The Vietnamese Language: Lesson One

Although it was my intention to listen to my Vietnamese language tapes  for 45 minutes a day for the two weeks prior to my trip,  it turned out I only managed get through the first 15 minutes of  tape #1 before I fell asleep on the flight from Los Angeles to Seoul. As a result, my Vietnamese language skills are not totally what I hoped they might be.

   In addition,  Vietnamese  is not for the faint-hearted. Although it is a monosyllabic language (all the words are of one syllable) it is very subtle in having six different tonal qualities. Thus a simple word (like “la”) can be said with a flat mid-level tone, with a low and falling tone, with a low and rising tone, with a high broken tone (starts a bit above mid level, dips slightly, then rises sharply), with a high and rising tone or with a low broken tone. And, of course, it has a different meaning with each tone.  Thus, depending on the precise tone, “la” can mean:

to be

to cry

leaf

very tired

pure    or

strange’

    This means that understanding spoken Vietnamese takes a much (much) more sensitive sense of hearing that I currently possess and it is relatively easy to be misunderstood should you have the courage to try to express yourself. For example, the standard Vietnamese soup, pho (which we quite naturally pronounce as “fowe” is more correctly pronounced “fa”.  Ask for “fowe” and the waitress will think you want your belly tickled (actually, I just made that up….. but you get the point).

    As a result, most of my communication with the vendors near the hotel has been by gesticulating and grunting (Roz will tell you I communicate in much the same way at home, but that is not entirely true). The hotel staff informs me that the vendors' nickname for me is now “Feral Tourist, Raised By Wolves”.

    However, despite my hesitations, I started my presentation today (having been coached by Mrs Huy and Long, the faculty visiting Tufts from Hanoi)  with the greeting

“Xin chao, cac baan” (sin jow kak ban) which translated (I hoped) as

(polite) hello (plural) friend

At which point they broke into spontaneous applause, which means I AM THE DUDE!

Sincerely

Ross Feldberg – Master Linguist