The Vietnamese Language
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- Опубліковано 13 тра 2024
- This video is all about the Vietnamese language! Special thanks to Nguyễn Văn Phi for his Northern Vietnamese samples, and Tô Lê Nam for his additional Southern Vietnamese samples.
► Watch my video about VIETNAM (the country): • Focus on Vietnam! A Co...
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00:00 General info about Vietnamese
00:46 History of Vietnamese
03:41 French loanwords in Vietnamese
04:26 Vietnamese phonology - general
05:27 Vietnamese phonology - tones
06:26 Vietnamese grammar
12:24 Differences between northern and southern Vietnamese
14:43 Closing comments
15:09 The Question of the Day
Hi, everyone! I hope you liked the video!
►Learn a language with native teachers online using italki: www.italki.com/affshare?ref=langfocus --► My favorite way to practices languages!
Yes, I agree! Check it out: ua-cam.com/video/pEjId4gJ8iY/v-deo.html 😎
- Kick: đá
- Rock: đá
- Ice: đá
- Stone: đá
@@MinhNguyen-mf7jj cái gì cũng đá hết :)))
Đá đá đá
I am Vietnamese and I feel proud when the voice of my people is spread across the five continents. Thank you so much,Langfocus.
Fun fact: The word "ấy" can be use to replace 99% of vietnamese words in dialog
Cái ấy người ấy và ấy ấy
hôm ấy, có cái ấy của ông ấy đưa cho bà ấy ở chỗ ấy.
Làm chuyện ấy không :)
No
U sussy baka
Latin Alphabet: You can use me
Vietnamese: You don't fit my language
Latin Alphabet: Well then, use diacritics then?
Vietnamese: I'll take your entire stock
Underrated comment
Fr
Hey, Japanese, think about it
@@dustgreylynx I admit there is a charm in Japanese characters. But man it would be a huge leap in learning pace if Japan will adopt Romaji permanently.
@@dustgreylynx Japanese syllabaries aren't that bad. It's the kanji that get you. And what's most infuriating is that syllabaries work perfectly fine if you add spaces between words.
As a Thai, I want to learn Vietnamese so bad. I've seen Vietnamese people effortlessly nail Thai pronunciation because their language has more number of tones.
some kind of similar of both languages ]]]]
it does sound similar to Thai my friend, dw it's not gonna be hard
but why thai alphabet so hard even pronounciations im alr crying
I like your profile picture
@@James42_ Yours is nice too.
Really top shelf video. I am originally from New York where I met a lovely Vietnamese lady in 1976. We married in 1977 and made our first visit to Vietnam in 1988 when and where I promised myself I would learn Vietnamese. After coming home I spoke only Vietnamese with my wife and her family who had come to America a few years before. I moved to Vietnam with my wife in 1995 full time where we remain. About the three dialects… I am lucky because in my small office in Saigon I had a native Hanoi speaker and a native Hue speaker among five staff where we all communicated in Vietnamese for many years and so I am reasonably familiar with all dialects. But the best thing about speaking Vietnamese is the nearly universal positive reaction one receives as a foreigner (especially a non Asian foreigner). I really enjoy living here in Vietnam and thankful that I have been able to learn the language reasonably well.
At age 70 I decided to learn Vietnamese. It’s difficult to force my mouth to do what my ear hears. But I’ll keep going. Cam on and tam biet (both of which need diacritics my phone can’t manage.) I’ll save this YT to my Favorite Videos album. Thanks, Paul.
you can do it! i wish you the best
Xin chào :) I've been learning Southern Vietnamese recently,
but I'm quite young at age 19. I'm not sure about the options on your phone, but for me I have a little globe icon on my keyboard that when I press and hold it gives me other keyboard language options, one of which has vietnamese and its accent symbols. On Apple phones it can be changed in the settings app. I don't know if this will help but I hope it does! Rất vui được gặp Anh.
@@KobeCofini thank you. That will help with my Drops, Memrise, and Duolingo exercises on my phone. I can manage already in Rosetta Stone on my laptop.
Don't give up! After understanding Vietnamese, i believe you'll find the beauty of our language 😊. I wish you all the best and have a nice day!
I am so happy that you decided to study our language. I hope you can achieve many goals in your life while studying our language. Cảm ơn ❤️
Gives example of different tones: "Hey, I can actually hear them!"
Starts talking in sentences: "Nevermind."
Don't be angry
It took me 10 minutes to understand the tones, intellectually. It took me 10 years of listening to be able to hear them. Something clicked one day while I was listening to a Vietnamese friend singing karaoke and suddenly I could distinguish the word tones from the melody of the song. The words were on the TV screen. It's like riding a bike. You can't do it and then in a moment, you can.
Good luck to you.
I thought Mandarin was hard to understand with its tones. Vietnamese is a whole other level of subtle.
@@Odinsday Now try Cantonese
@@Odinsday Not really, the major difference are the broken tones.
As a Vietnamese, I have little difficulty communicating with people from the Northern dialect (Southern dialect here). Truth is, if you watch enough TV programmes in the wanted dialect you can imitate their tone pretty well, although it can end up being a little awkward when you're not really used to it. However, I guess the Central dialect remains the most mysterious one. If the speaker speaks slow enough you can hear most of what they say, but if they speak too fast then it's hard to understand what they're saying.
Thank you for sharing our language with the world!
My wife from Central Vietnam (Hue) but she spoke southern (thank god), to this day (20+ years) I still have difficulty understanding her parents pronunciation.
Việt nam có nhiều nơi phát âm khác nhau có khi chính người việt còn nghe mấy lần mới hiểu được đang nói gì
As a background, I am Filipino who grew up bilingual in English and Tagalog. I am conversational in Japanese and learning Hebrew and Bahasa Indonesian. My parents gave me a Vietnamese name (they used to work in a Vietnamese refugee camp) and they've been encouraging me to visit Vietnam and learn the language. I've been trying time and time again to learn Vietnamese but the biggest learning wall for me is the phonetics and the tones. All the other languages I know and am learning are not as tonal as Vietnamese. Learning the vocabulary is daunting and I can't even start on it since I don't even know how to distinguish the words.
Wow your background is so diverse 😳
A á à ả ã ạ ẫ ....b+a = ba father. or ô ố ồ ờ ổ. B+ ố = bố father
xin chúc mừng bạn đã mất gốc..
bạn sẽ học được tiếng Việt nếu bạn được thực hành nó với những người bản ngữ (Người Việt) ngôn ngữ Việt đúng là thật độc đáo, nó không phải thuộc ngữ hệ Môn khơ me như những người phương tây (pháp) đã xếp nó vào trong thời Pháp xâm lược Vietnam. rõ ràng Vietnamese là ngôn ngữ thuộc ngữ hệ riêng. được phong phú thêm bởi những từ mượn (Loan-words) từ những ngôn ngữ khác.
Don't worry
We Vietnamese don't know how to distinguish the words either. The best way is just to engage in conversation and try to gauge the meaning from the context, especially in case of speakers with a heavy accent.
The fact that Vietnamese is an analytical language, but ultilize a Latin alphabelt with simplified spelling mean that lots and lots of homophones' meanings are commonly mixed up. It's not uncommon for us to look up dictionary for meanings of old poetry and proverbs lol.
I'm Mexican and my husband is Vietnamese. I've been learning Vietnamese for 3 years now. It is a hard language especially since I have nobody else to speak with. Only my husband and my online teacher. Regardless, I love the language. It is so expressive. Tiếng Việt đáng học, for sure 🥰
Hola, soy de Vietnam. Vivo en la ciudad de Ho Chi Minh. He aprendido Espanol por varias semanas y no tengo alguien de practicar. Puedo ayudarte de aprender Vietnamita y me ayuda aprender Espanol. Encantado de conocerte
Yes. Keep it up 😀
I would like to learn Spanish one day. I find its pronunciation similar to Vietnamese
vietnamese is hard but It’s best if you learn the southern dialect since it’s the most popular one . Central is literally a whole nother language.Most vietnamese people don’t even understand what they’re saying unless if you’re from Central Vietnam 🥲I’m just like you, my girlfriend is Iraqi, so i’m trying to learn Arabic and it’s really hard for me but i think it’s fun cuz i can teach her french and vietnamese and she can teach me arabic 😅
it's called power of love, not power of linguistics
Foreigners learning Vietnamese: why are there so many tones???
