The big difficulty with Vietnamese is that there is absolutely no tolerance for error- your pronunciation, intonation and grammar must all be perfect, or you're speaking gibberish.
That's a load of sh*t. Just like any language, there's flexibility. Natives can still understand foreigners speaking crude VN. Just like native EN speakers can understand foreigners speaking crude EN.
Nah, you can be totally imperfect when speaking and we still van understand by guessing (at your worst) just like a non-English speaker speaking English. For example, the word "đi học" (go to school) you can say "di hoc" and we will understand. In most languages, in my opinion, if you can get the words right and the tones wrong it might not be much problems.
I heard this comment a number of times: people keep saying "I try to speak Vietnamese but no one understands and no local wants to help guide me towards the right way". The problem is that with Vietnamese, if you don't speak with the right accent, it sounds like you're speaking a foreign language to the native ear, and that's why no one can help you. Most foreigners when they first learn Vietnamese, their pronunciation is very "timid" when doing the accent. So they end up doing an "off-white" version of the real thing. All the accents they speak sound the same, a middle-ground that doesn't sound like anything. In the clip above, one example is when he said "đói quá". He ended up saying a foreign version the word, somewhere in between "đòi, đồi, đỏi". I mean, even the "đ" is not the Vietnamese đ but more like the English 'd'. So the native year, it easily sounds like some foreign word of a language they don't know about. That's why the reaction is more like being puzzled rather than being helpful. For other languages, it's easier to recognize that you're trying to speak the language, and to recognize the word you're trying to say. Then it's easier to help.
Weirdly enough, I can pronounce it properly (thankfully I am really good at imitating sounds) but still lack vocabulary 😂😂😂 So when I ask for something in Vietnamese, then I get bombed with words I dont understand yet 😅 But hey, I got asked "How long did you live in Vietnam?" multiple times and half of the time didnt understand it because I didnt know that vocabulary 😂😂😂 (my wife translates and corrects for me) I also encountered the same thing at the very beginning of me learning, and I can see it with other people (husband of my wifes sister). They dont want to mess up or are too shy about it, so they settle on some "averaged" sound. Then all vocals and all tones sound the same and you cant seperate đời from đói anymore. The weirdest situations were when I had to translate for him, while people had to talk to me like I was a toddler, with me taking multiple seconds to process it 😂
Everything sonny says is correct . The tones are difficult to get down. I’m often struggle speaking Vietnamese because I’m often mixing English grammar
Thanks for learning our language. We really appreciate when foreigners try to speak Vietnamese, even when they messed up with the tones because to be honest we understand what you are trying to say, even with no tones :))
@@Danielson1818 one tone with a vowel create a meaning word, and there are six tone for nearly every vowel. Yup, that's a lot of words can be formed already. When we combine it with the consonants, vowels and tone, the options and meaning are endless 😁
Vietnamese is hell to pronounce and once you success then you fly from Hanoi to Saigon to find out that the pronunciation is very different... Then again, you fly to the center and it s different. I ve been living in VN for long, got used to the language and it s a lot of fun. Vietnamese people are also really nice people. Here the written tones : ma má mà mã mạ mả
You are right, i'm born and raise in Việt Nam, 3 years old now and i still sometimes struggle to understand the local speaking of some other regions in my country
how can i understand and stop confusing the structure of sentences? because sometimes words change position and become flexible depending on the sentence. i really get so nervous cuz its frustrating the word changes position and you never know if it will be different or not next time
To all that want to learn how to speak Vietnamese easy. Just know these premises of the language. Vietnamese is known to be the language of birds because all words only have one syllable. There is not a word in Vietnamese that has 2 syllables. Therefore when birds are singing..Vietnamese language is one in the same, we are actually singing instead of talking because you have to hit the right pitch in a word; hence one word spelled the same but with accent marks, sometime it can turn into 5 to 7 meaning. Talking about tough, try learning German. Since I live in Germany for nearly 7 years, its truly is a fun language to know but I learn so much rich past history from its language etymology. BTW..reach out to myself, I`ll teach you how to speak Vietnamese fast to appease to your in-law. I have to do the same for my German in-laws and its tough..so I feel you!!
"all words only have one syllable" Not entirely correct. "Hà Nội" is two syllables although spell with two separate words (in Vietnamese), both must come together. No one refer to that city as "Hà" or "Nội". Same goes with "Sài Gòn". "cà vạt" "va li" "điện thoại" "dòng sông" And if you think Vietnamese is a singing language, LOL, only Viet Kieus speak like that.
@@_-_-.-_-_ but remember, those are all French influenced words. We never used those back in the days. You funny to think that its not..I am not the first you had heard that will say this.
@@andyheritage doesn't matter if they are French influence. The point is there are multiple syllable words. And the locals over here do not sing their language.
Yeah... As a Viet, I can confirm this. There's 5 same words with different meanings because of the symbols changing the tones. The vowels and some letters will also have different sound and meaning such as the letter A... or A Ă and Â. Yeah, 1 word will have like 15 different meanings. T and Th are flipped so "think = th" would be "think = t or tink" and same can be said vice versa. T sounds more "the" and TH sounds more of a 'Tuh" in vietnamese. Some require another word to describe one thing. The fun part is that some words don't even exist at all so some words only have 3 words instead of 5 because of overlap pronunciation or something else. For clarification on tones: No symbol (Ca = sing) sounds neutral. The tick mark (Dấu Sác= /) (Cá = fish) sounds higher pitch tone. The down tick mark (Dấu Huyền = \)(cà) sounds soft. The question mark (Dấu Hỏi = ?) (Cả =(adj) for whole or main, therefore, Cả lớp = Whole Class ) sounds like you have a question or confused. The squiggly line/tilde (Dấu Ngã = ~) (Cã=??? --> Yeah i dont know the meaning) sounds like you are twisting and stretching the tone and word in a bit of a high pitch. The down dot (Dấu Nặng = .)(Cạ = ? --> Sorry idk) sounds like its deep and straight to the point. Combine all of this together into sentences, it basically sounds and looks like you are having mood swings after each word while speaking.
Yup. Example 'Bo' in English could be bợ, bỡ, bở, bớ, bờ, bơ, bộ, bỗ, bổ, bố, bồ, bô, bọ, bõ, bỏ, bó, bò... In Viet, each word here means different things.
Here's an example for the tone to put thing in perspective co - stretch có - yes or have (depending on context) cò - cranes (animal) cỏ - grass cọ - brush
Same as me. I learned Mandarin and Cantonese first, but Vietnamese is much harder. People always talk about the tones (which are in fact hard), but even getting the vowels and consonants right is pretty hard in itself.
I'm one week into learning Vietnamese, and my co-worker asked me to say a sentence. I explained that I'm still trying to get the pronunciation right. I said the sentence, and he replied, "You're butchering my beautiful language. If you can't speak it yet, don't try." It was so blunt and nasty... Every time I went back to repeat the word, he would be extremely critical, saying things like, "Just say the sentence in one go." I asked for help with the alphabet pronunciation, and he said, "I don't know it, I only know how to speak." I'm finding this a common response among Australian-born Vietnamese speakers unless they are older. I think I’ve cut my friend off from helping me learn the language now. It really soured my experience.
Oh he sounds like a douche, he didn't help you one bit... In my opinion when you learn a language you have to try speaking it regardless if you pronunciation is bad because with practice you'll get better, I'm a Spanish speaker and when an English speaker wants to learn Spanish (mostly people I talk with on language learning apps where you can send voice messages because here in my city there isn't any English speaking tourist)I tell them to practice with me the pronunciation even if it's bad, it is not butchering a language, it's just a someone who wants to learn your language, if someone wants to learn my language I would be honored and I will teach them I don't care if they pronounce the words in a bad way, it's part of the learning process
It's definitely a difficult language to learn for native English speakers, who have a hard time grasping the various tones, as the guest mentioned. I've noticed that Thais and Vietnamese can pronounce each other's language with high accuracy, probably because both are tonal languages. In any case, your friend is the exception with regards to his reaction. Pay him no mind. Most people are honored that you're trying to learn their language. Sometimes natives will laugh when you try to speak, but it's not in a mean spirited manner. It's more like a tease, poking fun type of way. The only way you're going to learn is to keep practicing, so keep at it.
Don't let that idiot discourage you! Stay motivated! Btw, you are doing the right thing by focusing on the tones and pronunciation first. Honestly, I feel like this "friend" was more so threatened/jealous of your desire to learn a language they were flluent in. It's what set him apart, and he will no longer have that over you, idk, it's weird to explain.
