How to Pronounce Vietnamese Last Names?
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- Опубліковано 18 жов 2024
- How to pronounce Nguyen- the most common Vietnamese last name? Today I will show you how to say 20 common Vietnamese last names so you can impress your Vietnamese friends and partner
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I love how she guesses exactly how we'll say everything wrong.
Right... Thanks for the vote of confidence Ms. Vu.
Pffffbbbtt❕️Bru! Coz iz inevitable wen U let us Americans attempt it. 99.9% i say. Shiiiiiieeee⚠️
And then that ends up being the southern accent 😅
It isn't guessing though, thats literally how it would be pronounced in English going by how its spelled
She's used to English speakers and is probably a teacher of the Vietnamese language. Vietnamese is a tonal language, so pronunciation can be problematic for Westerners. Pay attention to the accent marks over, under or with the letters and you will be able to determine how the word is supposed to be pronounced.
I met a friend called Peter Nguyen and I've been trying to pronounce his last name since then - 5 years now of my journey - I learnt the southern accent, but didn't know if I was pronouncing it right. I'm watching this video for you Peter, even though we don't talk anymore ✌🏽
That's so sweet of you. On the other hand, I'm sure Peter is wondering if your last name is simply L. or it means something more sophisticated like Linguine.
@@ltk7309 lol I’m sure Peter knows Camilla last name; she probably just didn’t want to reveal it on the internet
@@insaniquarium92 @Ivan Chong: Her last name is Louis (X1V). Camilla Louis ..okay ?
@@MrPip9999 Or it's Camilla the fifthieth (since L is latin for 50, I think)
I bet Peter would love to hear from you! Drop him a line and say you finally learn how to say his name!
It would have been helpful for this to be recorded in a room without an echo, so the nuance could be better heard. There were a couple examples that sounded exactly the same to me.
Yes! I was about to comment about exactly the same thing. A lot of the nuance was lost. By that I don't mean I couldn't tell whether there was a difference or not, but that I couldn't pinpoint exactly what that difference entailed.
Yes. If she wants to continue making pronunciation videos she should in better sound proofing and it will make a huge difference.
She should get a better mic or lav mic
Room without an echo, please. Hanging a blanket or quilt (off-camera) on the wall would make a world of difference. And lose the "whoosh" sound effect. Many times, it's coving up the pronunciation of the word.
It is a fair point to note that the room was not correctly sound treated. Still, to be honest, it is obvious she took great care to make this a visual and auditory experience. She indicated what tone a word should be spoken with (you can see the accent highlights and the hand gestures). Also, you have to consider that this room echo may not be the thing that causes you to not hear what she is saying. Consider all the people who type 'your' when they mean to type 'you're'. That isn't a spelling error, that is a grammar comprehension error. The fact that you may be unfamiliar with the grammar rules she is employing may be contributing to what you are not hearing.
I'm in awe. What a great reference! I'm a teacher in Florida, and try hard to pronounce names the way the children prefer to hear them, when I can. A lot of the Hispanic teachers comment about how nice it is to hear someone say their names correctly. I admit when we got some Vietnamese students recently, I was at a loss. Luckily, I can practice their last names now. Thanks!
30+ years ago I worked for a Vietnamese couple who owned a print shop. It was called "Win Printing." Their last name was Nguyen... so that's one name I pretty much knew how to say. Thanks for the others! I'm sure I'll still mess up, but I didn't know that "Tr" was pronounced like the English "Ch."
smart couple
Why is it spelled like TR instead of CH?
@@k0nk0n Just how deer and dear are written differently, or (hear and here) same exact sound but different meaning. Trân and Chân sounds the same but differently meaning. Except northern Vietnamese accent would say Tr heavier than Ch
@@k0nk0n it might make more sense if you consider that vietnam's spelling comes from french colonizers. so it's not going to follow the same logic as english. in french, "ch" is a "shh" sound. "Tr" still might seem like an odd choice since "tr" in french doesn't sound like a "ch" sound, but remember that they were adapting france's spelling for an asian language
@@user-tc5qc4ql8m Well put.
I am a public school teacher and generally have good sense with pronunciation of my students names when I first see them, but I admit I needed this video at least 2 years ago; haha. My linguistic influences for names of Asiatic origin are Mandarin, Thai, Korean, and Japanese so, generally not bad but I once came across the name "Le" and pronounced it as the mandarin "了“. Thank you so much for this video, and I am going to take some time and learn better Vietnamese phonetics so I can better serve my population!
Just the fact that you are so open to different languages and are putting in the effort to pronouce their names correctly shows you are a good teacher!
Awesome public school teacher ❤️
You should say Asian instead of Asiatic, which is defined as offensive language for talking about people. Webster dictionary.
Well I'm glad to see that some teachers actually care. When I was in elementary school in the early 90's, a Vietnamese classmate tried to correct the teacher's mispronunciation of his name. I still remember the teacher's reply to this day, word-for-word. She said: "oh that's cute but I'm pretty sure I know how to pronounce your name". With that one sentence, she invalidated his identity. He was too young and innocent to understand why he felt terrible after that incident. That was before we started to discuss openly about micro-aggressions and racism. It would be years before he finally realized that he had been the victim of a snide racist comment.