Vietnamese learning other languages: why the words keep changing all the time???
The struggle mostly apply for English because how inconsistent the pronounciation. Other European languages don't suffer the same problem.
@@Kainery What I mean are tenses, cases, genders, plural and things like that, but yeah, English pronunciation is another level of wtfness too
you don't have to learn all of them, just choose 1. It's basically about choices XD, don't worry too much about the accent. You sound amazing in many ways as long as you speak it clearly and grammatically. It also happens a lots to many native speakers as well, :||| some native people have the accent from middle mixing with north and South, or south with middle, and so on. Therefore, it really doesn't matter much about how you sound like. Just ask the teachers which accents you want to follow, they will simplify it for you.
Is used to heard a Spanish guy who live in Vietnam said: It's easier for Native English speaker (or just people who can speak EN) to learn Vietnamese ... than it is for a Vietnamese person to learn English.
Well at least foreigner can learn either Northern or Southern Vietnamese ... for us Vietnamese (or just me i guess) learning English in school compare to how people irl speak "normally" is quite diffirent.
Back in my day most "English teacher" never learn English before. Many were used to teached Russian, French or German ... then one day they have to take 3 months of English Class to teach us student in school. I may only watch Disney cartoon or Hollywood Movie as a kid but i can clearly heard the diffirent in accent and pronunciation, they are not the same (some of my mother friends event speak better than my teachers, and they learned from there kid who study in college). Granted, these aren't bad teacher. They might be old but the writing & reading i learn from them is perfect ... it just there heavy German accent or Russian touge are not fitting. Nowaday i just hear my & older generations speak broken English with lots of Vietnamese accent in it. Lucky more younger English teacher wont have that issue, things does seem improving much more as my younger-sister now are beating me in everyday English conversation ... Oof.
Also it was a mix of American English & British English they teached us in class, we kinda learned both of them so i mostly dont see the diffirent nowadays. Definitely not prepared me to adapt how diffirent English sound in other countries, like in Canada, Australia, South Africa, each USA states, ect ...
This is just my opinion at least, it might look like a rant but i hope you dont read it like one. If you're thinking about learning Vietnamese i suggest you learn the Southern dialogue first, its more foreign friendly & Southern Vietnamese "generally" speak English better too so learn from them would be a good start ( I tell you as a Northerner :-/ ). I think you should to check out how Vietnamese "Hue accent" sound, it's maybe strange to your ears but very unique & have it's own charm to it. It's like how "thick Scottish accent" sound in English to us in Vietnam XD
@@mr.bluefox3511 @Phantom in the tree sorry for causing some confusion... I've learned Vietnamese a long time ago... as a native :)
I started casually studying Vietnamese a few years ago to impress my friends, however I lost all progress I gained when the pandemic hit and we couldn't meet up anymore. I do remember enjoying learning the word structure and realizing how much more comprehensive it is than english, but had quite a bit of challenge with tones other than the rising ones. Being a Spanish speaker trying to learn a tonal language is quite an experience, but I truly do want to learn Vietnamese eventually.
I came across many videos of yours on various topics before, yet this is the first time I've watched one on my mother tongue. I must say that I truly appreciated your effort in making this, all the different aspects of linguistics, authentic representatives of the Southern and Northern Vietnamese (as a Southerner, I enjoyed it so much hearing the Southern accent). And yes, as you said, like any language out there, people may find Vietnamese difficult to acquire, but as long as you can grasp the beauty of this language, you will just want to learn more! Keep up the great work!
Me, a Vietnamese who has spoken Vietnamese all my life watching this video: "Interesting."
aye same xDD
Same here lol
gib me astolfo bạn ơi
same lol
same :v
Vietnamese dialects make easy:
Northern Dialect: the British accent of Vietnamese, standard, formal, fancy.
Southern Dialect: the American accent of Vietnamese, informal, simple, straight forward
Central Dialect: the Scottish accent of Vietnames, cuz nobody understand a damn thing
Edit: my god I never realized there are so many Vietnamese linguistics professors on UA-cam. All of them replying to my stupid joke. All of them somehow from Central.
Ông nên lên top!
🤣🤣🤣
chém cha không bằng pha tiếng.
Haizzz lol
@@s.toctopusn248 Ỗng chỉ đang so sánh giọng của các vùng miền thôi mà có pha gì đâu...
Langfocus&community, I'm speaking several languages and am learning vietnamese now cause I will live in the south of Vietnam for several months. I focus of course on the outhern dialect and try to get pronunciation right. It's all very possible with consistancy and focus.
Your video provides us with a perfect introduction to the vietnamese language.
Just a fun fact: Here’s a word than can mean 3 different fruits simply by changing the tone
dưa: melon
dứa: pineapple
dừa: coconut
@@kyaumrungthung2390 actually, it's nước mắm not nước mắn =)))))
@@thaoanh5094 hé hé :"D
chuẩn méo phải chỉnh :))
Different tonalities sometimes comprise related words in Vietnamese, like: "Một con voi vươn vòi lên. / One elefant (voi) stretches up his trump (vòi)." Or take "cánh", the bird´s wing and "cành", the branch of a tree (which usually shows down).
Dựa means to rely on sb or lie on sb;)
This man knows more about my language and its history than I ever did
yeah ikr
First time
Minh Nguyen.
The same goes for the average people in every country.
Yes, sure. He has a deep knowledge.
yeah i'm also vietnam
Wow! I must say this is the most interesting informative video about Vietnamese language I've found on the internet. Thank whole team for making this video. Happy Chinese New Year to yoy all!
Thank you dude for your video, your knowledge about vietnamese is quite impressive, hello from a french vietnamese
Foreigner friends, Vietnamese is easy! Let's start with the letter "a":
a, ă, â, á, à, ả, ạ, ã :)
yeah its "o" turn: o, ò, ó, õ, ọ, ỏ, ô, ố, ỗ, ổ, ồ, ộ, ơ, ớ, ở, ờ, ợ, ỡ
a á à ả ã ạ â ấ ầ ẩ ẫ ậ ă ắ ằ ẳ ẵ ặ
and I thought mandarin was bad, I can't deal with this
God
Start with ' u ' ư ứ ử ữ ừ ụ ú ũ ủ
I am Southern Vietnamese. I have no issues in communicating with people from the North since there are a lot of exposure from national television from the North. I also can speak Vietnamese in Northern accent since my Dad was originally from the North near Ha Noi . But I might have some issues with people from the Central more or less depends on their location, but also because there are much less exposure with Central accents and vocabulary on national television.
P/S: I had been waiting for this video. Thank you so much. Love ❤️
Why did you wrote Ha Noi, instead of Hanoi...? (Actually Ho Chi Mihn)
I agree with what you wrote here. I'm Northern Vietnamese and usually I can understand the Southern accent pretty well. There're lots of TV shows and movies produced in the South, so gradually I'm exposed to the Southern accent and vocabulary. For me, comparing different words used in two regions is always fun and fascinating ("lợn" and "heo" for pigs, "hoa" and "bông" for flowers, among many examples). However, accents in the central regions of Vietnam are much harder to people from the northern and southern ends to understand. If people from central regions of Vietnam speak fast, I think I understand about 10-20% of what they say.
Hi from Can Tho City 🤗❤️🇻🇳.
