I bet y'all thought I was gone on another, huh? NOPE. Haha, I'm here today to talk to you about one hell of an interesting language, and that is Vietnamese.
This is my second go round with it; mainly because the first time was honestly dreadful. I kept screwing up, and I couldn't remember anything. Of course I came into this thinking it would be more of the same, but much to my surprise, it wasn't! I actually learned quite a bit.
I'm not going to tell you exactly what I learned, mainly because I wanted to give any potential learners of Vietnamese a heads up. The language is not easy by any means, and for me that's because of three things: the tones, the writing, and that lots can change based on who you're talking to.
Addressing people changes based on gender, age, and relation to you, such as uncle or aunt, etc., and knowing each title is very important. Oneof my Vietnamese friends said they accidentally used the wrong title and got a glare from hell in return.
The writing.. omg.. Look, the writing uses normal romanized letters, but there are symbols on just about every word, and you need to know the exact symbol to use, or else you could be writing a word you didn't mean to say. Luckily my phone has a Vietnamese keyboard, so I don't need to really try all that hard since I've practiced writing what I've learned by hand.
Lastly are the tones. I study Thai, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese, and these are definitely the hardest. It may be because the speakers are talking incredibly quickly, or the tones have more of a contrast between highs and lows... I'm not sure. It's just "different".
It definitely is a fun language, and I'm super excited to learn some more.
Comments, advice, tips, resources, and all other goodies are more than welcome.
Until next time,
Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira
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