Two minutes in, I'm still waiting for Ng. 😁
I love this! Thank you 😊. Thank you also for both Northern and Southern accent versions 🥰🥰. I am a Nguyễn from the South, and I truly appreciate acknowledgement of the Southern accent since most Vietnamese language learners learn the Northern accent.
My Dad came from south Vietnam. He was born in Saigon when it was still called Saigon
Living in Garden Grove, California and of Anglo heritage, I find this fascinating and helpful. Orange County, California is 17% "Asian" and a wild mix of cultures. And the food is amazing. I am amused that the "Southern" pronunciation is far easier and more natural sounding to me since I grew up mostly in Louisiana and Georgia. 😊
I knew how to pronounce Nguyen a long time ago, one of my fraternity brothers was Vietnamese and he made sure we all pronounced it correctly. Uoc Nguyen. Really nice guy.
As a teacher, this is very helpful for me to learn my Vietnamese students’ last names. Thank you!
I had a girl with the last name Nguyen in my high school class and I came to this video fully expecting to hear a completely different pronunciation than the one everyone used back then, but I'm surprised to hear that we were actually quite close!
I have watched a video of yours and sorry to say this but u look and sound gay kid to have any girls 😄😅
Regardless of this video and even phonetic pronunciation, I’m going with nyoogin
@reginaldforthright805 you do you bro 😆
Even after watching this video I'm still not 100% certain I'm pronouncing it right. Is the NG silent or isn't it? I've been pronouncing the name like the English word "win" but it seems implied in this video that the "NG" is ever so subtly pronounced but I can't really hear it.
I will never understand why in France everybody pronounce this noun "Hèn Guhiyèn".
Some more interesting details on a couple of VN last names and why there is a difference in the pronunciation. TRAN is from the Chinese CHEN. That's why its pronunciation in North Vietnam is near the Chinese's. Chen (or the Cantonese CHAN). Same remark for the last name TRUONG, sometimes known as TRANG (from Chinese ZHANG). PHAN and PHAM both come from the Chinese FAN (who remembers Chinese actress Fan BingBing who played in one of the movies series X-Files?). LUU is pronounced Liu in the North, because of the proximity to China (LUU is LIU in China). VU is often used in the North, its Chinese counterpart is WU. In the South this name is VO.
when take away national borders and embrace the fact that people move around throughout history, I still find it super interesting how me (chinese last name Chan) and my friend (vietnamese last name Tran) probably had the same ancestor long long time ago. The place I come from also likes the same food that Vietnamese people love so we obviously have related taste buds lol.
oh, this helped a lot!
if u do a probability tree, ASSUMING (BIG ASSUME) that ur lineage has remained unbroken for centuries (not possible, given there were so many dead babies, divorces, rapes, re-marriage, harems, etc. going on in pre-modern society) , ur CHEN-ness wuould be 1/1000th of ur total DNA (ASSUING AGAIN) ur commong ancestor was a FULL CHAN (whatever that even means). The ONLY probable common ancestor you and a viet might find (or any other nationality) would be some DNA mother from africa. Assuming u r like me, a homosapien of course. @@rainiplaysgames3545
@@YangsterBangs Assuming that there was only 1 person with the name CHAN in the very beginning, and everybody in the CHAN clan are his descendants, then they are related.
Had no idea. Are all VN last names are of Chinese origin?
I noticed the difference in pronunciation between North and South after watching and listening to you, thank you for your great lesson.
Love her neck snapping lol, when saying " its not...."
Reminds me of the sistas with an attitude.
Pho such a besuty ❤
I have struggled with tones for ages. This is helping me get them right! Thank you!
As something of a language nerd, this is a great resource. I've long suspected that the Latin alphabet does little to capture the Vietnamese language, even with all the diacritics, and this really drives the point home.
However... you've REALLY got to get some sound-deadening materials into your recording space! I hate to nit-pick, but the reverb coming off those hard, hard walls makes it incredibly difficult to pick up on the subtleties of your pronunciation and tone. For a couple of these names, I can barely hear the difference between the wrong and the right pronunciation. It doesn't have to be expensive, either. Many people (myself included) start with moving blankets hung from the walls. UA-cam is full of suggestions.
That aside, thanks for a really informative piece.
Dang = didnt know I have pronouncing it incorrectly.
The spellings from the Indo-china region seem extra strange to English speakers because the Latin alphabet was introduced to the region by the French. As such, the spellings are Francophone rather than Angliphone.
@@matthewwilliams2093 Figured it was something to do with the French as well. Westernized spellings of "equivalent" Chinese names seem to follow the English phonetics better. (Like where Ch makes more sense than Tr for one of the sounds, Vietnamese is definitely not following the English convention of spelling half of the time.)
@@pauljs75 It's a definite pattern WHEREVER Europeans built spheres of influence. Most Indigenous North American vocabulary that has passed into general use happened via English, but the areas surrounding the Upper Great Lakes has an abundance of French influence. Likewise the vast majority of Middle and South America was brought to the world through the prism of Spanish. The "language of record" has a deep influence on what gets passed on to the outer world.
@@matthewwilliams2093 And then some Japanese words do things like use the letter U as a what may as well be a dash. (I almost have a feeling it was at some point, but got stuck with the wrong glyph in transcription at some point.) Not sure how that became a convention in their Latin version of writing.