I just got together with a Vietnamese girl. She was teaching me the word ngon, delicious I thought I was saying it perfect and we went back and forth and she kept giggling. Crazy how many tones there are. I can’t wait to learn more
I lived in Vietnam, Hanoi for 5 years and he's right. You try to order a coffee in Vietnamese and end up in a confusing mess just repeating what you think the other said. The amount of times I ordered a black coffee and go back and forth and get something totally different. The tonal language is hard 😅
Mandarin has 4 tones as well, and Cantonese has at least a whopping 9. I'm 52 and been a musician since I was 15 years old and started learning Mandarin when I was about 27-28 and found it incredibly easy - mostly because they don't conjugate verbs and the verb doesn't change whether it's past, present, or future (you add a modifier word after the verb to indicate those tenses). I was speaking very rudimentary Mandarin within a week. Nothing to write home about, but I was at least having simple conversations with actual Chinese nationals. So, I think if you have a musical ear, it's far easier because the gramar and syntax is pretty simple and highly practical. I've never tried Vietnamese, and I may be wrong on this, but watching Sonny's videos, especially when he is with Calvin or Nguyen, and hearing it spoken, I suspect there are more than 4 tones. It sounds more "musical" than Mandarin. Can anyone comfirm? I'm curious.
Yes. I tried learning it. I didn't manage to learn Chinese but I started it, and it seemed fairly simple. Japanese OTOH has more complicated sentence structure but at least the words are easy to pronounce. In Vietnamese, every word is one syllable. It has tones as well as accents. The sentence structure didn't seem too complex but just getting your head around the word pronounciation is a headache. I've forgotten everything which is good because even when I tried to speak sentences to a native Viet speaker, the look they give me makes me think that they think that I'm having a stroke.
Yes, Vietnamese actually has 6 tones which is flat (-), deep (`), sharp ('), heavy (•), asking (?), tumbling (~). That’s the standard textbook anyway. There are probably more or less tones depending on the dialects. I live in the south and people here often turn tumbling into asking when they talk so essentially the south only has 4 or 5 tones
yeah, not really accurate. Cantonese and Vietnamese has same number of tone contours or relative pitch levels, which is 6. They both also have entering/clipped "tones", or glottal stop finals, meaning that words end in hard/sharp consonants (p,t,k etc.) But these end up being at the same relative pitch levels of the former category. So that's where you end up with people saying that Canto has 9 tones or Viet has 8
I’ve lived here a while, Vietnamese wife. There are actually NINE tones, two more than Mandarins actual seven. Forgeabouit. It’s not even worth the time and effort to try IMO. Good, kind and friendly people, my wife’s a dream, but the language….simply ridiculous.
Chris Lewis on TH-cam speaks Vietnamese with proper dialect and grammar, better than most Vietnamese Americans. I love watching that guy speaks Vietnamese, Mandarine and Hindi.
In my observations of American students trying to learn Vietnamese I have noticed one interesting phenomenon. Most American students take much longer to master Vietnamese because they get disturbing flashbacks and PTSD style resurgence visions while learning the fundamentals of Vietnamese. Many American students also report of auditory hallucinations after classes where the trees next to their homes or apartments appear to be speaking to them in Vietnamese. This phenomenon is exacerbated if they are next to or see a photo of a rice-paddy field. One must note that many of these American students haven't even visited Vietnam yet ! It is truly a strange phenomenon. This could be a case of resurgence of genetic memories passed on to them from their Fathers and Grand-Fathers.
Not sure if alot of ppl know or even heard of hmong ppl but the hmong language is the same idea. Its all about tones. A different tone can completely change the meaning of the word. Interesting to know that vietnamese is kinda the same.
vietnamese, chinese, and hmong all use tones but honestly hmong is pretty easy too learn. Hard part is just remembering which word is which tone. Id say vietnamese is harder too learn just by hearing how they talk
Lol yes we’ve heard of Hmong. But American English is the same way and then some. Even more baffling is that American English has words that are spelt identical, but can mean completely different things and sound completely different. We call em homonyms of course. Partly why English is largely seen as the hardest language to learn. Wonder if these other languages have homonyms similar to English ones. It only makes sense that they’d have a few, but I wonder to what extent and how common.
@@Easymoneysniper5no sorry the tones of English definitely do not work the same way as the tones of the tonal languages of Asia like Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, et cetera. It is a totally, totally different concept. Simple example: Saying the word “yes” in English in a very low whisper or yelling the word yes in a loud voice are two different tones of yes but DOES NOT change the meaning of the word nor does it make it a different word. The tonal concept of Asian languages is exactly opposite. It WOULD change the word into a totally different word AND a totally different meaning potentially. So I do not know any of those languages but the linguists and anthropologists who have studied the different cultures have made study of this difference for hundreds of years and it is really well researched and documented so I am not trying to be a karen a-hole know it all but hopefully trying to help one understand that English language tones and Asian language tones are absolutely NOT the same concept in any respect.
Vietnamese is a very tonal language. The words can be spelled the exact same way, but the punctuations on the letters changes the inflection of your voice. One word spelled the same way can have 7 different meanings depending on the inflection of your voice. Unless you grew up to identify those subtle distinct tones, it’s a very difficult language to learn.
I totally think language anticipation anxiety exists. I’ve learned a few expressions in different languages but am very Caucasian and look it. And every time I say something in a different lang they ALWAYS say “what?” And I’ve come to realize it’s because they were expecting me to speak English so didn’t actually understand/hear what I said. But if I repeated it in their lang then they understood.
I found out it helps when you start with some greeting in their language, or something else that is used by them. For Vietnamese I use "Chị ơi" or something to adress them first, that usually works. I feel it has to be something clearly in their language though
I am married to a beautiful vietnamese woman, we are both 50, I have tried to learn the language. Like he said, the tone, you say 3 different things. It is easier to teach my wife English.
There is a teacher of Vietnamese here on YT (I forget who) who would not answer a basic question. She was explaining the vowel pronunciations. When she pronounced the 2nd "a" she did so with a rising tone. I asked why. It is supposed to have a different vowel *sound* but the tone is not part of its pronunciation since the tone can be different depending on what word it's in.
I am currently on a voyage to learn Vietnamese and I had this exact same question. The answer I've found is that when you are saying "ă" as a letter by itself, they use the rising tone simply to distinguish it from the first letter "a". But that tone is NOT used when "ă" appears in a word. When "ă" appears in a word, it is pronounced the same as "a", but is much shorter. So when you say "dăm" to mean "a few, or some", you would shorten the "a" sound and linger on the "m" sound. Hope this helps.
@@daveygiggles Thank you for the response. Of course the tone I referenced (rising) COULD be used in some words but my point was that there is a distinction between the tone of a vowel and the basic pronunciation of it. The teacher in the video (in fact more than one did this) was giving a rising tone to the 2nd "a" when she should have just given its pronunciation. By doing this she was implying that the 2nd "a" *always* has a rising tone which is of course not correct.
@@Bob31415 Yes, I understand what you're saying. My wife is Vietnamese and she also uses a rising tone for ă when saying the alphabet. But ă does not inherently have a rising tone when used in a word unless the rising tone mark is also present. This is just one of those things you have to accept when learning the language. The pronunciation for "a" and "ă" are the same. The only difference is the length of the vowel. Same for "ơ" and "â"; pronounced the same but â is shorter than ơ.
@@daveygiggles Very interesting. You explained it better than the native speaking instructors here on TH-cam. " *But ă does not **_inherently_** have a rising tone when used in a word unless the rising tone mark is also present* ." THAT is all they had to say to avoid the confusion.
Grown up as a vietnamese born in europe i do hear the difference nouances when someone else speak but beeing able to pronounce it the same way, is a whole different thing. I‘m fluent in 5 languages and my vietnamese is the worst out of all of them
1:29 Yes it is WILD even as a Vietnamese, and thats also the reason why if like my parent's guest or friend is coming I wouldn't want to go greet them cause I don't know what pronounce to use and what do I call them, I don't want to be rude lmao.