@@PauloPereira-jj4jv Ola compadre, 😊 actually in Vietnamese language all words are separate in syllables. 😅 Even on my driver license, they wrote my name like this: Fran Cis Co Jo sé Mar Ques !!! 😂 They sometimes split foreign words too. 😁
@@PauloPereira-jj4jv In Vietnamese, we separate the words. We write Viet Nam, Ha Noi, and Sai Gon, instead of Vietnam, Hanoi, and Saigon
One of the very few UA-camrs who actually teaches you something USEFUL. The details, the research you are doing is insane. Thank you Langfocus 🙏
BRO- THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT WOULD TAKE TO WRITE YOUR USERNAME ON PAPER 😭😭
Một đặc điểm nổi bật của Tiếng Việt (không thấy nhắc tới trong video), khác hầu hết các ngôn ngữ khác (English as example) là cách dùng đại từ nhân xưng "chúng tôi" và "chúng ta" (both means "we" in English). Trong khi "we" (chúng ta) trong tiếng Anh không thể hiện rõ ngữ cảnh có hai nhóm đối thoại, nhóm A đại diện bởi người nói, nhóm B chỉ bao gồm một hay nhiều người nghe, tức có thể hiểu người nói đại diện cho cả hai nhóm A và B. Nếu dùng "chúng tôi" (also "we") sẽ biểu thị rõ ràng là người nói chỉ có ý đại diện cho nhóm A mà không đại diện cho nhóm B.
yeah 2 từ này có điểm giống với tiếng TQ, có lẽ đây là sự ảnh hưởng từ ngôn ngữ Hán
Mình đóng góp thêm nha: chúng ta là khi nói với nhau (như we) trong cùng nhóm. Chúng tôi cũng là we mà nói cho người ngoài nhóm. Chúng ta nên đoàn kết chống giặc xâm lăng. Chúng tôi sẽ đoàn kết chống các ông đấy. Cám ơn bạn chia sẻ trước
Đúng là khác biệt rất rõ ràng, nhưng có thể tạm dùng từ "all of us" để thể hiện chúng ta trong 1 sổ ngữ cảnh
Nothing special to mention here, just like in other languages, there are some words have different meanings, meanwhile in other languages different words are used to represent different expressions.
@@hugng0612hán ngữ ko có chúng ta nhé
trust me, Vietnamese is easy.
Example : "đá" means rock, stone, ice and kick
@Dboat ... isn't that a counter example..
"đá" also means crack =)
Con ngựa đá con ngựa đá!
🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴
It also depends on the communication situation
@@RickVietsub meaning:
the horse kick a stone horse
I'm Thai and Vietnamese sounds like a Thai speaker talking in a made-up language with a lot of tongue twisting. It's very funny and shocking because every time I hear Vietnamese I feel like I could understand it but I ultimately don't.
Edit:
In case anyone wonders how much Thai and Vietnamese sound alike, the two languages share the same pronunciation and tones of words with each other. That's why to Thai, Vietnamese and non-western ears, Thai and Vietnamese sound very alike. Here are some examples:
- At 10:20 the Vietnamese word "người" has the same pronunciation as a Thai word 'เงย' (ngey), which means 'to look up'
- At 11:37 the Vietnamese word 'không' has the same pronunciation as a Thai word 'คง' (khong), which means 'to maintain'
- At 12:53 the Vietnamese word with high rising broken tone 'mã' has the exact same pronunciation and tone as a Thai word 'ม้า' (má), which means 'horse'
These are just three examples. There are many more in the video, so you can guess now how much these two languages sound alike.
Vietnamese here and I feel exactly the same :D
As a Vietnamese i feel the same lmao
Vietnamese here, i feel the same about Thai
Likewise dear friend. I think Thai is really cool, but still it sounds very strange to me, familiar-sounding words that don't make any sense.
lol you need to watch one of those Thai clips where we do Vietnamese subtitles because it sounds very similar to Vietnamese. Like [VIETSUB] MISS GRAND THÁI LAN
Hi Paul,
It's fascinating to watch your video.
Thank you so much for your meticulous work on the Vietnamese language.
In fact, I've shared your video with my friends who wanted to know or learn the Vietnamese language.
I've enjoyed your videos in other languages as well.
Please keep up the good work.
Thank you again and truly appreciate your valuable work.
Thanks! You might also like this video about Vietnam (the country) on my second channel: ua-cam.com/video/pEjId4gJ8iY/v-deo.html
I have watched this video hundred or thousand times,this video sooooooooooooo interesting man
Keep it up!
Thanks! I’m glad you like it that much. 🙂
the cursing in vietnamese is pure gold
Lmao tru
Duma
I hope you didn't mean it
“MÀY RA ĐÂY”
“TAO LẤY ROI”
“THẰNG CHÓ”
And there’s more curse words, but they’ll start sounding weird, because most curse words in Vietnam are literally about animals.
You can compare equally anything with an animal to humilate someone or something
“Wanna come over?”
“Sorry, I’m busy”
“There’s a new langfocus vid-”
“IM APPROACHING AT MACH 4 MOVE OUT OF THE WAY”
"watch yo jet bro watcH YO JE-"
Sounds like something Jeremy Clarkson would say
:D proto
me a vietnamese watching a guy teach my own language
Not as cringe as *insert joke here*
I always learn so much from your channel, thank you for doing this.
As a Mizo from North East India, I like Vietnamese cultures and traditions and I always wanted to know more about Vietnamese. 😅😅. My friend once had a DNA test and also has Vietnamese ancestry and not only him but many Zo people had also done it now and all their results are quite similar. That is why I am curious about Vietnam😅😅.
Don't be afraid when your Vietnamese is bad, the Vietnamese will correct you. Hope one day you will come to Vietnam.
First time I heard of this. Are the Mizo people of Vietnamese origin? You make me curious, I have seen pictures of Mizo people indeed their faces have some similarities with Vietnamese people (although Mizo people have darker skin)
Where did the Mizo people think they were of Vietnamese origin?
Awesome video, I'm going through the duolingo vietnamese course now and this video explains a lot of the confusion I had regarding the counting words and other things. Thanks!
Vietnamese is not difficult, Vietnamese even has no grammar
❤ from Poland to Vietnamese ppl
One of the best national minorities
Love Their food;)
We love you too and we have watched Euro and could see your progress in the match! We’ll continue supporting you guys! Come on Poland!
I tried to learn Polish many times and still failed to distinguish ą ę 😭
very true, the Vietnamese are the best Asian immigrants :)
I know that there are Vietnamese in Czechia and Slovakia (immigrants during communism). Are there Vietnamese in Poland?
@@nni9310 ua-cam.com/video/1ttXXiJjyBQ/v-deo.html I don’t know if there are many Vietnamese in Poland but I know this Vietnamese girl is a UA-camr in Poland. You can check it out. I guess she’s kinda known for some Polish people
For those who want to learn Vietnamese, don’t need to be afraid of the pronunciation. No matter you speak nothern, southern, or you speak both of them at the same time, we all understand you.
yup
basically just learn IPA and you're good
Or try to.
Everyone gangsta until they speak Central accent
@@yooha2911 lmao toi miền trung nè :)))
GREAT VIDEO, VALUABLE INFORMATION, THANKS!
This is an amazing summary of the Viet language. Thank you!
I love how the whole Vietnamese community is here
I'm glad that native speakers find the video interesting!
Well, from a young age, we have always been encouraged to be proud of our culture and language :v
ikr ;)
We have always been here, waiting for the opportunity
Vietnamese watches YT a lot so yeah. :D
Vietnamese: **Has tones to differientiate between words**
Region dialects: "I'm bouta end this man's whole career"
Understandable
to be honest even Vietnamese got confuse every time they talk to some one with a different dialects. LoL
Underrate 😂😂👌👌
Kinh people is one of Fityfourth ethics in Vietnam and each ethic have its distinctive culture, such as language speaking and writing script.
Each part of Vietnam has its dialect words and have speaking into the difference tones that have referred in the clip.
North Vietnamese use word : pig = con lợn, Peanut = đậu lạc, pineapple = trái dứa, ceramic bowl = cái bát,
and ect.
South Vietnamese use word : pig = con heo, peanut = đậu phụng, pineapple = trái thơm, ceramic bowl= cái chén or cái tô that is referred to the bigger bowl.
Eeyyuuuup
intriguing vid! highly appreciate it
You are very (amazingly) good at explaining the structural details of the written Vietnamese.
Love 💗 Vietnam 🇻🇳 from Lebanon 🇱🇧!
🇱🇧 💝 🇻🇳
Stay strong guys! Vietnam welcome you❤️💚
@@bchow6504 Thank You 😊 Asian brothers and sisters forever ♾
I love 🇱🇧 one of my close friends is Lebanese and my girlfriend is Iraqi. Used to play football with a lot of Arab friends, so i learned some arabic phrases 😅
I often find comments saying they feel great to see their language getting a video explaining its vocabulary & grammar, reaching a wide audience and now I know how they feel. And as always keep up the good work. Cảm ơn Paul!