Omg girl your smile is so bright and beautiful. Love how your face is literally glowing!
I dont have Taiwanese keyboard so I skipped on most of the phonetics but timestamps are there.
(1) 0:55 Nguyen
(2) 1:10 Tran
(3) 1:25 Dang
(4) 1:42 Do
(5) 1:56 Dinh
(6) 2:10 Pham
(7) 2:25 Phan
(8) 2:38 Vu
(9) 2:54 Vuong
(10) 3:08 Lê
(11) 3:20 Ngô
(12) 3:34 Huynh
(13) 3:49 Hoang
(14) 4:06 Hô (cant say it with a straight face :D)
(15) 4:22 Bui
(16) 4:39 Truong
(17) 4:54 Luu
(19) 5:08 Ly
(20) 5:25 Cao
if you have the oldscholl "american international layout" keyboard it is possible to type most of these with a simple click on windows to change keyboard mode =)
the input name is listed as "English (United States) US keyboard" and the input mode is "standard international"
i used to have those with the 486 way back then and from time to time still need to repeat those configs for notebooks or rented PCs on technology events
typing single quote before a vowel or the letters c or y will add the diacritic as in ó, ç or ý and using double quotes makes the umlaut for ö, ä and so on
i know you didn't ask, but maybe someday it comes in handy
I wish she showed how to pronounce "Côc"
@@dachicagoan8185 maybe it's number 18 :P
Ho in Vietnamese sounds excatly how you would pronounce 號 in Cantonese. Which actually means number/position. Eg. 一號 (position no.1 / in the queue)
@@PsyQoBoy Some translation for ya
1. Nguyễn 阮
2. Trần 陳
3. Đặng 鄧
4. Đỗ 杜
5. Đinh 丁 (look like a nail, eh :>)
6. Phạm 范
7. Phan 潘
8. Vũ 武 (the most common one, because Vietnamese nowaday don't use chinese character anymore...)
9. Vương 王
10. Lê 黎
11. Ngô 吳
12. Huỳnh 黃 (naming restriction, "Nguyễn Hoàng" the first Lord of Nguyễn Dynasty)
13. Hoàng 黃 (same as 12, because of naming restriction in Nguyễn Dynasty which still remain today, some words have to be pronounced different)
14. Hồ 胡 (hehehe)
15. Bùi 裴
16. Trương 張
17. Lưu 劉
18. ?????
19. Lý 李
20. Cao 高 (again, the most common one)
You are actually a great teacher 👩🏫. When you do that pointing on the right that’s very cute. Your channel is growing and saw your shorts just today. With my wife being Vietnamese, now I can impress her and show your content 😂 I’ll follow you on your journey here on UA-cam!!
English is my mother language but I speak a bit of German and a little of several other romance languages but man, Vietnamese has a lot of Diphthongs and maybe triphthongs that is just what I hear off of the pronunciation of names. I have had many Vietnamese friends growing up, and they are really awesome people. God bless and thanks for the lesson. Really cool!
If so, they need to spell their name differently in the west, the same as a Russian has to translate their name to a different alphabet
@@xpusostomos Yes we need to force everyone to change the spelling of their names to fit OUT standards!!! How self centered and close minded of us.
@@dod2304 That's how it's done the world over. In the Philippines you don't go to the doctor, you go to the doktor. You don't have police, you have pulis. You don't have a visitor, you have a bisita. You don't have a computer, you have a kompyuter. You don't eat candy, you eat kendi. Because the latin letters, while they look the same, they don't sound the same in the local language. So if you don't change the spelling, nobody would understand how to read it.
Vietnamese pronunciations vary by region, even the same words can be pronounced differently. Here in America, a native of West Virginia sounds his or her words different than someone from Massachusetts. It is interesting how language evolves, and word meanings can change from place to place and from generation to generation.
English accents can change drastically within very short distances and may even be confined to a single city (such as Birmingham). However, the Northern and Southern varieties are important to learn due to the significant differences in certain vowels.
@@rogerphillips7270 . So true. There is an English accent that drives me up a wall. It sounds like they are rolling a marble around on their tongue while speaking. Arggg
Most.yanks mispronounce English,. period, you seem to misunderstand Vietnamese linguistics,
@@dw3403 I can't.listen to the yanks on TV, awful
@@kippsguitar6539
which ones?
I think you did this very well. I don't speak Vietnamese, but the way that you break the names down into 1. vowels, 2. consonant + vowel, then 3. adding the tone (?) on whole word. Really well done!
That's how we taugh children how to pronounce words (old ways, before 1975). Exactly like you see in the video.
Timestamps if anyone needs them. Apologies, I did not have the time to get all the accents correct
Nguyễn - 0:51
Tran - 1:10
Dang - 1:26
Do - 1:41
Din - 1:58
Pham - 2:11
Phan - 2:25
Vu - 2:38
Vuong - 2:55
Le - 3:08
Ngo - 3:21
Huynh- 3:34
Hoang - 3:50
Ho -4:07
Bui - 4:23
Truong -4:39
Luu -4:54
Ly - 5:08
Cao - 5:25
The room has an echo that diminishes comprehension. Electronics (within a reasonable budget) won't change the room. The room has echoes that need to be suppressed. Another poster suggested a blanket, which is a good method. If the room is rectangular, the best thing is to suppress echoes in three directions: floor/ceiling => carpet; left/right => blanket or quilt on either left or right wall; front/back => same treatment as left to right.