Thats why its often "Hi, how old are you?" or you just use the older pronoun for the other one to be safe. Is it chú or bác? I will just call you bác 😂
The issue here is even if it sounds like gibberish, they should be able to tell it's supposed to be Vietnamese, not understanding a language doesn't mean it doesn't have a specific sound. It would obviously depend on the person, but regardless of whether or not you understand a language someone speaks, I think a lot of people would still be able to infer. If I meet a Mexican person and they don't really speak English, but they're trying to make sounds that are clearly similar to or ARE words in English, even pronounced wrong or in the wrong order, it's still understandable to the point that you'd know they're trying to speak English. I bet there's plenty of Vietnamese people who could understand that you're trying to speak Vietnamese and wouldn't think even poor Vietnamese sounds anything like English (or any given language that couldn't reasonably be misconstrued. Again, you don't have to be familiar with a language, even if it's one a lot of people in the world have likely read or heard at some point (English, Mandarin, Spanish, German, those that tend to be fairly wide spread) Perhaps the level of difference makes it easier to not understand attempted Vietnamese to a Vietnamese person, but actually I would have thought the uniqueness would make it easier to tell when someone is trying to speak it. It's just difficult for me to fathom not recognizing the language that you and everyone around you has spoken for your entire life, even if it's bad (and yes, the more a language spreads, the more non-native speakers try to pick it up, and thus you'll have more and more examples of it spoken badly at some point. Most people who speak English have heard someone not as good at it try to speak it, but I bet most of them still get what's being attempted, and this can't be a unique trait to any language, there have to be Vietnamese people who would see some other Vietnamese person not understand someone trying to speak Vietnamese to them and say "Anh ngu như cứt"
Idk how to explain but i LEGIT sometimes cannot understand when ppl speak viet. The tones help me understand so when ppl speak without the tones well its hard like yes ik its vietnamese but i still cant understand exactly
I think i understand where your coming from but vietnamese is VERY tone based. To a native, anything different from their dialect or region of vietnam (northern, middle, southern) is an entirely different language to them. So when foreigners try to speak it, and yes maybe the letters are not wrong but the tones are different, it is incredibly hard for the natives to decypher if its a different region talking or a different language.
Since I have next to no vocal control and a poor ear for music (I struggle to hear different tones), Vietnamese is so unbelievably hard for me to learn despite my efforts. I managed to get to an advanced level in Spanish, but this language is on an entirely different level.. when you start to learn it's just a sense of disbelief in terms of how complicated and different from English it is.
Oh you have done so well. I'm Australian born vietnamese and even I struggle going throughout vietnam. They don't understand my accent and laugh. There's so many dialects in vietnam and it's a challenge even for me!
You can always address a male with Anh and female with Chi, regardless whether they are older or younger than you. This has always been the formal way, rather than asking for their age. Then once you know that person well enough they may let you know they prefer Em/Chau/Con/Co/Di/Chu/Bac/Ong... instead. If they don't it simply means the relationship is not close enough to cater the specific pronounce.
[00:01:05] And what does the younger person part, where are you saying that? “Em.” Yeah, so if you were talking to like a 20-year-old, how would you say it? Uh, how would I refer to that? I wouldn’t say “em đói.” Uh, then I would be “anh,” “anh đói.” So, “anh,” yeah, like on top. So, yes, if I was speaking to someone younger, I would say “anh,” like I’m an older man, so “anh” is gonna do this, which is wild because they do phone calls with people and at some point, they’ve not seen each other, they just hear each other’s voice and at some point, they figured out like, okay, I’m gonna be the older one, you’re going to be the younger one.
I am so glad I can manage the pronounciation, I never struggled with people understanding me. However my good pronounciation makes them believe I have lived in Vietnam for a few years, which in turn leads to them bombing me with conversation. I did not live in Vietnam and I am still running on a very tiny bit of vocabulary, so I am fucked every time 😂😂😂
If you've seen enough of his videos, she's sometimes doing the filming. Sometimes she's even appeared with him. Not often but it has happened. More often she is wielding the camera in some videos.
Tones match context situations in Vietnamese ...its initially challenging to learn but after 20years you should be good to go 😂😂😂 took me around 2 years to get to a fair level with constant study while living in Vietnam. This fair level was say around upper pre intermediate /intermediate level which is Southern Dialect! I spent 10 years there as well. These days with Apps and media platforms it's much easier to learn but realistically you need to be in Vietnam for a number of years!
Same with some words in the Philippines. Like for example in Visaya "puso" has 3 different meanings based on how you say it. It could mean water pump, hanging rice, or heart-although this meaning is Tagalog but has also a different intonation compared to the Visayan versions. Many more examples like "lata" has different meanings based on intonation or tubo, baga, paso, etc. I think southeast asian languages has a lot of this.
the Asian tonal languages are fascinating for sure. I do not know any of them in the slightest, but always fascinating to listen to. I will observe, however, that you said that the same word for water pump could also be heart. And the human heart is, technically, a form of biological fluid pump, pumping our blood, which is mostly water. Very interesting! Hanging rice… I got nothing for that😅.
Yeah, there's roughly 3 level of Javanese in general "crude" Javanese used to talk with younger person or your close friend "middle" Javanese used to talk with formal peer "high" Javanese used to talk with someone you respect But you can bypass all of these by using Indonesian language as it sounds formal
Vietnamese is really not that hard. I think people make things aren’t really that difficult hard on themselves. Vietnamese. First of all, Vietnamese is flexible. You can flip the sentence order frontwards or backwards and it still makes sense. Verbs don’t have to be conjugated and there are simple additive words to convey “time” like Đi, Sẽ, and Đã. That’s it. Lastly, pronunciation “can” be tricky, but that really only comes down to regional differences such as the Northern, Central and Southern dialects. Vietnamese essentially like to speak how they speak and they often like to throw you off just when you thought what you’re using was sufficient. You’re not wrong in how you speak, but they like to play the wild card. They understand you though. I’ve never had much of an issue. Then again, I spent most of my time learning languages my entire life.
hhhhhhhhhhh in my opinion, this is precisely hard because its flexible that it makes things difficult because they do not follow a basic pattern. im desperate because i cant understand what the position of the words will be
@@sullitmas I mean this also comes from being immersed in languages of all different sorts of sentence orders and once you’ve become familiar also with the way other Asian languages work then logic and a bit of practice does wonders
@@sullitmas I mean this also comes from being immersed in languages of all different sorts of sentence orders and once you’ve become familiar also with the way other Asian languages work then logic and a bit of practice does wonders
If you only use it in communication, vietnamese at a basic level will be easy for you. But if you study the language in depth, you will understand that vietnamese is really difficult, even for vietnamese people.
hahaha nice one. dude i knew a Vietnamese American guy that is his parents immigrated he was born in USA. Went by David but his Vietnamese name was literally and actually Phuc. Yes! Seriously!😅😂 And he would tell us stories of how growing up here in America and being totally American but also totally fluent in Vietnamese still… he would “fuck” with his teachers at school. And yell at them, yelling his actual Vietnamese name of Phuc. (my name is Phuc say it right!) Hahahaha and what fantastic fun he had with it growing up. Alas I do not know what the male Vietnamese name of Phuc even means! Good stories from him though.
Writing super easy to read. Speaking is the same idea in many language due to social status goes into consideration. pronoun n word of choices have to change. Speaking generally easy for people who use tonal language as native tongue.
Learning the tonal alphabet and wording is not that hard, it's the symbolism and cultural imagery that is extremely difficult. Example: Referring to another male as she and a husband as a wife. The first and third person stuff is another realm of tough. Watch VN videos with English subs enabled and you will see what it is like to be amazingly confused.
chinese also has 4 tones for each word /sound, and each sound is connected with 100s of words, that all share the sounds, so outside of tones you also have to understand the context of other words used around them, homonyms galore. Once a literary scholar wrote an entire essay using one single sound, different tones and it made complete sense when you heard/read it.
Chinese use sharp tone, Vietnamese is round. Easier for Westerner to make fun off and hear. Westerner cannot do that with Vietnamese. Hence, why Vietnamese are superior and more loved. And Vietnamese are like a melody especially in songs.
@@chrisx5127 lol yeah one group is more "superior", sounds like its coming from a fascist. So why do vietnamese all watch chinese tv drama and listen to chinese pop, steal it and make a clone song?
Vietnamese could do it too. All Vietnamese main 6 syllables (/`?~.", you could make entire an essay with just picking up 1 out of 6 main syllables above.
Sigh. VN is EASY! It uses alphabets, unlike CH, JP or KR characters. Grammar is super easy and forgiving. Also, it has the accent marks so you know how to pronounce it. Then you just have to practice listening/pronouncing the words. No more difficult than VN people trying to pronounce the "s" in EN words. Or the Japanese trying to pronounce the "r" words.