Research like this take hella effort, and even then speakers from that language may or may not know how to explain or even know half of this stuff. Great video indeed.
Yeah, come on Paul!
Sorry, I don't want to sound rude, but why most of Vietnamese have second (family) name - Nguyen?
@@nostalgiakarlk.f.7386 it means thank you in vietnamese lol
@@birhb6372 Yeah, I know LOL.
Ty for making this, I'm so happy because my country language is finally introduced in one of your vids!
(Nếu bạn nào không hiểu thì lên GG mà dịch chứ tui lười lém)
I grew up in Taiwan but my mother and grandmother were ethnic Chinese from Vietnam. I never spent the time to learn Vietnamese, but I heard a lot of it in my childhood. Vietnamese seems a straightforward language for most Chinese to pick up. All the consonants and tones sound clear to us (I know sometimes it can be confusing to the Western ears). Grammar is simple and straightforward. As you said, there is no form changes due to gender, plural, tense or conjugation *as in Chinese.
It's funny how me, a Vietnamese, who is currently studying English, now wants to study Vietnamese.
:) it’s normal for every native speakers. You can master in a foreign language, more grammatical correct than most of the native speakers but to do the same with your mother tongue is another story. Most of the time, natives tend to overlook minor mistakes due to the tendency in real life usage without thinking deeply and carefully in most of the tricky contexts. I am also a Vietnamese but I cannot assure I use the correct word choice or grammar all the time, let alone every languages evolve through time, unless you are a linguist it’s hard to comprehend how old versions of Vietnamese used to be when talking with the elderly.
Hai ông người Việt đúng ko
Nói cái gì đó dễ hiểu tí đi
@@thanhocel8058 cái tên nói lên tất cả rồi, mình đâu đổi tên đổi họ đâu. Thì bạn vẫn có thể dùng Google dịch, mình không nghĩ những comment trên là dùng từ quá cao siêu. Nhưng bạn hỏi thì mình cũng trả lời. Đại ý của mình là với mọi ngôn ngữ, người bản ngữ chưa chắc là người nói ngôn ngữ đó tốt nhất (trừ các nhà ngôn ngữ học, học giả) bởi thói quen sử dụng hằng ngày và tập quán của từng địa phương, cá nhân. Bạn học tiếng nước ngoài có thể không chuẩn phát âm nhưng ngữ pháp, văn phạm có khi lại chuẩn hơn họ. Với tiếng Việt cũng vậy, lúc nhỏ học từ ngữ ngữ pháp tập làm văn khí thế, phân tích cấu trúc câu bổ ngữ định ngữ, tu từ ẩn dụ hoán dụ vân vân, nhưng rất khó để ngay cả 1 người Việt nói chuẩn, bạn có thể dùng đúng từ đúng câu, còn phù hợp với từng hoàn cảnh, mục đích cụ thể lại là chuyện khác. Thường ngày cũng hiếm có ai đi bắt bẻ dù có nói sai, miễn sao hiểu ý là được.
@@chaunguyenphuc6642 mình đùa tẹo thôi mà , làm gì căng vậy:))
I’m American and from the south, but the community I’m from has a very large Vietnamese population. It’s the second most popular language in that town. I had many Vietnamese friends when I was really young and I would go to their houses all the time to play. I ended up picking up some Vietnamese just from staying over there and playing all the time but I’ve long since forgotten it. Wish I hadn’t, it’s such a cool language. Maybe one day I’ll study it and see if I can pick it up again.
That means you are living in California, right ? As i know, in Orange County, there are many Asian Americans here, include Vietnamese Americans
@@doanlinh9525 He just said, he's from the South. California is in the geographical South, yes. But I think OP was referring to the cultural South. States like Texas, or Alabama, or Mississippi.
@@doanlinh9525 Probably Texas/Louisiana. Lots of Vietnamese in the Gulf Coast
@@doanlinh9525 There are Vietnamese-Americans all over the USA. I grew up in a small state in the northeast (the specific region I'm from is called northern New England) and the most significant ethnic communities there when I was growing up were Vietnamese and Cambodian. (This has changed over the last 20 years - there are now more Somalis, Ethiopians, and Jews than there used to be.) As a result I grew up eating a fair amount of Vietnamese food because they had the best restaurants in town!
There’s also a major community in New Orleans.
Great video Paul. My first ex is half Vietnamese, half French - her mother is Vietnamese from Saigon so I got to hear a lot of everyday phrases - eat it up, eat rice, drink, where are you going? Wash your hands. The partner of the mother was from Hanoi and he spoke differently but it was difficult to identify exactly what. The most difficult part for me (apart from vocabulary) was the tones - I was never sure I had said the tone right. Your examples of northern Vietnamese did sound unfamiliar to me but that improved when you gave examples from Saigon. Incidentally the cathedral you showed looked like Orléans - was it? All the best, Rob in Switzerland
This is an excellent presentation. Thank you!
My pleasure!
After moving to Saigon in 2015 I learned to speak Vietnamese with a southern accent. In found the [j] consonant sound softer sounding than the northern [z] sound (written "d"), but I can now appreciate the "proper" northern pronunciation, especially in poetry and music. :)
Vietnamese is a beautiful language and really comes in handy if you want to understand the culture. Also, in Saigon knowing "Chạy xe kiểu gì vậy" is basically a necessity.
Your comment give me a good laugh at the horror I experienced with the traffic in Saigon since I left Vietnam about 20 years ago and returned for a visit 10 years ago.
@@nntvog Horror is an appropriate word to describe Saigon traffic. I remember on my 2nd day in town jumping in on a scooter. My girlfriend wanted me to jump into the deep end right away. Think of it as a school of fish and you're alright. You get used to it amazingly quickly. Sadly, now because of Covid the streets are almost empty 😕
lmaoooo 😂😂😂 underated comment
Yes, sure.
Nothing can be truer than the last sentence lmfao bro
For me, the challenging part of learning Vietnamese is learning the pronunciation of the differently accented letters and replicating the sounds of a tonal language after having spoken English for all of my life and French for a portion of it. The order of words and the lack of conjugation makes it more straightforward though, I am so glad to not have to memorize conjugations for future tense, present tense, past tense, etc.
For me, there are more 30 accents all around of Vietnam, but just 4 - 5 accents is used by the most people. These are Hanoi accents( Standard of Northern accent), Hue accents ( Standard of North Central ), Danang accents ( maybe added Quang Nam accent - standard of South Central) , DakLak accent or Dalat accent ( standard of Central Highlands) and Saigon accent ( standard of Southeast and Waterways) . Unlike China, which has Mandarin, there are just some popular accents of language "Tieng Viet" because of it 's excelent epress in Written language by Latin alphabets, but not perfect one in Oral language .
Hey random question Robin. Do you know anyone goes by the name of Tessa? Your profile pic remind me of someone I knew...
dễ mà anh bạn
Đúng vậy lợi thế của tiếng Việt chúng tôi
They did a really good job explaining this, I’ve been seriously learning for 5 years and speak like a native now in a mixture of northern&southern dialects also known as Bac ky ‘75
Amazing how you know so much history and I'm literally Vietnamese and you know way more then I do it can get surprising also keep up the good work.
Learning Vietnamese is all fun games until u hear the central accent
What is the central accent?? :)
@@uctu3469 giọng miền Trung
@@uctu3469 Quỏng Nôm, Quảng ngữa, Xự Huệ
@@nguyenkha5322 quạng trị, quạng bình, thanh hóa
@@AnhMai712 :)))) Ở đâu ra bé Mai z :p
I've been learning Vietnamese for almost 2 years, there's times where I can sit down with a local (in HCMC) and have a full conversation for 20-30 minutes and theres other times where we barely get past the first few sentences. It really seems to be about training your ear with as many different dialects as possible. If I ever understand a 60 year old grab driver I'll know im fluent.
Don't worry, we Vietnamese still find it hard to understand different dialects. Moreover, native as I am, I still find it hard to identify words in Vietnamese songs and drama, especially the traditional ones with lots of vocal manipulation for artistic and emotional emphasis.