Such an excellent explanation of the meanings and value of the diacritics on the letters!! 😀
I feel that the diphthongization of the long vowels, which English speakers tend to do is a cause of a lot of the mispronunciations ("lay" instead of [le:])
That's it - dipthongization. One of the tell-tale signs of a native English speaker trying to use another language. BTW another giveaway is the way English speakers aspirate the T, P, and K sounds - that is, add a slight H sound after. Lots of languages use unaspirated versions, which English speakers tend not to detect. Indian languages use both aspirated and unaspirated versions, so Indian ears are better attuned to that nuance. But maybe you knew this - seems like you have some knowledge of linguistics.
im seriously impressed by this video... super super helpful teaching format. Breaking down each name and separating the different sounds, highlighting the points you're going over both clearly explained HOW and touched on WHY you pronounce these names this way. It both informs for the most known names, as well as gives some inkling as to what to do when encountering a Vietnamese name someone has not seen before. I wish I could get videos like this on all the languages I'm trying to learn.
This video is exactly what I was looking for. I’m reading a book about the history of Vietnam and knowing how to pronounce the names, especially Nguyen, makes it a lot easier.
Years ago, I had a work colleague named Van Nguyen. Whenever he was paged over the factory speaker system (this was before cell phones), the intercom woman would call for Van “New-Jen”. One day, I asked Van how to pronounce his last name. Strangely, thereafter, the intercom woman would call for Van “N-when”, which was much closer to the correct pronunciation. I assume my question prompted Van to correct her pronunciation too. So ask people how to properly pronounce their names. It’s a sign of respect.
great video, i like the enphasis on the accent after the sound of vocals, it helps a lot. I wish i had taken classes of vietnamese before going there ten years ago, i was the only foreingner in a village but i was very difficult to communicate! Great experience by the way.
Outstanding!! Thank you sooooo much for this. As am immigrant myself, I am mindful of the best/correct pronunciation of names, and professionally as an ESL prof, this is important. The vowel sounds you provided are so clear that I can really hear what is going on. Oh, and my future students don't know it yet, but they thank you also.
Glad it was helpful! Thank you for watching and sharing!
Have I ever mispronounced Vietnamese names? Thousands of times! LOL Thank you for distinguishing the northern & southern pronunciations. We Americans have heard mostly the the southern pronunciations because of our closer association/alliance with the southern portion of the country prior to 1975, so it was interesting to hear the northern pronunciations. Thank you for making this video, Van!
Thank you Jerry! I'm glad it was helpful for you!
association/alliance with the southern portion of the country prior to 1975 = Killing them by saying the Vietnamese attacked Americans first and starting a war with them.
@@glishteach Shall we leave politics out of this video please? For once.
@@curtino114 He's right though
Historically inaccurate. Was never about who attacked who first but about the spread of communism and the south were our allies and they asked for our help since the French were pulling out. We were actually winning the war but politicians and misinterpreted reporting from the news agencies caused the American public to be against the war. In the end, we left the south high and dry and the country was overtaken by the north within the week. It led to the killing or imprisonment/re-education of anyone who supported the USA and the Khmer Rouge uprising in Cambodia, which led to many generations of people wiped off the face of the earth.
This kind of brought a tear to my eye...
20 years ago, I worked with a guy whose last name was Tran, and we all said "Tran".
He seemed perfectly happy with that, and we didn't know any better, so that's how we all said his last name.
We had many other Vietnamese people in our shop, and he helped me to learn how to say everybody's name correctly... but he never told me the correct way to say his own name.
I just learned that I was saying it wrong the whole time we worked together.
I have a german last name. It goes against the rule of, I before e except after c. So it is always mispronounced .I answer to the ones I have heard. Dont care lol
I learned it's 'i' before 'e' except when your foreign neighbor Keith received eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. Weird. @@dw3403
Same I worked with a Dr her last name was Tran and we all pronounced it incorrectly and never once did she correct us however I would have that she did so we would learn how to say it correctly. Thank you
Learn a lot from you. Your voice and your delivery is awesome. U are very understandable. And your English is the best I've heard. Thank you very much.
Clearly a child of two lands and two cultures. Brava!!
You're a very charming instructor! I love the way you draw a line in the air to show the inflection, similar to how Chinese people do for their languages. It does help a lot even if we're not used to inflections like this in English, because to speak Vietnamese we'd have to get used to them.
My mother went through office training. She always remembered something her tutor said to the class. "Get the details right. Inaccuracy - especially people's names and addresses - is not appreciated!" And, especially, as is pointed out in the video, a slight slip of pronounciation has a name given an unwanted connotation and/or meaning!
My mouth dropped! This is insane, in the most beautiful way. Language and accents from around the world have always fascinated me. I love learning about other cultures and their languages. I know nothing about the Vietnamese language or culture but I recently took a DNA test and I have Vietnamese ancestry. 😅
Ảo thật đấy chào mừng bạn
Oh man u ar welcome 😐👍✨️
Very informative, thank you. Been butchering friends and colleagues names for years!
I like the accent markers on the vowels, they are easy to follow and understand.