I will always say foe for pho! I am American dammit😂😅. I definitely do not mind being ridiculed for saying word wrongly in a different language which is not my own native American English. It is what it is. Besides, I live in the city with the first or second largest Vietnamese community in the entire country of USA and most Vietnamese folks I have met are totally cool about it. Yes, they make fun of me. Yes, but also, they understand and it is all in good fun.
In a way, I like the way Anericans just pronounce foreign words the way an American would naturally say them, in American English, without even trying to say it "correctly." It can be a way of being natural and dropping all pretense and effort. Like "we are what we are, and we speak like we speak, in our language, and it is what it is, so be it." - A kind of self-acceptance.
Vietnamese are totally cool with mispronunciation of “pho” in my city where there are many, many many many Pho restaurants, well, at least all the Vietnamese I have met anyways. There is even one in Galveston that did an EXCELLENT play on words, taking advantage of the mispronunciation. Pho Twenty noodle house. 😅😂😅 Get it? 420? Fo-Twenty? Pho Twenty? Yep!!!! It exists! In Galveston!
His pronounciation is off generally, but thats no surprise. Most people try to use a different language by using the sounds of their own language, causing heavy accents and mispronounciations.
Buc duc luc fuc - I grew up around Vietnamese people...that right there means welcome to Vietnam how you doing enjoy your stay goodebyeeeeeno joke there's more vocabulary of certain words that mean ten different things
Nói chung là viết để giao tiếp bth thì dễ thôi. Cái khó ở Tiếng Việt là thứ tự sắp xếp chữ viết có thể xáo trộn mà vẫn rõ nghĩa, đặc biệt là với mỗi thanh điệu trong 6 thanh điệu của Tiếng Việt, bạn cũng có thể cấu tạo nó thành một bài văn :)) cái này các ngôn ngữ khác ko có!
I don't know what this guy is on about saying that people get ridiculed for pronouncing Vietnamese incorrectly or badly. Conversely, the overwhelming majority of Vietnamese love when a foreigner speaks their language, or is learning it and trying to speak it, even if they mangle the pronunciation. They will even go so far as to go overboard in complimenting you, saying you speak it "very well", to show their appreciation of your effort and to encourage you. Case in point - I started learning Vietnamese when I was 17. I'm 51 now, and in my 34 years of experience with the language I've never once been made fun of, nor have I seen any other American/foreign learners of Vietnamese subjected to ridicule as this guy claims. That said, he was correct about the language anticipation theory. I can't count the times I've spoken to people in a shop, restaurant, etc. and usually takes several seconds for them to shake off their surprise when they hear me speak to them in Vietnamese. Lastly, his pronunciation wasn't bad. If he hadn't said in advance what words he was going to say I would have still understood him. 💯 Cheers. 🍻
He has a clear accent (obviously) but he wasnt hard to understand (I think). I also never experienced ridicule or anything when speaking Vietnamese, quite the opposite, they usually make you say more and make you repeat words 😂😅
English homonyms with different meanings, yes. Bravo! Good for you. Alas, a wholly, wholely and absolutely separate concept from the tonals of Asian languages. Where saying their in a whisper or their in a yelling voice will be as of two totally different words with two totally different meanings. But yelling their or whispering their in English still will always have the same meaning. Yes, totally different. But still, good job on your spelling🤓
It depends on the province. A lot of different ways to make the 'Z' sound where I am: D, gi, r, x and different words might pronounce them as 'S.' Tones and diphthongs combine to make very tricky pronunciation and understanding; for example, the Vietnamese words for new, salt and ten are quite similar (differ by diphthong), whereas the Vietnamese words for coconut, cucumber and pineapple only differ by tone.
It is "gi" not "g", this is from Italian influence. The Italian also pronounce "gi" as "z". D used to be a /ð/ sound, but because the Vietnamese alphabet is old, the sounds changed.
@@nomnadayThe first Vietnamese alphabet was developed in Central Vietnam with limited resources by Catholic missionaries at the time. It did not cover all the sounds in the language with many dialects. The language changed of course yes, I still remember the way my grandma speak back in the day.
There are so many words in Vietnamese that are almost identical, a slight imperfect pronunciation would turn one word into another. Of course with context we can understand what they meant, but that would assume other words in that sentence are also pronounced perfectly. Also the pronouns in Vietnamese are prolly my least favorite thing, when encounter strangers, you basically need to ask for their age, or assess the situation to use proper pronouns. Whenever I visit my dad’s family, it is always a nightmare considering how many pronouns I have to remember. Oh, don’t get me started with all of uncles, aunties, cousins,…
1: U have to be on uppers to even speak Vietnamese. 2: U have to be on uppers to even listen to Vietnamese. 3: He didn't marry his wife for her culture. 4: Think Vietnamese is hard!? Try speaking an Eskimo language!! There's many words for snow!! Soft snow, hard snow, wet snow, sideways snow, bouncing snow, water snow, sea snow, igloo snow, tall snow, & on & on & on....
@@extendo7137 Lets not be naive. Generally the only reason somebody would go all the way to SEA to get a wife, is because theyre old and want a young Chinese Wife!
The big difficulty with Vietnamese is that there is absolutely no tolerance for error- your pronunciation, intonation and grammar must all be perfect, or you're speaking gibberish.
def yes lol
To be fair, English is tough too. Beach becomes b**ch instantly lol.
That's a load of sh*t. Just like any language, there's flexibility. Natives can still understand foreigners speaking crude VN. Just like native EN speakers can understand foreigners speaking crude EN.
Woah so I like challenges so challenge accepted :)
Nah, you can be totally imperfect when speaking and we still van understand by guessing (at your worst) just like a non-English speaker speaking English. For example, the word "đi học" (go to school) you can say "di hoc" and we will understand. In most languages, in my opinion, if you can get the words right and the tones wrong it might not be much problems.
I heard this comment a number of times: people keep saying "I try to speak Vietnamese but no one understands and no local wants to help guide me towards the right way". The problem is that with Vietnamese, if you don't speak with the right accent, it sounds like you're speaking a foreign language to the native ear, and that's why no one can help you. Most foreigners when they first learn Vietnamese, their pronunciation is very "timid" when doing the accent. So they end up doing an "off-white" version of the real thing. All the accents they speak sound the same, a middle-ground that doesn't sound like anything. In the clip above, one example is when he said "đói quá". He ended up saying a foreign version the word, somewhere in between "đòi, đồi, đỏi". I mean, even the "đ" is not the Vietnamese đ but more like the English 'd'. So the native year, it easily sounds like some foreign word of a language they don't know about. That's why the reaction is more like being puzzled rather than being helpful.
For other languages, it's easier to recognize that you're trying to speak the language, and to recognize the word you're trying to say. Then it's easier to help.
Weirdly enough, I can pronounce it properly (thankfully I am really good at imitating sounds) but still lack vocabulary 😂😂😂
So when I ask for something in Vietnamese, then I get bombed with words I dont understand yet 😅
But hey, I got asked "How long did you live in Vietnam?" multiple times and half of the time didnt understand it because I didnt know that vocabulary 😂😂😂 (my wife translates and corrects for me)
I also encountered the same thing at the very beginning of me learning, and I can see it with other people (husband of my wifes sister). They dont want to mess up or are too shy about it, so they settle on some "averaged" sound.
Then all vocals and all tones sound the same and you cant seperate đời from đói anymore.
The weirdest situations were when I had to translate for him, while people had to talk to me like I was a toddler, with me taking multiple seconds to process it 😂
Everything sonny says is correct . The tones are difficult to get down. I’m often struggle speaking Vietnamese because I’m often mixing English grammar
Thanks for learning our language. We really appreciate when foreigners try to speak Vietnamese, even when they messed up with the tones because to be honest we understand what you are trying to say, even with no tones :))
@@dmitrifromrussiaa Aren't you Russian?
@@Bob31415 💀
My best friend growing up was Vietnamese, and that really is a crazy language. I always said it was more tones than words.
@@Danielson1818 one tone with a vowel create a meaning word, and there are six tone for nearly every vowel. Yup, that's a lot of words can be formed already. When we combine it with the consonants, vowels and tone, the options and meaning are endless 😁
Yea you’re right, tone is really important when it comes to speaking in vietnamese
Sing song voice
Vietnamese is hell to pronounce and once you success then you fly from Hanoi to Saigon to find out that the pronunciation is very different... Then again, you fly to the center and it s different. I ve been living in VN for long, got used to the language and it s a lot of fun. Vietnamese people are also really nice people. Here the written tones : ma má mà mã mạ mả
You are right, i'm born and raise in Việt Nam, 3 years old now and i still sometimes struggle to understand the local speaking of some other regions in my country
@@hohuy1469 Yor English is excellent for a Vietnamese 3 year old.