Similar to your example about the 60-year-old grab driver, after 2 college courses taught by a respectable 70-year-old-English-speaking-native-French lecturer, my English is on a different level. English with French pronunciation and intonations. It sounded like melodies but takes time to comprehend.
The English spoken by my native Vietnamese lecturer in French pronunciation and intonations was both beautiful and easy to understand.
first step to learn Vietnamese:
learn "a" letter: a à á ả ã ạ ă ằ ắ ẳ ẵ ặ â ầ ấ ẩ ẫ ậ
second step:
learn "b" letter: b
wow there are too much different
To tell the truth, it's pretty much the same about Engligh for us Vietnamese (and I assume for other foreign learners of English as well). My cousin once invited me for a dinner with a British friend. In that dinner, even though we talked while eating and I just casually listened, I pretty much could understand every word that British guy said. But when I met my cousin's boss, who is also British, I couldn't understand a single word he said lol.
A "60 year old grab driver"? Sounds like a sexual assault case in the making...
Thank you for making a video about our language. Love from Việt Nam.
Very informative video.
Thanks.
As a Vietnamese person, I didn't realize how hard it is to learn Vietnamese before watching this video xD
mình cũng vậy, bắt tay cái
Có lần tôi đọc giáo trình dạy tiếng Việt trung cấp do người Nhật viết (có 1 tác giả là người VN), họ dùng các thuật ngữ mà mình chưa từng nghe chỉ có dân trong ngành mới biết như: tính ngữ, đại từ chỉ định, phương vị từ...:))
Tale of Kiều is the nightmare for most secondary and highschool students in Vietnam
don't try to read it unless you want to lose your passion
High school students everywhere can relate to your frustration. :) At my school it was Shakespeare.
@@Langfocus ya leíste el Don Quijote? Todos mis amigos hispanohablantes odian eso jaja
@@someonerandom704 nunca leímos el Quijote en la escuela XD sólo literatura argentina
@@someonerandom704 El Quijote es un libro demasiado largo. Siento que me aburriría con leer un solo capítulo.
@@someonerandom704 We do have Don Quijote in high school's literature tho
Thanks for your knowledge and understanding of Vietnamese language.
As a native vietnamese (northern dialect), i can say that the differences between northern and southern dialect is quite similar to that of british english and american english (northern dialect sounds more "posh" and subtle whereas southern dialect is quite down to earth and may be easier for foreign people to learn)
The central region dialect is way way harder than the two mentioned dialects. In places such as Nghe An or Ha Tinh, especially in the rural mountainous regions, native vietnamese may not even understand the accent. To put it in perspective, it is like a person in London trying to understand the most difficult Irish/Scottish dialects
Dont forget the Hue accent. Gosh i cant even make half the thing they say sometime.
ye i must admit the midland accent is like another different language, an old lady there once tried to communicate with me but its really hard (im in the south) to understand that i asked her to repeat what she said so many times that she became tired and never want to talk to me again since then 😆😆
@@vothienbaochau I don't understand why they can't just impersonate a Northern/Southern accent when they're trying to get a point across. Is it a matter of pride?
@@Don2006 they cant cause of habbit and parent’s influence, im a northerner who’ve grown up in the south since birthed, people still recognized my northern origin through habbit of speech and accent
@@phucletran2860 I guess it really is as simple as that. I've had only one experience with a Central Vietnamese speaker, and she was able to southernize her speech enough for me to understand. But I suppose most Americans wouldn't be able to impersonate even an Aussie accent, for example.
I am from Poland, and I started learning Vietnamese in december last year, mainly because I want to go to Vietnam and be able to communicate with people. I already have the basics, and I don't find it as frustrating as other people say, but I have to say that I have a huge problems with remembering words because of how similar they sometimes are. Also the tones which add different meaning is something really hard to memorize. But after all, I really did find it really interesting and fun to learn. chuột túi is a kangaroo in Vietnamese, which translates to "mouse" "bag". I find it hilarious and it really sums up this language as language made out of "blocks" which you just glue together. If you speak northern dialect and want to give me some hints, let me know :D
What you have found is very interesting. I think your guessing is true for most of the cases. Btw, I don’t think “chuột túi” is a common word for kangaroo nowadays. To refer to this animal, I think most of people would prefer the original word, which is kangaroo (pronounced in Vietnamese way)
more hilarious words for you: dolphin - cá heo - fish pig, whale - cá voi - fish elephant, giraffe - hươu cao cổ - deer high neck, penguin - chim cánh cụt - bird wing short :)))
@@huynhho3793 The Vietnamese way of Kangaroo is Kănguru which is actually borrowed exactly from French Kangourou
it's "wing" not "swing"
but yeah "cụt" here means short. I'm so frustrated with memes on facebook translating that it's an amputated-wing bird
@@thanhlenguyentran2131 nhiều từ tiếng việt là từ ghép nên lúc dịch ra tiếng anh ms buồn cười :)))
Great explanation! 🔥
Thank you for mentioning Chữ Nôm. Cause I actually still write in it when handwriting Vietnamese.
For me as a Vietnamese-Canadian living in Vietnam, Vietnamese is pretty easy to understand all over the country. We don’t consider the north, southern, and central Vietnamese variants as dialects, but rather as just accents. Vietnamese people also know the difference in vocabulary and can completely understand each other… like when a northern person uses a word that isn’t used in the south, the southern person can still totally understand the northern person. Central Vietnamese is a bit strange but is still completely intelligible for northern and southern Vietnamese.
Language boundaries are vague so arguments on whether it is one thing or three things do not come to an end. Enjoy it!
all fun and games until you go to china and hear their dialect. it’s like being deaf and pretend to understand.
This guy : *mentioned Vietnamese in a well-explained and structured video*
The Trees : “You have summoned us”
So you has summon me:)))
Ayo, cây ko biết nói.
@@binhanjustbinhan9141 ám chỉ lính du kích việt nam đó bạn
@@funi2044 Ai chả biết.
Hello, I'm from Hanoi :)
hay quá Phúc ơi, nổi cả da gà luôn nè, thấm vào từng mạch máu
Color-coding the background of the words helps so much.
Glad to hear it! I started doing that because it helps ME, but it has become part of my video style.
I'm a Vietnamese-American; first-generation born from immigrant parents, Vietnamese was only ever spoken in the house until I had to start school and had to learn English (near English "English" as my ESL teacher was a remnant from WWII). My Vietnamese became really poor during those school years and only now in my 30's has it picked back up to a fair level. I can carry conversation, no problem, but don't ask me to do arithmetic out-loud.
I don't know if this is the case for many others but it was a very slow and often frustrating process to re-learn a native tongue I near forgot, but I did it to keep some heritage and culture. It's gotten a whole lot better after I visited Viet Nam for a few months and there, despite how poor my Vietnamese is in comparison to the native population, I could speak and understand most of the dialects from the North and Central, though the Central dialect is a lot harder for me to understand fully.
My family originates from the North but moved South so we speak with an odd mixed bag of dialects of the two. Compounded with my history growing up in the West, I can tell you it wasn't always a pleasant experience my stay back in the "Home Country." It was fun and a certainly an experience, but often frustrating and alienating as people back in the "Home Country" looked at me like an oddity and only tolerated me as much as any foreign tourist, and it was an opposite but equal experience growing up in the States, having gone to school not even recognizing my "Western Name" in school when called on, only once growing out of that, there being a relatively small community of Asians where we live, not being able to mix with them as I had to change to more Western behaviors to fit in.
TL;DR - It sucked growing up.
may the fatherland spirit bless you ;) From Hanoi with love
Got one Indonesian friend who seems to be in a somewhat similar situation as you. Born and raised in the US til a certain age, lived in japan a few years, went back to Indo a few years, and ended up in Vietnam for Uni. He got a wild traveling history.
He's bilingual, 100% American English but his Bahasa suffered a tiny bit, still fluent but with a slightly off accent. Sometimes he got an identitity crisis, but he blends in very well wherever he goes. He got lots of international friends and also from his own country. Gotta admit i haven't met many people like him, such high adaptability level.