This is an incredibly helpful video and format. I love how you break down the name into chunks and then bring the entire name together. It is also very helpful that you provide regional differences in pronunciation as well.
Great and useful content, I love how clear and engaging the explanation is. Plus, I am impressed you can pronounce with both North & South accents!
Easy for a local
Your southern accent is so good. I didn't expect that.
Haha thank you! 🤗
I love pronouncing people’s names properly. It’s a big deal to me so I’m grateful for this video. Also, you have such a fresh and pretty face.
WAAAy OVERDUE!!! SUPER HELPFUL! Great organized format! I've butchered these names for too long!!! THX!
The north and south accent variations are pretty cool, would love to learn more about that!
Years ago I was in Thailand with the Marines, a person I was talking to was trying to show me the pronunciation of various words in Thai, and then in Lao. Even for words which are shared the pronunciation was different, sometimes subtly, as in the Vietnamese accents you demonstrate, sometimes significantly. The part that made me realize how limited my own linguistic learning was, she was teaching me in pretty decent English, which meant I was even that much more behind. I decided trying my high school French would leave me feeling outclassed in yet another tongue. :)
I love how at least in the northern accent, the ` means a descending tone and the right one (it's not in my keyboard it seems) is an ascending tone. That's so cool! As a musician it's fascinating to me, it's like pretty music and sightreading to play it correctly.
I love how Vietnamese Ph- sounds still exactly F- in English like Phantom, Phenomenon, Phase, Photography etc 😄
I love learning about Vietnamese cultures, hoping someday I'll be able to travel there in a good health ❤
Natalie Tran - Australian UA-camr, actress and comedian of Vietnamese descent.
Haley Pham - American vlogger/UA-camr/BookTuber of full or partial Vietnamese descent.
Loan Le - author of **A Pho Love Story** which is a novel starring two Vietnamese American teenagers who fall in love with each other despite their families' rival businesses. The author's parents are Vietnamese immigrants, and she herself is overseas Viet. A Việt kiều.
Crystal Vu - Crystal Vu is one of the pre-made townies in The Sims 2 who resides in Strangetown.
The Ly Dynasty - a Vietnamese dynasty that existed from 1009 to 1225
Thank you, your way of breaking down the tones is super clear. Really looking forward to learning more
This will help me in addressing our customers. Im pretty much sure since they are in US they dont mind hearing their last names westernized but im also almost certain theyd be happy to hear their last names pronounced correctly
Excellent Video. Thanks so much. I hope you will do one on First names also. Like Ngoc, Ngoc Bich, Duong, Quoc, Phuong, and others. They are so hard also.
I came across many of the names shown in this video when I worked in the public service. Thx for this helpful video.
Wow! TY for this. I have a colleague who is Vietnamese (though she speaks French at least to me and others at work)…I’ve been badly mispronouncing her name…for years!
Thanks for the vid, and showing us the differences between Northern and Southern accents. I had no idea of the subtlety!
Glad it was helpful!
I have a theory that at one point English was meant to have diacritics to help with spelling reform, but Vietnamese got to the store first and bought out the entire stock
We did the same with nail salon too. lol
@@paulngo4946 Can't really argue, I can't even remember the last time I even saw a nail salon where I live
Vietnamese is definitely one of the most interesting patrons of the Latin alphabet though. It makes you think about how the ancient Greeks must have been thinking when they had to adapt the Phoenician alphabet to include vowels. They just accidentally invented a new writing scheme that we couldn't imagine living without, just because their language was different.
I mean every language that uses the Latin alphabet has to make little compromises to make it fit, but Vietnamese is like Latin if it were overclocked and had liquid cooling and RGB lighting everywhere
@@rorychivers8769 True. Not sure if it's something that we couldnt live without. The British, German, Chinese, Korean and Japanese seems to be fine though.
@@paulngo4946 Not entirely sure I'm following.
@@rorychivers8769 The Latin alphabet and diacritics for Vietnamese were created by the French who treated Viet Nam as a colonial resource for a long while.
This is super helpful. Some of the G and NG endings are difficult to hear properly. It might be more effective to throw in common English words to demonstrate what the sounds are so our mouths know instinctively what to do. Thanks! I have a Mr. “Win” coming over today…
But many sounds in other languages just don’t have English equivalents.🙁
I like your channel is What the Pho ❤😊
I just stumbled across this video. Thanks for making this. I have friends with the last names Bui and Phan. Now I can pronounce them correctly.
This is awesome, actually. In the 1970's, when I was a kid, not only did Americans mispronounce their new Vietnamese neighbors names, we made fun of them. I'm glad we Americans have matured and accepted Vietnamese Americans as worthy neighbors, friends, and colleagues who deserve our respect and to have their names to be pronounced correctly.
well they havent matured and accepted americans, they mock english speakers misspronouncing a foreign language every chance they get.
@@Zaph_Kiel They become Americans so time to blend in or go back.
@@szymonbaranowski8184 they dont though. A large portion arent "melting into the pot" and remain separatist and racist.
Wdym by ‘Vietnamese Americans’?
That doesn’t make sense.
kids are not really making fun of foreign names just the names sound funny to them, and this goes for kids around the world.
A very valuable video even for those who do not actively study Vietnamese.
Great vid Good use of visuals, and you pronounced the words phonetically, which made it understandable to me. Thank you.
