in Spanish here, I certainly hear some English, but nowhere close to the amount on the Vietnamese station. Edited by bjornbrekkukot on 24 December 2011 at 4:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jarm Newbie Australia Joined 4913 days ago 33 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 5 24 December 2011 at 6:02am | IP Logged |
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It's what you suspect. There are plenty of loan-words in Vietnamese, but the words and expressions you mentioned, the average monolingual Vietnamese speaker wouldn't be able to pronounce easily, because the syllable structure is very different. The English loanwords are identifiable, but sound like any other Vietnamese word.
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| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 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 3 of 5 24 December 2011 at 9:42pm | IP Logged |
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A lot of Polish people abroad mix English with Polish (there is even a name for it -
"Ponglish"), so I think it's just the case with Vietnamese immigrant community. I listen to Vietnamese TV sometimes, and I didn't notice the overuse of loanwords. Interesting is that in Wikipedia, they don't translate country names. From Wikipedia: Uganda có đường biên giới tiếp giáp với Nam Sudan ở phía Bắc, Kenya ở phía Đông, Cộng hòa Dân chủ Congo ở phía tây, còn ở phía nam của nước này là các quốc gia: Rwanda, Tanzania và hồ Victoria. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Nguyen Senior Member Vietnam Joined 5094 days ago 109 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Vietnamese | Message 4 of 5 25 December 2011 at 3:56am | IP Logged |
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The loanwords you mentioned are unheard of here in Vietnam. I watched a You Tube video where a second generation Vietnamese immigrant from California was actually presenting a few lessons. She was doing the same thing you mentioned with annoying results. Her language skills were also sub-par. This is somthing I have noticed with many Vietnamese born overseas.
We do have some loanwords but they are not that recognizable as loanwords. Countries usually have Vietnamese names too: The US is, Hoa Kỳ, Japan is Nhật etc. The countries on the African continent are pretty much unchanged though. Just like they are in most languages. Some loanwords are for example are: Xe ô tô for a car usually in the North though, Cái va li for suitcase (from French), then some new words e-mail, internet and fax. I have heard some people say TV also but that isn't that common. We would normally say máy truyền hình (lit. machine that transmits pictures). It's not at all like the radio station is making it out to be in the real world. I hope this helps. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 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 5 of 5 26 December 2011 at 3:38pm | IP Logged |
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Well, actually not only African ones:
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danh_s%C3%A1ch_qu%E1%BB%91c_gia A lot of Latin countires don't change the name into their own languages, but in Vietnamesse it looks somehwat... strange... so 'unvietnamese'. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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