A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Now that I have been taking Vietnamese classes for four whole days, I can state with authority that it is a VERY DIFFICULT LANGUAGE for anyone who doesn't have a serious sinus problem. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what it looks like, Vietnamese does not use the Chinese characters (thank God) but rather a modified version of the Roman alphabet. The problem, of course, is the "modified" part. They have decorated all of their vowels with an alarmingly large number of doohickies, dots, doodads, squiggles, and variously angled accent marks. They have six different "tones" that they apply to 12 different vowels. Yes indeed, six tones, twelve vowels. Just imagine the math involved with that -- there are hundreds of combinations! Honestly, doesn't this seem excessive to you? And I haven't even gone into the bizarre combinations of consonants that these folks use.

An additional level of complexity is caused by the dialect differences between regions of Vietnam. It turns out the split between Hanoi and Saigon is not just historical and political -- it's cultural and linguistic as well. Many words are completely different between North and South, and pronunciation is different for several letters. This annoying fact would explain, in part, why those language cassettes I listened to before I arrived have been virtually useless. These people don't sound anything like those guys on the tape.

Because this whole vowel and consonant-combo situation in Vietnamese is such a nightmare for foreigners, we generally spend an hour of our two-hour daily classes on pronunciation alone. Today horror was the "ng" combination, which is like absolutely nothing in English. Judging from the universal lack of success on this point by all members of my class, it is like absolutely nothing in Swedish, Japanese and Chinese as well. The "ng" kind of sounds like you're trying to swallow too big of a bite, and are forced to do so with your mouth wide open. Now imagine trying to put that sound at the beginning of a word, and you begin to feel my pain.

As one might expect, hilarity ensued as we each tried in vain to replicate this semi-choking maneuver. Our teacher, who we cleverly call "teacher" in Vietnamese (I now know why all my Vietnamese students call me "teacher" rather than by name) could barely contain his laughter after a few minutes of this. On the plus side, however, I believe I have mostly mastered the very common "kh" sound, which closely resembles the sound your cat makes when he is hacking up a hairball. Clearly I am on the road to fluency.

© 2002 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 4:13 AM