If you were my Vietnamese teacher I'd just sit in front of you mesmerized by your voice and demeanor and not actually learn anything! ☺💕 Thank you all the same, you cleared up a lot for me! Cảm ơn rất nhiều!
I love how the name of your channel automatically teaches people how to pronounce pho :)
I am taking VN lessons, and I really like how you did the pronunciation of the words. Ending (vowels), beginning, then tone.
A video on personal pronouns would be great.
Great video. Thank you.
i'm now interested to learn vietnames because of you! i just find vietnamese sounds so challenging but interesting!
Great job with pronouncing both the Southern and Northern accents! Here are a few notes:
Vũ = rain, in ancient Vietnamese (Hán Việt). In modern Vietnamese, it is more about dancing. People think it has a "strong" connotation similar to Võ because of words like vũ khí (weapon). It doesn't.
Vú = breast/boob, not nipple. Two of the words for nipple are "núm" or "nhũ hoa."
A tip for learners: the NG sound in Vietnamese is the same as the ending of words like "song" or "wrong." The difference between NG and the normal English N sound is tongue placement:
- With a normal N, the tongue is at the top front of the mouth (try it!)
- With the NG sound, the back of the tongue is raised to the top of the back of the mouth (try it out with a word like "song" or "singing")
- Now just put a vowel after the NG, and nothing before it, and you can say Nguyễn to your heart's content
- If you just can't get Nguyễn right, the word "wing" is far closer than the word "win" at least in the Southern accent
Because it is old china world (pronunciation same but is different word and different meaning, that is the reason china still use hanzi), example:無(vũ)mean dancing,武(vũ) mean martial ,男(nam)mean man or male, 南(nam)mean south,東(đông)mean east,冬 (đông )mean winter,.....
I’m glad I have no reason to pronounce Vietnamese correctly because this is America. If you want the correct pronunciation you know what you can do 🇺🇸
@@reginaldforthright805 Might be a regional thing. I'm also American, but I've worked with quite a few Vietnamese people. Maybe there are more of them in my area.
I love languages, accents, and dialects. Thanks! This was very interesting. I loved listening to your pronunciation.
Thanks, this is great. Had Vietnamese friends teach me a few of the last names in the past, but this is much more comprehensive.
Thank you for posting this video. I have a "pen pal" that lives in Pleiku. She was born in 1975, at the end of the war. Her last name was on your chart, and now I know how to pronounce her name. I was there in 1969, during the "American War" as my pal calls the Vietnam War. I was an Aircraft Parts Supply Sergeant and our helicopter unit was at the Nha Trang Airbase. We had a few Vietnamese people working with us. That was 50+ years ago, and I often think about their welfare, and wish them and their families the best considering how that war ended and some of the Vietnamese people suffered.
Super useful -- thanks! Interesting that some of the southern accent versions sounded close to my uneducated ear as the mispronounced version stated at the beginning, but I know it takes practice to really pick up on the differences.
every time I saw NGUYEN I know it is indeed the word 阮(ruan,3) like 阮福映（Nguyễn Phúc Ánh）.
Thank you for your excellent video! I really like your teaching technique. You have a nice quiet environment to record in. You are clearly using excellent equipment. And you are speaking loudly and clearly so we can really, really hear the differences between the incorrect and the correct pronunciation. It seems the positioning and movement of the tongue is very, very important for speaking proper Vietnamese. At least, more so than English perhaps.
all of the sudden accent lines make sense, thank you!
Me, an American: "Nuh-goo-yen"
Nailed it 😎
I remember in the 1960s the news reporters would pronounce it like that during stories about the war. Nowadays people try harder to pronounce names the correct way. What complicates matters is Americans and Canadians of non-English origin pronouncing their own names the Anglicized way, although there seems to be a recent trend away from that.
Vietnam is monosyllable language so you can't pronunciation like this...
What a great video!! This is my first Vietnamese lesson!! Thank you, I have learned something new today! 😀👍🏻
Happy to hear that!
A Vietnamese student in the U.S. was greeted : “Hi We Win” by his friend so he asked; “What did we win?”. He then realized that how they say: “Hi Huy Nguyen” in U.S.
Lol 😂
:) I knew where you were going with this, as that's my name.
I chuckle inside. It's nothing like my name. xD Can't see how they hear that. When I say win and Nguyen back to back, then they can differentiate it.
@@huyked I guess for English speakers ''Win'' is the closest to ''Nguyen'' they can pronounce easily
@@lkrnpk
Yes. When you don't grow up with the language, it's hard to differentiate the accents.
@@huyked guess mostly it's either ''win'' or ''when''
That coat is super flattering on Van!
Very helpful! I've messed more of these up than I thought!
Surely the most genuinely useful videos I've watched this week.
This gives me the same feeling as my husband repeating for 20 years “bà ngoại” , and me thinking I’m getting close and him shaking his head and saying it again.
In Czech we have huge vietnamese community for quite some time (since 70s I believe) and the language barrier is very difficult (but vietnamese people are amazing in learning czech, it's not easy). Czech language is very adept in ability to pronounce even the difficult foreign accents and vowels (CZ being quite hard and complicated for foreigners itself) but still these nuances you presented are not very easy.