@@Bob31415 oh snap, 30 years old, not 3 😂 i missed a zero while typing
how can i understand and stop confusing the structure of sentences? because sometimes words change position and become flexible depending on the sentence. i really get so nervous cuz its frustrating the word changes position and you never know if it will be different or not next time
@@hohuy1469 can you help me? about the question i made above this comment
To all that want to learn how to speak Vietnamese easy. Just know these premises of the language. Vietnamese is known to be the language of birds because all words only have one syllable. There is not a word in Vietnamese that has 2 syllables. Therefore when birds are singing..Vietnamese language is one in the same, we are actually singing instead of talking because you have to hit the right pitch in a word; hence one word spelled the same but with accent marks, sometime it can turn into 5 to 7 meaning. Talking about tough, try learning German. Since I live in Germany for nearly 7 years, its truly is a fun language to know but I learn so much rich past history from its language etymology. BTW..reach out to myself, I`ll teach you how to speak Vietnamese fast to appease to your in-law. I have to do the same for my German in-laws and its tough..so I feel you!!
Deutsch ist leicht.
"all words only have one syllable"
Not entirely correct.
"Hà Nội" is two syllables although spell with two separate words (in Vietnamese), both must come together. No one refer to that city as "Hà" or "Nội". Same goes with "Sài Gòn".
"cà vạt"
"va li"
"điện thoại"
"dòng sông"
And if you think Vietnamese is a singing language, LOL, only Viet Kieus speak like that.
@@_-_-.-_-_ but remember, those are all French influenced words. We never used those back in the days. You funny to think that its not..I am not the first you had heard that will say this.
@@andyheritage doesn't matter if they are French influence. The point is there are multiple syllable words.
And the locals over here do not sing their language.
@@_-_-.-_-_ It actually does matter when those words are French. Only his argument using Ha Noi and Saigon is correct
Yeah... As a Viet, I can confirm this. There's 5 same words with different meanings because of the symbols changing the tones. The vowels and some letters will also have different sound and meaning such as the letter A... or A Ă and Â. Yeah, 1 word will have like 15 different meanings. T and Th are flipped so "think = th" would be "think = t or tink" and same can be said vice versa. T sounds more "the" and TH sounds more of a 'Tuh" in vietnamese. Some require another word to describe one thing. The fun part is that some words don't even exist at all so some words only have 3 words instead of 5 because of overlap pronunciation or something else.
For clarification on tones:
No symbol (Ca = sing) sounds neutral.
The tick mark (Dấu Sác= /) (Cá = fish) sounds higher pitch tone.
The down tick mark (Dấu Huyền = \)(cà) sounds soft.
The question mark (Dấu Hỏi = ?) (Cả =(adj) for whole or main, therefore, Cả lớp = Whole Class ) sounds like you have a question or confused.
The squiggly line/tilde (Dấu Ngã = ~) (Cã=??? --> Yeah i dont know the meaning) sounds like you are twisting and stretching the tone and word in a bit of a high pitch.
The down dot (Dấu Nặng = .)(Cạ = ? --> Sorry idk) sounds like its deep and straight to the point.
Combine all of this together into sentences, it basically sounds and looks like you are having mood swings after each word while speaking.
I know you're trying to help, but that's a horrible explanation of tones. Alexander Raj does a good job of it on YT
Actually, there are six tones in Vietnamese. "La" for example have 6 tones with 6 meanings "la", "là", "lá", "lạ", "lả", "lã".
Yup. Example 'Bo' in English could be bợ, bỡ, bở, bớ, bờ, bơ, bộ, bỗ, bổ, bố, bồ, bô, bọ, bõ, bỏ, bó, bò... In Viet, each word here means different things.
Most of these are not understood nowadays, unless some dialect uses it again.
I'm vietnamese and say it wrong sometime
Here's an example for the tone to put thing in perspective
co - stretch
có - yes or have (depending on context)
cò - cranes (animal)
cỏ - grass
cọ - brush
Same as me. I learned Mandarin and Cantonese first, but Vietnamese is much harder. People always talk about the tones (which are in fact hard), but even getting the vowels and consonants right is pretty hard in itself.
I'm one week into learning Vietnamese, and my co-worker asked me to say a sentence. I explained that I'm still trying to get the pronunciation right.
I said the sentence, and he replied, "You're butchering my beautiful language. If you can't speak it yet, don't try."
It was so blunt and nasty... Every time I went back to repeat the word, he would be extremely critical, saying things like, "Just say the sentence in one go."
I asked for help with the alphabet pronunciation, and he said, "I don't know it, I only know how to speak." I'm finding this a common response among Australian-born Vietnamese speakers unless they are older.
I think I’ve cut my friend off from helping me learn the language now.
It really soured my experience.
Oh he sounds like a douche, he didn't help you one bit... In my opinion when you learn a language you have to try speaking it regardless if you pronunciation is bad because with practice you'll get better, I'm a Spanish speaker and when an English speaker wants to learn Spanish (mostly people I talk with on language learning apps where you can send voice messages because here in my city there isn't any English speaking tourist)I tell them to practice with me the pronunciation even if it's bad, it is not butchering a language, it's just a someone who wants to learn your language, if someone wants to learn my language I would be honored and I will teach them I don't care if they pronounce the words in a bad way, it's part of the learning process
It's definitely a difficult language to learn for native English speakers, who have a hard time grasping the various tones, as the guest mentioned. I've noticed that Thais and Vietnamese can pronounce each other's language with high accuracy, probably because both are tonal languages. In any case, your friend is the exception with regards to his reaction. Pay him no mind. Most people are honored that you're trying to learn their language. Sometimes natives will laugh when you try to speak, but it's not in a mean spirited manner. It's more like a tease, poking fun type of way. The only way you're going to learn is to keep practicing, so keep at it.
Vietnamese people including me are excited when foreigners bother to learn Vietnamese. I'm sorry you had such bad experience.
Don't let that idiot discourage you! Stay motivated! Btw, you are doing the right thing by focusing on the tones and pronunciation first. Honestly, I feel like this "friend" was more so threatened/jealous of your desire to learn a language they were flluent in. It's what set him apart, and he will no longer have that over you, idk, it's weird to explain.
There are 6 tones and Vietnamese is also difficult because it is a mono-sollabic language.
6 in north and 5 in south
I just got together with a Vietnamese girl. She was teaching me the word ngon, delicious
I thought I was saying it perfect and we went back and forth and she kept giggling. Crazy how many tones there are. I can’t wait to learn more
I'm Laotian. We have the same different tone, different meaning thing. I understand why this could be very hard for a foreigner to learn.
damn it's rare seeing a Laos online
I lived in Vietnam, Hanoi for 5 years and he's right. You try to order a coffee in Vietnamese and end up in a confusing mess just repeating what you think the other said. The amount of times I ordered a black coffee and go back and forth and get something totally different. The tonal language is hard 😅
Ca phe sua da ban :D
@@chrisx5127no, Khong, cafe sua, Den em oi
The good side of it is you get to experience many type of coffee 😁
the trick is that you have to speak with a little bit attitude lol.
Mandarin has 4 tones as well, and Cantonese has at least a whopping 9. I'm 52 and been a musician since I was 15 years old and started learning Mandarin when I was about 27-28 and found it incredibly easy - mostly because they don't conjugate verbs and the verb doesn't change whether it's past, present, or future (you add a modifier word after the verb to indicate those tenses). I was speaking very rudimentary Mandarin within a week. Nothing to write home about, but I was at least having simple conversations with actual Chinese nationals. So, I think if you have a musical ear, it's far easier because the gramar and syntax is pretty simple and highly practical.
I've never tried Vietnamese, and I may be wrong on this, but watching Sonny's videos, especially when he is with Calvin or Nguyen, and hearing it spoken, I suspect there are more than 4 tones. It sounds more "musical" than Mandarin. Can anyone comfirm? I'm curious.
Yes. I tried learning it. I didn't manage to learn Chinese but I started it, and it seemed fairly simple. Japanese OTOH has more complicated sentence structure but at least the words are easy to pronounce.
In Vietnamese, every word is one syllable. It has tones as well as accents. The sentence structure didn't seem too complex but just getting your head around the word pronounciation is a headache.