We are the mixed generation, never truly belonging to either of our homes, but also able to experience both, curse and a blessing at the same time. But I can assure, most vietnamese wont be able to do arithmetic out loud past highschool (for different reasons though). in my experience american-vietnamese (and american-asians) in general had a harder time retaining their original culture, including language, compared to their european counterparts
I'm exactly the same, also in 30's, but grew up in australia
As a not-viet person but with a decent amount of vietnamese friends, I think the language sounds super super cute! it seems really challenging to learn, but i have learned some basic phrases. What is really confusing is how to pronounce someone's last name or types of food/drink since there are some pronunciation differences (it's how i practice with friends). I'd love to try to full on learn it one day!
Having Vietnamese friends is the most efficient way to learn pronounce, speaking and listening. I always recommend people to do that, and I have a little advice for you, you should learn speaking and listening in ONE dialect at a time. Wish you the best of luck.
@@KhoaNguyen96 For sure! Most of my friends speak the southern dialect so that's what i usually go with :) I also watch dramas here and there to get used to people's voice inflections and trying to hear the different tones
Last name are fairy easy if you can speak the tone, there are alot of last name in Vietnam, but the most common are Nguyễn. Food and drinks are depend on who you speaking to, because south and north have different noun for them. Wish you good luck.
@@stephaniefrost9720 Ừ ~ Ứ thank...
The beauty of Vietnamese is that you don't need to rely on context to let someone understand something.
I love your content!! This is a fantastic overview of the Vietnamese language. The only thing I would add is that Vietnamese speakers will usually simplify and cut down on unnecessary words. For instance, they don't typically use a time particle (đã, sẽ, đang) when the time can be inferred by the context. "Ngày mai em đi làm" = "Tomorrow I'll go to work." "Ngày mai em sẽ đi làm" sounds redundant so it's not functionally or grammatically necessary-my teacher would always correct me when I said things like this :D
Alternatively, if there's enough context in the conversation, a phrase like this is commonly shortened to "Mai đi làm" (literally "[abbreviated] Tomorrow go work"). So efficient!
I think it is because Vietnamese has no tense that indicates time (future, past, present), so we have to add words that indicate time (mai, hôm qua, mốt).
Thank you for your video ! I'll add some remarks :
- Chữ nôm, as well as Classical Chinese, were still used during the French colonial period. The official archives of the Nguyễn dynasty, written in Chinese, go up to 1945.
- Most people do not know it, but Chữ nôm was far from being restricted to literature. In the early 20th century, you still have many documents using it (sometimes with quốc ngữ), for ex : hiring contracts for laborers written in French, quốc ngữ and nôm.
- Alexandre de Rhodes was French and is often regarded as the creator of quốc ngữ, but his Portuguese predecessors were the very first to create this writing system and he just continued their work.
The tones are marked in writing. At a first glance I think that makes it A LOT less frustrating to learn.
It might be hard to pronounce, but very easy to read.
It's so convenient to be able to read stuff. In a shop, on a menu, when asking for directions, or it's meaning. You may not know but at least you have the ability to ask.
Until you discover that the spoken tones don't always match the written tones. (Oh, nooooo!)
@@rubiks6 Why not?
@@alessbritish228 different accents
My wife, called Hồng and who loves to sing, was very pleased by the examples of "Hồng thông minh" (Hồng is smart) and "Hồng là ca sĩ" (Hồng is a singer). We came to your video after a discussion where I, having studied Japanese, claimed that much of Vietnamese is mutually intelligible with both Chinese and Japanese, e.g. words like big (dai) and sea (hải vs. kai in on-yomi). Your video illustrated that cases of mutual intelligibility are more likely due to loan-words from Chinese to Vietnamese and Japanese, rather than the languages being closely relatived in the language family tree (which was my uninformed claim).
Hải is a loanword from chinese. Pure vietnamese word for Hải is Biển.
Wow
@@NamPhung90 its called "âm Nôm", Sino-Vietnamese words are called "âm Hán - Việt"
@@ryoukaip still a loanword from our ancestor. Just too old that they get much more modification than French and English loanword.
😂
So your Vietnamese? I am to!
Xin chào mn
I am an english speaker, having been born in Canada. My father was from french stock and my mother and my mother was of Irish ancestry. My wife is Vietnamese from HCMC. I tell her that when she speaks with her relatives, it sounds like a bag of springs falling down the stairs. In a couple of weeks my wife and I are heading toy and Thailand for a two month trip. Now I have to quickly learn a few phrases. Quite difficult to remember just a few phrases because we’ll be traveling in south, central and north VN! Wish me luck!
As a Vietnamese originally from Saigon (Sài Gòn), I find this video really helpful for those learning or re-learning Vietnamese. My ability to speak my native language is pretty ok, although I feel like I'm in elementary school and can only engage in casual conversations with my family and sometimes other Vietnamese speakers. I use the Southern Vietnamese dialect/accent, but I pronounce the "s" and "x" sounds as "s", and "v" as "v". Overall, I wish to thank you, Langfocus, for teaching others about my native language, including its history, phonology, grammar, and dialects. Chúc các bạnh học tiếng Việt vui vẻ! Happy learning Vietnamese everyone!
is it possible to read your language using just the classic alphabet from a to z without diacritics or other marks?
@@alpacamale2909 yes, but it could cause misunderstanding if the context is unclear. We have jokes regarding this too. For example, 'chong thi coi ao, vo thi coi quan' can be read 'chồng thì coi ao, vợ thì coi quán,' meaning 'the husband takes care of the fishpond, while the wife manages the store.' It could also be read 'chồng thì cởi áo, vợ thì cởi quần,' meaning, 'the husband is taking off his shirt, while the wife is taking off her pants,' as in, they're about to have sex.
the tone of Northern Vietnamese and Southern Vietnamese just like American and British
Yse
Lol, yes
And the tone of Northern Vietnamese and Central Vietnamese is like between Hannover German vs Bavarian German.
And Huế accent is like Aussie English :))
True
In Vietnam, people mostly listen to northern and southern accents in the media. (not often hear the central accent, the central region artists often change their accent according to the place they work Hanoi or Saigon)
The northern accent dominates in political programs, news , TV series, singing (Southern singers often use northern accent when singing) and southern accent dominate in entertainment, reality shows, movies, comedies. (there are many comedians and stand-up comedians in the south)
central accents are just too varied. even from different district they could speak differently
@@vincentprime740 not only between 2 districts but also in 2 wards or even you and your neighbor. Because, tones of VNese are able to be varied on each individual.
Northerners tried to Sinicize the rest of the regions by means of media
.
I'm American, lived in the US all my life, and I think Vietnamese is a beautiful language.🇺🇸💛🇻🇳
and it very very hard to learn (especially Westerners)
và nó rất khó để học (đặc biệt là những người phương Tây)
Thanks, this was really helpful. I'm living in Hanoi and trying to study the language at the moment.
hi. if you speak English, can we do language exchange?
I fell in love with this language sometime around 2016 and 2018 when I saw someone post a vietnamese song on social media, got curious and listened to it and I just thought "wow, this sounds like magic" so I searched for it and it's so beautiful. It's probably the most beautiful language I've ever listened (after mine, of course)✨💖
But the ~ sound is so difficult 😭
Did you remember what song?
@@darkhable no idea lol I'm that not into music, nowadays my vietnamese friends try to make me listen to vpop to improve my vocabulary but I'm just too lazy xD
We don't always pronunce that right either 🤣 Southern accent usually use ? instead of ~ and actually people can 100% understand what you means. For example nghỉ means stop doing something meanwhile nghĩ means think about something. But you can say nghỉ in every cases and people still understand. Even if you misspell when you text, people still can understand it and automaticly think that you misspell 🤣
You are right
@@HieuNguyen-gd9jr The power of mother tongue
I minored in linguistics in grad school and at least dabbled with a lot of languages. Vietnamese phonology is especially challenging for me. Absolutely everything sounds nasalized, and all the consonants sound completely indistinct to me. When listening to Vietnamese with a transcript, I often cannot associate what I’m hearing with the letters on the page. I don’t have this much trouble with any other language. Not even Mandarin.