Czech language is great, but the same things for other slavic languages
I've given up on Czech people pronouncing my name correctly, so I just say it the way Czech people read it hahaha. Sometimes they try to get it right, so after their third time of saying it the same way I just say yeah that's correct 😂
In case, many of you don't know, Vietnamese last names and Chinese last names are the same. Due to the recent history, culture shifts and the accent or the way people pronounce, people have forgot their last names can be traced back to China.
Vietnamese - Chinese - Chinese writing
Nguyen - Ruan - 阮
Tran - Chen - 陈
Dang - Deng - 邓
Dinh - Ding - 丁
Phan - Fang - 方
Vu - Wu - 吴
Vuong - Wang - 王
Le - Li - 黎
These are just some examples. They are very common last names. Also, vietnamese Pho is said as Fen in Chinese "粉“。
True. But technically speaking, all Chinese are descendants of Vietnamese.
@@paulngo4946 ohh okie. But I remember my Korean friend told me that we were all from Korea. Hahaha I am no joking.
@@titanxie5579 If you believe human civilization started in Africa then I'm right.
@@paulngo4946 yeah, human reached Southern west Asia before heading North. But would you call yourself African then?
@@titanxie5579 No of course not. But I would call myself a descendant of the first humans in Africa, ergo, Chinese are descendants of Vietnamese. It's just logic.
Thanks SO MUCH! I have Vietnamese co-workers, and I always use the American english phonetics when addressing them. This definitely helps, especially "Vuong"
Very helpful
Take it from someone living in the U.S. for over 45 years, unless they start learning as a child, it's nearly impossible for foreigners to correctly pronounce certain words. They are not capable of the different accents. They cannot even hear the difference. You may be saying different words, but they are hearing you say the same words over and over again. I do commend your efforts though. I travel to Vietnam quite often and would love to meet you in person. Maybe even contribute some way to your channel. Your English is one of the best I've seen and heard... Keep it up!
Thank you so much!!
It really depends on the learners's background and learning method to be honest. You can find Cris ở châu Á channel. This guy has an excellent command of Vietnamese pronunciation and tones and He only learnt it within 2 years. Of course the fact that he had learnt Chinese for 10 years before he tried Vietnam really contributes to his achievement, but my point is that it's not totally impossible.
@@lengocbaothinh2553 but there is no such a thing as learning "chinese" tho.come on now.
@@PHlophe ???. What do you mean? learning a tonal language helps you a lot with Vietnamese
So glad you did this video! Last time you did only Nguyen and I had asked about Huynh. Now I know! I also had a friend named Tran, but whenever she introduced herself, she called herself Tran (rhymes with bran), so we assumed that was correct. Maybe she was just catering to us Americans! 😁
Had a Secondary School teacher who didn't mind us pronouncing Nguyen as GOOYen. I guess she knew us western kids would never get the Vietnamese pronunciation right.
A classic "problem" with cultural integration is families will often start pronouncing their own names "wrong." The most extreme examples are the many American Ellis Island stories, but it happens everywhere and often, not not necessarily needing government officials to be involved. It does add a layer of complexity, as you often see a name in the United States that is very clearly German, for example, and yet pronouncing it "correctly" will only get you a puzzled look. Then you have names that are the "same" name yet whose pronunciation has diverged significantly over time even in the "native" regional distribution prior to modern immigration patterns. So, it's never cut and dry (and he northern versus southern pronunciations here were extremely enlightening for me, as some were very different), but it's always worth the effort to at least try to get it right.
@@ahwhite2022 yes, very true. My last name is Scarpaci, but my grandparents pronounced it Scar-pay-cee just to cater to the Americans. My dad found out the real pronunciation and started insisting on saying it correctly (Scar-PAH-chee).
My last name is TRẦN, but in typing can written as TRAN as well it still can understand!!
But I hate when people (foreign) cant pronounce my last name!!
I mean it damm easy, they’re just lazy & not focus to trying!!
Don’t tell me about pronunciation hard, they must see Lao, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia pronounce & dialect
Or India, Middle East Muslim language!!
While Vietnam dialect s most easy because it use alphabet & pronunciation not that crazy hard as they mention!!
They pronounce it like TRẦN = transgender!! What the hell?? 😠 😠
The Southern Accent sounds like what you said it's not. It seems more of a spelling problem since in English speaking countries most are going for an English pronunciation with those spellings.
Vietnam has about 12 family names and some variations of those. Other family names there often come from neighboring or nearby countries.
This is specially useful for us working in customer service! Awesome!
I find northern accents are easier to pronounce than southern accents because they are more gutteral (bass) and have back-of-the-mouth sound formation rather than front-of-the-mouth sound formation (treble), which is why foreigners prefer to speak northern dialects. It is also common for southerners to be able to mimic a northern accent more easily than the other way around. But you disproved me. Well done! It would be very interesting to hear you do a full video in southern accent!
Yeah, because Northern accent is standard, bro. I have to admit that. When we sing Vietnamese music, we all must sing with northern accents. Otherwise it would be very funny.
@Tuan Hoang Yes, that is correct. Interestingly, UK singers (Adele, Beatles, Spice Girls, and so on) all sing with a North American accent but speak with a heavy UK accent - will it sound funny the other way? Is it a choice or a natural phenomenon?