I've forgotten everything which is good because even when I tried to speak sentences to a native Viet speaker, the look they give me makes me think that they think that I'm having a stroke.
Yes, Vietnamese actually has 6 tones which is flat (-), deep (`), sharp ('), heavy (•), asking (?), tumbling (~). That’s the standard textbook anyway. There are probably more or less tones depending on the dialects. I live in the south and people here often turn tumbling into asking when they talk so essentially the south only has 4 or 5 tones
6 tones.
yeah, not really accurate. Cantonese and Vietnamese has same number of tone contours or relative pitch levels, which is 6.
They both also have entering/clipped "tones", or glottal stop finals, meaning that words end in hard/sharp consonants (p,t,k etc.) But these end up being at the same relative pitch levels of the former category. So that's where you end up with people saying that Canto has 9 tones or Viet has 8
I’ve lived here a while, Vietnamese wife. There are actually NINE tones, two more than Mandarins actual seven.
Forgeabouit. It’s not even worth the time and effort to try IMO. Good, kind and friendly people, my wife’s a dream, but the language….simply ridiculous.
Sunny Side is one of the most interesting people alive!
Chris Lewis on TH-cam speaks Vietnamese with proper dialect and grammar, better than most Vietnamese Americans. I love watching that guy speaks Vietnamese, Mandarine and Hindi.
Great channel suggestion for those who are curious about an American who speaks Vietnamese very well.
🤢🤮
Mikachu also speaks it very well. Sonny did pretty good here, actually.
In my observations of American students trying to learn Vietnamese I have noticed one interesting phenomenon. Most American students take much longer to master Vietnamese because they get disturbing flashbacks and PTSD style resurgence visions while learning the fundamentals of Vietnamese. Many American students also report of auditory hallucinations after classes where the trees next to their homes or apartments appear to be speaking to them in Vietnamese. This phenomenon is exacerbated if they are next to or see a photo of a rice-paddy field. One must note that many of these American students haven't even visited Vietnam yet ! It is truly a strange phenomenon. This could be a case of resurgence of genetic memories passed on to them from their Fathers and Grand-Fathers.
Lmao
😂wtf
@@happybeach777 FAX bruh FAX
ALMIGHTY GOD KABIR is the father of all souls that JESUS, MOHAMMAD, GURU NANAK, VEDH was telling in BIBLE, QURAN, GURU GRANTHA SAHEB
I learn fast thanks to Mama Sans Oral lessons 😂
Not sure if alot of ppl know or even heard of hmong ppl but the hmong language is the same idea. Its all about tones. A different tone can completely change the meaning of the word. Interesting to know that vietnamese is kinda the same.
English is the same way
vietnamese, chinese, and hmong all use tones but honestly hmong is pretty easy too learn. Hard part is just remembering which word is which tone. Id say vietnamese is harder too learn just by hearing how they talk
Lol yes we’ve heard of Hmong. But American English is the same way and then some. Even more baffling is that American English has words that are spelt identical, but can mean completely different things and sound completely different. We call em homonyms of course. Partly why English is largely seen as the hardest language to learn. Wonder if these other languages have homonyms similar to English ones. It only makes sense that they’d have a few, but I wonder to what extent and how common.
@@Easymoneysniper5 No. English is not the same way.
@@Easymoneysniper5no sorry the tones of English definitely do not work the same way as the tones of the tonal languages of Asia like Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, et cetera. It is a totally, totally different concept. Simple example: Saying the word “yes” in English in a very low whisper or yelling the word yes in a loud voice are two different tones of yes but DOES NOT change the meaning of the word nor does it make it a different word. The tonal concept of Asian languages is exactly opposite. It WOULD change the word into a totally different word AND a totally different meaning potentially. So I do not know any of those languages but the linguists and anthropologists who have studied the different cultures have made study of this difference for hundreds of years and it is really well researched and documented so I am not trying to be a karen a-hole know it all but hopefully trying to help one understand that English language tones and Asian language tones are absolutely NOT the same concept in any respect.
Vietnamese is a very tonal language. The words can be spelled the exact same way, but the punctuations on the letters changes the inflection of your voice. One word spelled the same way can have 7 different meanings depending on the inflection of your voice. Unless you grew up to identify those subtle distinct tones, it’s a very difficult language to learn.
I totally think language anticipation anxiety exists. I’ve learned a few expressions in different languages but am very Caucasian and look it. And every time I say something in a different lang they ALWAYS say “what?” And I’ve come to realize it’s because they were expecting me to speak English so didn’t actually understand/hear what I said. But if I repeated it in their lang then they understood.
I found out it helps when you start with some greeting in their language, or something else that is used by them.
For Vietnamese I use "Chị ơi" or something to adress them first, that usually works. I feel it has to be something clearly in their language though
it's so cool that Joe Rogan learns the structure so quickly
I am married to a beautiful vietnamese woman, we are both 50, I have tried to learn the language. Like he said, the tone, you say 3 different things. It is easier to teach my wife English.
he basically said that he was very ugly, not he was very hungry
There is a teacher of Vietnamese here on YT (I forget who) who would not answer a basic question. She was explaining the vowel pronunciations. When she pronounced the 2nd "a" she did so with a rising tone. I asked why. It is supposed to have a different vowel *sound* but the tone is not part of its pronunciation since the tone can be different depending on what word it's in.
I am currently on a voyage to learn Vietnamese and I had this exact same question. The answer I've found is that when you are saying "ă" as a letter by itself, they use the rising tone simply to distinguish it from the first letter "a". But that tone is NOT used when "ă" appears in a word. When "ă" appears in a word, it is pronounced the same as "a", but is much shorter. So when you say "dăm" to mean "a few, or some", you would shorten the "a" sound and linger on the "m" sound. Hope this helps.
@@daveygiggles Thank you for the response. Of course the tone I referenced (rising) COULD be used in some words but my point was that there is a distinction between the tone of a vowel and the basic pronunciation of it. The teacher in the video (in fact more than one did this) was giving a rising tone to the 2nd "a" when she should have just given its pronunciation. By doing this she was implying that the 2nd "a" *always* has a rising tone which is of course not correct.
@@Bob31415 Yes, I understand what you're saying. My wife is Vietnamese and she also uses a rising tone for ă when saying the alphabet. But ă does not inherently have a rising tone when used in a word unless the rising tone mark is also present. This is just one of those things you have to accept when learning the language. The pronunciation for "a" and "ă" are the same. The only difference is the length of the vowel. Same for "ơ" and "â"; pronounced the same but â is shorter than ơ.
@@daveygiggles Very interesting. You explained it better than the native speaking instructors here on TH-cam. " *But ă does not **_inherently_** have a rising tone when used in a word unless the rising tone mark is also present* ." THAT is all they had to say to avoid the confusion.
Grown up as a vietnamese born in europe i do hear the difference nouances when someone else speak but beeing able to pronounce it the same way, is a whole different thing. I‘m fluent in 5 languages and my vietnamese is the worst out of all of them
1:29 Yes it is WILD even as a Vietnamese, and thats also the reason why if like my parent's guest or friend is coming I wouldn't want to go greet them cause I don't know what pronounce to use and what do I call them, I don't want to be rude lmao.
wow does this really happen? im shocked !
@@sullitmas it's so annoying because if you mess up they KNOW you dont remember them lol, happened so many time for me i dont remember shit
Thats why its often "Hi, how old are you?" or you just use the older pronoun for the other one to be safe. Is it chú or bác? I will just call you bác 😂
As a Vietnamese person, he is very good
The issue here is even if it sounds like gibberish, they should be able to tell it's supposed to be Vietnamese, not understanding a language doesn't mean it doesn't have a specific sound. It would obviously depend on the person, but regardless of whether or not you understand a language someone speaks, I think a lot of people would still be able to infer. If I meet a Mexican person and they don't really speak English, but they're trying to make sounds that are clearly similar to or ARE words in English, even pronounced wrong or in the wrong order, it's still understandable to the point that you'd know they're trying to speak English. I bet there's plenty of Vietnamese people who could understand that you're trying to speak Vietnamese and wouldn't think even poor Vietnamese sounds anything like English (or any given language that couldn't reasonably be misconstrued. Again, you don't have to be familiar with a language, even if it's one a lot of people in the world have likely read or heard at some point (English, Mandarin, Spanish, German, those that tend to be fairly wide spread)
Perhaps the level of difference makes it easier to not understand attempted Vietnamese to a Vietnamese person, but actually I would have thought the uniqueness would make it easier to tell when someone is trying to speak it. It's just difficult for me to fathom not recognizing the language that you and everyone around you has spoken for your entire life, even if it's bad (and yes, the more a language spreads, the more non-native speakers try to pick it up, and thus you'll have more and more examples of it spoken badly at some point. Most people who speak English have heard someone not as good at it try to speak it, but I bet most of them still get what's being attempted, and this can't be a unique trait to any language, there have to be Vietnamese people who would see some other Vietnamese person not understand someone trying to speak Vietnamese to them and say "Anh ngu như cứt"
Idk how to explain but i LEGIT sometimes cannot understand when ppl speak viet. The tones help me understand so when ppl speak without the tones well its hard like yes ik its vietnamese but i still cant understand exactly
I think i understand where your coming from but vietnamese is VERY tone based. To a native, anything different from their dialect or region of vietnam (northern, middle, southern) is an entirely different language to them. So when foreigners try to speak it, and yes maybe the letters are not wrong but the tones are different, it is incredibly hard for the natives to decypher if its a different region talking or a different language.