Wow, I thought I was the only one haha. I watched a video from Easy Vietnamese, where people answer questions on the street and there's a transcript and I had trouble matching the sound with the written text. I have lots of experience with all sorts of languages, bit Vietnamese definitely challenged me. They connect words very fluidly, often it sounds like a bunch of nasalized vowels thrown together. I swear it's worse than Danish hahaha
Which accent did you learn from because i think the writing system is more related to the north accent of vietnam.
It also sounds like a tape being played backwards half the time.
Vietnamese is the hardest language I've ever tried learniing(still learning), especially the listening comprehension!!!
Technically, all consonants are different, but in practice, we usually have personal preference on how a sound should be pronounced. For example: xuất sắc is usually contains 2 similar /s/ in any dialects, and it differs person to person. It would be hard for you to hear a conversation, but as any language, you usually guess the word by the context more than the sound itself.
Hmm I didn’t even know all the info despite being the one who speak this language. This is detailed research, and how tf you know how to pronounce those thing?! Impressed
Tbh as an adult Vietnamese I have to say I'm very impressed of how hard Vietnamese language to foreigner. I can speak and use my mother language very well in all kinds of situations but by watching this video i now know how hard and complicated this language is to other ppl, very interesting and informative video.
Sounds like the relationship of Vietnamese to Chinese is similar to the relationship of English to French. Most English technical and prestige words come from French.
Yes but Chinese and Vietnamese aren't related
More the relation between Latin and other modern European languages. Up until last century, East Asians could communicate with people speaking different languages using purely the written form of their native language (like how Kim Il-sung and Ho Chi Minh once did), which are basically slight modifications of classical Chinese. Chinese is the de facto lingua franca of this region like how Latin used to be in Europe.
More like Finish/Hungarian to some Hellenic or Latin languages: there are loans words but not related.
Or perhaps French to Moroccan Arabic
@@icancu9680 hmm,they are part of indo-european languages, but they belong to different groups(Germanic and Romance respectively)
And how Swedish and Russian are to Finnish
My heart was literally screaming "YESSSSS!" inside my chest when I saw this thumbnail. I have been watching this channel for years and hoping that one day a video about Vietnamese will come out in my lifetime. It came much earlier than I expected.
Thank you so much Paul!
Watching an overview of my own language makes me thrilled. Love these kinds of teaching so much.
- Answering the first question at the end:
When I was a child, it was challenging to understand other dialects (I'm from the north). Later, the more I exposed myself to other dialects, the easier I could understand them. However, up to now, I still struggle to comprehend some accents, such as "Huế" and "Nghệ An". I remember in the summer when I was a sophomore at university, I traveled to Đà Lạt and stayed there for a month in a vegetable garden. I worked with a few people from Nghệ An and Huế. I often misheard or misunderstood what they said and had to ask them to repeat. They gradually hate me because of this 😂.
I learned a lot! Thank you
As a Mandarin learner, I got shocked by the fact that Vietnamese has so many in grammar and syntax with Mandarin. I even got a few Chinese loanwords, which are a lot. A similar situation is about Korean and Japanese, as we 've been so thoroughly taught here in Langfocus...😂
Thank you Mr Paul for all your great and always professional work. I was waiting this video for a long time and I am very happy to be able to learn as well as about Vietnamese in your channel.
Love and admitation from Greece!!
You'd be surprise that Chinese has many similar words to Greek.
yep. we borrow a lot from China not gonna lie. that is why its pretty easy for vietnamese to learn mandarin.
Vietnamese grammar seems similar to Classical Chinese than Mandarin. Vietnamese is more analytical than Mandarin and more monosyllabic.
@@Tom57744 Not really. Middle Chinese had something called checked consonants: wovel-final stops (p, t, k). Both Cantonese and Mandarin developed out of Middle Chinese, but Mandarin lost the checked consonants whereas Cantonese retained them. Vietnamese also has always had checked consonants so the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary (which accounts to more than 50 % of the entire Vietnamese lexicon) is much closer to Cantonese than it is to Mandarin. However, the tone and sound change patterns are rather regular and can be quite easily learnt to facilitate learning between languages.
@@fuanasantuary1277 wait, what? really? i need some examples
I'm a Vietnamese living in Hanoi but my family came from Hà Tĩnh, a central province, so I speak in my Hà Tĩnh accent at home. There was no problem until I got into primary school. My classmates couldn't understand what I was talking since they hadn't heard Hà Tĩnh accent before so I had to learn to speak in Hanoi accent and now my accent is like half-Hanoi and half-Hà Tĩnh, which is kinda weird. :)
tui Nghệ An mà bạn tui cũng toàn ng miền Bắc nên cũng nói nửa Bắc nửa Trung như ông á
ba mẹ tôi ng bắc ng trung còn cả nhà tôi thì sống trong nam nên giọng tôi lai tạp đủ thứ, tuỳ cảm xúc mà nói thôi :((
Tiếng Việt đã khó học với người Tây cái mà họ nghe tiếng địa phương miền Trung với cái giọng đặc sệt nữa thì haha. Đồng hương 38 xin chào ^^
@@08_thanthienkim91 t nch bthg với bạn t thì nói giọng gần-giống-Bắc, còn khi cãi nhau mà cục lên thì nói giọng Trung luôn, nhiều khi cno ko hiểu t đag nói gì để cãi lại ^^
@@tranthihang9813 38 mà khác huyện thì còn chưa chắc đã hiểu nhau :))
thank you for the video, bro
Very knowledgeable. Congrats
Hi, Paul. Thank you for the new video. My wife, who is from southern Vietnam, can never understand when someone speaks in the Central Vietnamese dialect, centered around Hue. The Hanoi dialect is easier because that's taught in all schools in Vietnam. Southern Vietnamese is easier to listen to if you have friends from southern Vietnam or if the speaker is also from the south, like my wife and I. Northern Vietnamese speakers might not understand when a person from Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City speaks but can grasp up to 80% of what's being said, especially if they have friends from southern Vietnam or if they themselves frequent southern Vietnam. Most people who teach Vietnamese online are from Hanoi, but rarely, a few are from Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. My father and 3 aunts were born in Haiphong, in Northern Vietnam. I have an aunt who still speaks Vietnamese with a Northern accent despite living in Ho Chi Minh City for over 70 years. She is also the only person who can still speak Hokkien in our family, too. Notes to Paul: 1. Ho Chi Minh was the name of the communist leader, Ho Chi Minh City is the part of southern Vietnam. 2. In the 1,000 years of Chinese rule, Vietnam never officially used Simplified Chinese characters like what Paul has shown. Some simplifications were used between family members, friends, or were rarely seen but weren't officially part of the Simplified Chinese character set created as standard in China in the 1950s. Those Vietnamese loanwords used as examples by Paul should all be either in Traditional Chinese or Chữ Nôm or maybe an admixture called Hán-Nôm.
You provide many great points but a few are a bit off. There are many Vietnamese learning resources which teach the Southern accent. My British friend uses them.
Generally speaking, a Northerner can understand a Southerner just fine without needing to have Southern friends and vice versa. Like you said, it’s easier to understand Hanoian dialect due to the state media heavily favoring it. However, many southern films and shows are also popular in the North and hence, we are exposed to each other’s accents. It’s similar to how lots of Americans are exposed to British TV and vice versa. Both sides of the pond can understand what the other side is saying.
And I can say that a Northerner and a Southerner can understand 95% what the other party is saying when conversing. 5% is confusion over local slang words and colloquial expressions. I have distant paternal relatives who speak with Hải Dương dialect and when I encountered them years ago, I had no trouble conversing despite meeting them for the first time. My maternal grandpa speaks with Northern accent (because his family is originally from Hanoi) but he mostly grew up in Central Highlands. And I speak with a Central Highlander dialect which, like Transatlantic English, can be understood by people from all regions. The “Central” accent people refer to are Huế dialect (both urban and rural) and Central Coastal dialects whose intonation are just too different.
Many Viet dubbed movies use Southern artists -> Northern and other people from other region also get used to Southern Accent from media.