Is North American dialect is a distorted version of the original UK language? If so would Southern Vietnamese dialect and Central Vietnamese dialect be considered distorted versions of the original (Northern) Vietnamese language also? Ironically, the UK has many (30+)regions and dialects, such as Scottish, Irish, and Welsh etc... so who is the OG in the UK? and how does that argument apply to Vietnam, given the size and history of both countries are similar?
@@haduong96353a It depends on what type of Vietnamese music though. There are a lot of dân ca that use the Southern dialect, often to give it a more homely feel of the countryside. Lý Cây Bông is one example. Vọng cổ and cải lương are some unique music forms that primarily use the Southern dialect.
A lot of foreigners learn to speak in a Northern accent purely because learning materials are mostly printed in the Northern standard. This is partly political since before a certain year, there were 2 different standards; and since the reunification, the North supplanted itself as the "standard" which is contestable. Anyway, most foreigners in Australia, Canada or the US (and those who live in Southern Vietnam) actually learn the Southern standard because there are more Southern speakers there. Elsewhere it's common to learn the Northern standard.
@@haduong96353a The reason people sing in a Northern way is due to historical music. In the 20th century, the standard way of singing incorporated a Northern-style as it was more "rounded" than other dialects. This is different from what is considered "standard" in other settings. Each region has their own standards for pronunciation and words. Only since the end of 1975 was there an attempt to use one standard due to politics but that doesn't change the fact that there is more than 1 standard dialect.
This was very helpful! I live in Waverly, Michigan, which has the fifth largest percentage of Vietnamese in Michigan. I was happy that I've been pronouncing Nyguyen, Phan, Pham, and Tran correctly since many families here have those last names.
Now I feel I must apologise to my Vietnamese friends and colleagues for putting up with my bad pronunciation for so many years.
I took would like to apologize too. Names are so personal.
I appreciate the separation and distinction of the tone here, makes me think I might actually stand a chance with tonal languages!
Hi, newbie here who's never studied even a bit of Vietnamese. I do have training in linguistics, though, and this video came up on my feed.
With regard to your pronunciation of "Nguyen," I can't help thinking I'm hearing a velar nasal () almost co-articulated with the labia-velar approximant ([w]), and that velar nasal becomes even more apparent with the "Southern" pronunciation, as if the -sound (again, a single velar nasal, without the "hardening" of the and the start of the articulation of the [w]-sound are kinda pushed together into a single sound before the [w]-sound opens up to the mid front "lax" vowel, represented by the with some diacritics above it. Is that what I'm hearing, or is my brain still trying to hold onto that "ng" that appears to be doing nothing otherwise?
Just to be clear, the < > symbols indicate spelling convention, while [ ] indicate the use of a phonetic symbol to represent the sound in question. As such, refers to the letters used to represent the sound in question, whereas [w] represents the IPA (Int'l Phonetic Alphabet) symbol for the labio-velar approximant that is also often represented in English by the .
I will also say that I find myself a bit confused throughout the rest of the video as your pronunciations of the example names, particularly the vowel, seem to change with varying degrees of emphasis (for example: 2:40).
Greetings from Indonesia. Thank you for sharing this. It seems that Vietnamese writings follow a similar pattern with pinyin, don't they? Southeast Asian names have unique characteristics to pronounce and various regions also have their uniqueness to pronounce (like in Indonesia, Javanese, Sumatrans, Balinese, etc. all have their own pronunciation), I found that my western friends are a little bit troubled to pronounce my name either. By the way, Pho also served in Indonesia, and I love it very much :D
Nice! Love the fact that Pho is Indonesia too
@@WhatThePho there are Vietnamese Pho restaurants in Indonesia, and also we have Bihun & Kwetiau made from rice noodles 😊
It's the point, really. Pinyin, Wade-Giles and Vietnamese written language are all romanization systems.
Viet Nam used to use characters (chu nom) like Chinese, Korean and Japanese before being colonized by the French who made us adopt a romanization written system which was beneficial to them.
Vietnamese romanization system uses the northern dialect which is why, for example, Gold is written as Vang and pronounced by the north with a V, whereas, it's pronounced with a Y in the south.
Northerner often say their pronunciation is the correct way which correlates to the written word but it's not true, they just surrendered to the French first, lol.
Look at Laos... 'Vientiane' is a French corruption of the Lao Viangchan /ʋíːəŋ tɕan/, reflecting the difficulty they had with the Lao pronunciation.
@@WhatThePho Indonesia also has a Pho-like dish that is Mie Kocok
Most of American know Nguyen is Vietnamese last name because it’s very popular. Pronunciation like “N Win” or “Nuh Win”
Vn is monosyllable language so you can't pronunciation like this...
Interestingly, many Southern Accent variants sound exactly the way you say the word shouldn't be pronounced 😲😇
Great work, thank you a lot!
This is what I was going to say.
In about half of these she'd say "it's not XXX, it's YYY" and then the when she'd get to the southern pronunciation there'd be this little eyeroll and it would turn out to be pretty dang close to XXX. Also: what demented individual came up with the orthography? Has the pronunciation changed, like, WILDLY since the Romanization was standardized? There were a couple of names that started off "Tr" but had a pronunciation suggesting that "Ch" would have been much closer/less confusing.
"did you know that if you change the pronunciation of a Vietnamese word, it can change the whole meaning?"
That is true of every language in the whole world.
I love the accent comparisons