Only American I've seen speaking vietnamese was laushu the master of languages and from that you can notice how difficult this language actually is
Language is so beautiful.
Since I have next to no vocal control and a poor ear for music (I struggle to hear different tones), Vietnamese is so unbelievably hard for me to learn despite my efforts. I managed to get to an advanced level in Spanish, but this language is on an entirely different level.. when you start to learn it's just a sense of disbelief in terms of how complicated and different from English it is.
Oh you have done so well. I'm Australian born vietnamese and even I struggle going throughout vietnam. They don't understand my accent and laugh. There's so many dialects in vietnam and it's a challenge even for me!
The romanized alphabet doesn't actually come from French colonisation. Was actually a missionary from Portugal that started this change.
You can always address a male with Anh and female with Chi, regardless whether they are older or younger than you. This has always been the formal way, rather than asking for their age. Then once you know that person well enough they may let you know they prefer Em/Chau/Con/Co/Di/Chu/Bac/Ong... instead. If they don't it simply means the relationship is not close enough to cater the specific pronounce.
I call every man or boy "Chu" LOL
I always did it when i was a child. I'm a Vietnamese
my two closest vietnamese friends. i always imitated their words, and i got the intonation wrong each time.
I speak 5 languages
It's sometimes hard to translate 😕
That's why the translator professionals have a good pay
[00:01:05] And what does the younger person part, where are you saying that? “Em.” Yeah, so if you were talking to like a 20-year-old, how would you say it? Uh, how would I refer to that? I wouldn’t say “em đói.” Uh, then I would be “anh,” “anh đói.” So, “anh,” yeah, like on top. So, yes, if I was speaking to someone younger, I would say “anh,” like I’m an older man, so “anh” is gonna do this, which is wild because they do phone calls with people and at some point, they’ve not seen each other, they just hear each other’s voice and at some point, they figured out like, okay, I’m gonna be the older one, you’re going to be the younger one.
That why Vietnamese are highly intelligent, and why they are undefeated in war. A language so hard only those with IQ higher than 100 can speak it.
wtf are you talking about. Ive never seen 6 different tones of a single word being used on a IQ test to test a person logic.
I am so glad I can manage the pronounciation, I never struggled with people understanding me.
However my good pronounciation makes them believe I have lived in Vietnam for a few years, which in turn leads to them bombing me with conversation.
I did not live in Vietnam and I am still running on a very tiny bit of vocabulary, so I am fucked every time 😂😂😂
I didn’t know Sonny’s wife is Vietnamese until now
It’s the first time he’s mentioned if she was Vietnamese
If you've seen enough of his videos, she's sometimes doing the filming. Sometimes she's even appeared with him. Not often but it has happened. More often she is wielding the camera in some videos.
Tones match context situations in Vietnamese ...its initially challenging to learn but after 20years you should be good to go 😂😂😂 took me around 2 years to get to a fair level with constant study while living in Vietnam. This fair level was say around upper pre intermediate /intermediate level which is Southern Dialect! I spent 10 years there as well.
These days with Apps and media platforms it's much easier to learn but realistically you need to be in Vietnam for a number of years!
Same with some words in the Philippines. Like for example in Visaya "puso" has 3 different meanings based on how you say it. It could mean water pump, hanging rice, or heart-although this meaning is Tagalog but has also a different intonation compared to the Visayan versions. Many more examples like "lata" has different meanings based on intonation or tubo, baga, paso, etc. I think southeast asian languages has a lot of this.
the Asian tonal languages are fascinating for sure. I do not know any of them in the slightest, but always fascinating to listen to. I will observe, however, that you said that the same word for water pump could also be heart. And the human heart is, technically, a form of biological fluid pump, pumping our blood, which is mostly water. Very interesting! Hanging rice… I got nothing for that😅.
Yeah, there's roughly 3 level of Javanese in general
"crude" Javanese used to talk with younger person or your close friend
"middle" Javanese used to talk with formal peer
"high" Javanese used to talk with someone you respect
But you can bypass all of these by using Indonesian language as it sounds formal
Love Both of Yall Thank Yall both!!!!!
The only words I can remember of Vietnamese are:
"Plèãse dõn't éât mè Thēô Vòn."
???!!! What does these words mean ?
If you learn how to get iced coffee in Vietnamese you are good trust me
Vietnamese is currently considered to be the hardest language to learn as a second language.
0:58 woah woah your pronunciation is kinda good to a beginner
Korean language is more closely related to Japanese than to Chinese.
Max McFarlin speaks pretty good Vietnamese from the south. I think he's only lived there for 3 or 4 years.
Vietnamese is really not that hard. I think people make things aren’t really that difficult hard on themselves. Vietnamese. First of all, Vietnamese is flexible. You can flip the sentence order frontwards or backwards and it still makes sense. Verbs don’t have to be conjugated and there are simple additive words to convey “time” like Đi, Sẽ, and Đã. That’s it. Lastly, pronunciation “can” be tricky, but that really only comes down to regional differences such as the Northern, Central and Southern dialects. Vietnamese essentially like to speak how they speak and they often like to throw you off just when you thought what you’re using was sufficient. You’re not wrong in how you speak, but they like to play the wild card. They understand you though. I’ve never had much of an issue. Then again, I spent most of my time learning languages my entire life.
hhhhhhhhhhh in my opinion, this is precisely hard because its flexible that it makes things difficult because they do not follow a basic pattern. im desperate because i cant understand what the position of the words will be
@@sullitmas I mean this also comes from being immersed in languages of all different sorts of sentence orders and once you’ve become familiar also with the way other Asian languages work then logic and a bit of practice does wonders
@@sullitmas I mean this also comes from being immersed in languages of all different sorts of sentence orders and once you’ve become familiar also with the way other Asian languages work then logic and a bit of practice does wonders
If you only use it in communication, vietnamese at a basic level will be easy for you. But if you study the language in depth, you will understand that vietnamese is really difficult, even for vietnamese people.
@@sullitmas stock up on a list of verbs, read them daily out loud. Watch tv programs or TH-cam with Vietnamese audio, I’ve never had an issue.
what do you call a line of people waiting outside a vietnamese restaurant?
the pho queue
haha
hahaha nice one. dude i knew a Vietnamese American guy that is his parents immigrated he was born in USA. Went by David but his Vietnamese name was literally and actually Phuc. Yes! Seriously!😅😂 And he would tell us stories of how growing up here in America and being totally American but also totally fluent in Vietnamese still… he would “fuck” with his teachers at school. And yell at them, yelling his actual Vietnamese name of Phuc. (my name is Phuc say it right!) Hahahaha and what fantastic fun he had with it growing up. Alas I do not know what the male Vietnamese name of Phuc even means! Good stories from him though.
@@nozrep great stuff haha
thanks for getting my joke!
That's pretty good Sonny.
Hey Vietnamese, Thai, Cantonese are tone languages.
Don’t worry guys. Viet people love it when foreigners try to speak our language. We’ll give u a break. We greatly appreciate the effort
Writing super easy to read. Speaking is the same idea in many language due to social status goes into consideration. pronoun n word of choices have to change. Speaking generally easy for people who use tonal language as native tongue.
Learning the tonal alphabet and wording is not that hard, it's the symbolism and cultural imagery that is extremely difficult. Example: Referring to another male as she and a husband as a wife. The first and third person stuff is another realm of tough. Watch VN videos with English subs enabled and you will see what it is like to be amazingly confused.