The only confusing accent is the Central ones. There’re very different in tones and words in each Central region due to isolated geography, and perhaps minority language.. etc
Fun fact: the vietnamese word "ốp la" ="oeuf plat" (in French) ="flat egg" (in English) = "fried egg"
I'm French with Chinese origins who grew up in Vietnam, but I still fail to speak the vietnamese language properly haha >_<
The pronunciation is difficult~
fun fact lol
why flat egg would be equal to fried egg though?
@@sophiachou2272 I guess it's because the egg is flat when it's being fried~
vietnamese pronunciation is easy once to get use to it!
It's oeuf au plat and plat means dish, or plate
excellent video!
I will give my insight about Vietnamese difficulties, as a native Vietnamese:
1. Pronunciation. Every places in Vietnam has unique pronunciation, some words are even not viable in some places, for example in Hue, a lot of normal words will be replace by Hue's words, Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh city also uses different pronunciations, in general, Northside stress the words, while Southside expand the words length.
2. Word choice. Although Vietnamese has a lot of synonyms, the problem is not the meaning of each synonym, but the context, no, I don't mean you need to put a proper word into the context, IT IS REVERSED! You put a word and it will CHANGE the context! Therefore Vietnamese tend to use quite a lot of "borrow" words, like English, Chinese, Japanese, whenever Vietnamese feel need it.
3. Sentence structure. The thing that even Vietnamese can't use properly. It is not complex, I promise, I PROMISED
"Tôi là bạn của cô ấy." -> "I am friend of she that." (Word by word)
Now you cut a part
"Tôi là bạn cô ấy." -> "I am friend she that."
Now you cut another part
"Tôi là bạn cổ." -> "I am friend her."
Now you add a word
"Tôi là bạn của cổ." -> "I am friend of her."
Now you change a word
"Tôi là bạn của cô ta." -> "I am friend of her there."
And finally, you can change the "S" factor into a lot of different words based on context you want to create:
"Tao là bạn của cô ấy."
"Mình là bạn của cô ấy."
"Em là bạn của cô ấy."
"Cháu là..."
"Ông là..."
"Chị là..."
"Anh là..."
and many more.
Now I will give another example:
"Hôm nay trời đẹp quá." -> "Today weather beautiful very."
Cut a word
"Nay trời đẹp quá." -> "Day weather beautiful very."
You change a word and the sentence type changed
"Nay trời đẹp nhỉ?" ->"Day weather beautiful right?"
You change once again
"Nay trời đẹp ha?" -> same above
You change the CONTEXT
"Nay trời đẹp hả?" -> Also question like above but the context stress the hidden disagree of the speaker.
Once again
"Nay trời đẹp không?" -> Also question but the context stress the hidden ask the oposite person to give his/her idea about something considered made/ influence/ by the asker. OR, it could be used when the speaker want to have information about something he/she doesn't know of.
Once again
"Nay trời đẹp à?" -> Also question but it shows directly disagree of the asker toward.
"Hôm nay trời đẹp nha." -> A positive toward the information, act as an anwser sentence.
As you can see, Vietnamese is a very, very complicated language and I have no confidence to teach foreigner. The good thing is, because of rich vocabulary and RICH SENTENCE CONTEXT STRUCTURE (very important), Vietnamese can construct fully the context of OTHER LANGUAGES, specificly Chinese. Vietnamese is THE CLOSEST IN TERM OF MEANING, CONTEXT, CULTURE, with Chinese, and all of Chinese works can be directly translated completely into Vietnamese.
wwow, cool comment, cảm ơn bạn vì ghi comment này, mình được được nhiều điều ạ!
yes, I agree ^^ word choice is an art of learning Vietnamese ^^ I think the idiom "Phong ba bão táp không bằng ngữ pháp Việt Nam" is not correct, it is the word choice that challenges foreigners ^^ we have "Truyện Kiều" poem, which is in advance of advanced level of the art of using words, even for the local Vietnamese
Correction: at 9:13 in the last sentence, "Ngày mai" means "tomorrow", not "today".
I hope with that I could help some people learning Vietnamese. It is a complicate language, but try your best! >
The screen says tomorrow for me?
@@grandpachun1156 I meant the note above the word "Ngày mai"
Oh I didn't see that one! haha I was looking at the translation on the right XD Thank you!
Ngày = today ; mai = Venus planet .In vietnam,venus planet have three names :"sao Kim",sao Hôm ","sao Mai".In sunrise,it is called "sao Mai" and " sao Hôm" on sunset.
@@duongvo653
Mai is Sunrise = Morning
Hôm is Sunset = Evening
Sao Mai = Morningstar = Thái Bạch (Chinese god) = Lucifer = Helel (who mispresented as a demon in Christianity)
This was a very interesting video.
There is quite a large Vietnamese minority in Poland, especially in Warsaw where they are the third largest ethnic group after Poles and Ukrainians.
They have their own schools, shops, cultural events and even printed newspaper.
Oh, and of course the food! My life was empty before discovering Pho. It's such a simple dish, but beauty is often found in the simple things :)
I'd love to visit Vietnam one day. If the pictures are anything to go by, I could spend MONTHS there :D
if you have the time, a trip throughout the country would be perfect. there are thousands of local specialty food in every province and city
If you really do it. Remember. Try all local dishes, but don't try at the restaurant. Go into the lane, market areas. That is truly CUISINE.
It's a simple dish until we try to make it .*First time cook Pho flashback*
@@normalname3623 AEUF DON’T GIVE ME THE MEMORIES I CAN ONLY EAT PHỞ NOT MAKING IT AAAAAAA
Thank you for sharing. It's interesting.
Thanks! I’m glad to hear that. 👍🏻
as a linguistics student, i have to claim that Vietnamese is like a game to me, fun but also very challenging. Another thing i love about this language is the grammatical order is logical, you mention the main point of your sentence first and then add details to specify it, it becomes easy to say what you think at the time in a chronological order. Also if you change the words order, the meaning will change too (like i bit the dog vs the dog bit me). its much easier than thinking of the right cases and verbs order in a whatever-order-the-other-words-could-be sentence like German. it makes the language so hard to learn when you have to wait to the end to know the main action of a sentence.
Oh, German _does_ have a logical ordering to it … it's just not the order we use in English. And not just, "verbs-at-the-end in dependent clauses." "Time" "Location" "Manner" - the order of these 3 are different in German. In English, Col. Mustard was murdered with the candelabra in the parlor at 20 past midnight - Manner-Location-Time.
In German, however, it's Time-Manner-Place. „Ich reise im Frühling mit dem Zug nach Berlin.“ == I'm traveling in the spring by train to Berlin.
(Although, like English, you can break this order to emphasize something.)
Lastly, _formal German_ does something weird in terms of word order. _But this doesn't happen in normal day-to-day speech,_ because it's far too unwieldy!
In academic German, newspapers, formal writing and (to a degree) news broadcasts, you can pick up _an entire dependent clause_ and _use it as an adjective._ Just drop it in front of the noun like any other adjective! You can do this with 1, 2, 5 whole different clauses, just strung together between the word "the" and the noun. (News broadcasts point ever do 1 adjectival clause per noun, and only short ones. It's too big a cognitive load for anything more than that.) It is considered both a sign of intelligence and elegance. And it's utterly impenetrable to non-native speakers.
This is _the exact opposite_ of what is drilled into the heads of us Americans in school: “Make your sentences _as short as possible_ to get the point across, but no shorter. Prefer many short sentences to one long one with lots of dependent clauses.” That's what makes written German seem like its word order is complete chairs, especially to Americans.
BTW: this form of writing was _especially popular_ among 19th Century German academics, especially philosophers. Which is why Kant is so notoriously difficult to read.
To each their own, I guess :) I like languages with heavy inflection like Russian because you can almost use any word order you want and speak more flexibly.
I've been dabbling in Dutch for a long time, and even though Duolingo starts teaching you that word order stuff quite early on, it's still the main thing that trips me up in constructing a sentence. The straightforwardness of Vietnamese grammar is very attractive to me!
@@John_Weiss “…you can pick up an entire dependent clause and use it as an adjective.”
That’s standard in Cantonese and Korean. (Relative clauses _are_ adjectival in nature so it actually makes logical sense.)
Vietnamese grammar is too loose. It’s not good for a language to do science and philosophy.
Straightforwardness is an euphemism. I would call it “disorderedness”.