Joe NEEDS to have TH-cam influencer Xiaomanyc on his show, this dude is amazing!
You must be referring to Harrolson
chinese also has 4 tones for each word /sound, and each sound is connected with 100s of words, that all share the sounds, so outside of tones you also have to understand the context of other words used around them, homonyms galore. Once a literary scholar wrote an entire essay using one single sound, different tones and it made complete sense when you heard/read it.
Chinese use sharp tone, Vietnamese is round. Easier for Westerner to make fun off and hear. Westerner cannot do that with Vietnamese. Hence, why Vietnamese are superior and more loved. And Vietnamese are like a melody especially in songs.
@@chrisx5127 lol yeah one group is more "superior", sounds like its coming from a fascist. So why do vietnamese all watch chinese tv drama and listen to chinese pop, steal it and make a clone song?
Vietnamese could do it too. All Vietnamese main 6 syllables (/`?~.", you could make entire an essay with just picking up 1 out of 6 main syllables above.
If you Learn Vietnamese and Arabic, you'll be able to speak probably 90-95% of World languages.
Sigh. VN is EASY! It uses alphabets, unlike CH, JP or KR characters. Grammar is super easy and forgiving. Also, it has the accent marks so you know how to pronounce it. Then you just have to practice listening/pronouncing the words. No more difficult than VN people trying to pronounce the "s" in EN words. Or the Japanese trying to pronounce the "r" words.
I will always say foe for pho! I am American dammit😂😅. I definitely do not mind being ridiculed for saying word wrongly in a different language which is not my own native American English. It is what it is. Besides, I live in the city with the first or second largest Vietnamese community in the entire country of USA and most Vietnamese folks I have met are totally cool about it. Yes, they make fun of me. Yes, but also, they understand and it is all in good fun.
I'm an Australian Vietnamese. An easy way for you guys to say it is "huh?" but beginning with a "F". :)
@@tl7556 I'm Australian Australian, and I always thought of saying "Fuck" but just drop the "ck" off the end! 😉😆
@@FukUrUsernameRules lol if you say it like that but with a high tone, it means to break something in Vietnamese...
In a way, I like the way Anericans just pronounce foreign words the way an American would naturally say them, in American English, without even trying to say it "correctly." It can be a way of being natural and dropping all pretense and effort. Like "we are what we are, and we speak like we speak, in our language, and it is what it is, so be it." - A kind of self-acceptance.
trust me no one gonna ridiculed you for trying to say vietnamese
Vietnamese are totally cool with mispronunciation of “pho” in my city where there are many, many many many Pho restaurants, well, at least all the Vietnamese I have met anyways. There is even one in Galveston that did an EXCELLENT play on words, taking advantage of the mispronunciation. Pho Twenty noodle house. 😅😂😅 Get it? 420? Fo-Twenty? Pho Twenty? Yep!!!! It exists! In Galveston!
imagine they started learning the Nghe An language💀💀💀
Bình Định 😂😂😂
mot ly ca phe sua dà ---A Coffee with milk😊
He totally butchered the "anh" pronunciation. 😂😂😂
His pronounciation is off generally, but thats no surprise. Most people try to use a different language by using the sounds of their own language, causing heavy accents and mispronounciations.
His Vietnamese is not that bad💁💁
I’m sorry but don’t we have there, they’re and their?
Everything he says is true.
Chúng tôi lại thấy Tiếng Nga thật khó
I'm not sure I've ever been ridiculed for trying Viet.
Correct me if I'm wrong, he's speaking southern viet.
Aha...now we know that Sonny's wife is Vietnamese. Mystery solved coz he keeps her off camera even though she travels with him.
Moving to Vietnam in 6 months. Know 0 Vietnamese. Let’s go!
Buc duc luc fuc - I grew up around Vietnamese people...that right there means welcome to Vietnam how you doing enjoy your stay goodebyeeeeeno joke there's more vocabulary of certain words that mean ten different things
Give me a call if yiu want to learn Vietnamese simpler and unsophisticated. It's not that hard if you know hints and universal techniques.
Có thể phát âm tiếng việt là khá khó. Nhưng học chữ viết thì rất dễ, bởi hệ thống ngữ pháp rất đơn giản. Đơn giản nhất trong các loại ngôn ngữ.
Nói chung là viết để giao tiếp bth thì dễ thôi. Cái khó ở Tiếng Việt là thứ tự sắp xếp chữ viết có thể xáo trộn mà vẫn rõ nghĩa, đặc biệt là với mỗi thanh điệu trong 6 thanh điệu của Tiếng Việt, bạn cũng có thể cấu tạo nó thành một bài văn :)) cái này các ngôn ngữ khác ko có!
Laughing in Mizo tawng 🤣🤣
Tôi đói bụng quá.
French is the same way too when you are talking in a formal or elder way
I don't know what this guy is on about saying that people get ridiculed for pronouncing Vietnamese incorrectly or badly.
Conversely, the overwhelming majority of Vietnamese love when a foreigner speaks their language, or is learning it and trying to speak it, even if they mangle the pronunciation. They will even go so far as to go overboard in complimenting you, saying you speak it "very well", to show their appreciation of your effort and to encourage you.
Case in point - I started learning Vietnamese when I was 17. I'm 51 now, and in my 34 years of experience with the language I've never once been made fun of, nor have I seen any other American/foreign learners of Vietnamese subjected to ridicule as this guy claims.
That said, he was correct about the language anticipation theory. I can't count the times I've spoken to people in a shop, restaurant, etc. and usually takes several seconds for them to shake off their surprise when they hear me speak to them in Vietnamese.
Lastly, his pronunciation wasn't bad. If he hadn't said in advance what words he was going to say I would have still understood him. 💯
Cheers. 🍻
He has a clear accent (obviously) but he wasnt hard to understand (I think).
I also never experienced ridicule or anything when speaking Vietnamese, quite the opposite, they usually make you say more and make you repeat words 😂😅
Their, there, they're.
English homonyms with different meanings, yes. Bravo! Good for you. Alas, a wholly, wholely and absolutely separate concept from the tonals of Asian languages. Where saying their in a whisper or their in a yelling voice will be as of two totally different words with two totally different meanings. But yelling their or whispering their in English still will always have the same meaning. Yes, totally different. But still, good job on your spelling🤓
Start everything with “du ma” and everything will make sense
Practice singing karaoke drunk you’ll get it down.
The way Vietnamese is written makes absolutely no sense. G is pronounced as S. D is also pronounced as S.
It depends on the province. A lot of different ways to make the 'Z' sound where I am: D, gi, r, x and different words might pronounce them as 'S.' Tones and diphthongs combine to make very tricky pronunciation and understanding; for example, the Vietnamese words for new, salt and ten are quite similar (differ by diphthong), whereas the Vietnamese words for coconut, cucumber and pineapple only differ by tone.
It is "gi" not "g", this is from Italian influence. The Italian also pronounce "gi" as "z". D used to be a /ð/ sound, but because the Vietnamese alphabet is old, the sounds changed.
@@nomnadayThe first Vietnamese alphabet was developed in Central Vietnam with limited resources by Catholic missionaries at the time. It did not cover all the sounds in the language with many dialects. The language changed of course yes, I still remember the way my grandma speak back in the day.
my gosh :) this dude will make you more confused about Vietnamese Only to explain the word I :)
em đói quá😆
Funny on JRE. Since JR struggles, even with English, most of times 08]
the pronouns thing is like Javanese. we're in the same region afterall
There are so many words in Vietnamese that are almost identical, a slight imperfect pronunciation would turn one word into another. Of course with context we can understand what they meant, but that would assume other words in that sentence are also pronounced perfectly.
Also the pronouns in Vietnamese are prolly my least favorite thing, when encounter strangers, you basically need to ask for their age, or assess the situation to use proper pronouns. Whenever I visit my dad’s family, it is always a nightmare considering how many pronouns I have to remember. Oh, don’t get me started with all of uncles, aunties, cousins,…
Wtf this guy saying 😂
Wth is he smoking? Korean is ridiculously hard to learn
Du ma
vietnamese is not that hard i can gurentee yall that.
Du Ma Con Cac
1: U have to be on uppers to even speak Vietnamese. 2: U have to be on uppers to even listen to Vietnamese. 3: He didn't marry his wife for her culture. 4: Think Vietnamese is hard!? Try speaking an Eskimo language!! There's many words for snow!! Soft snow, hard snow, wet snow, sideways snow, bouncing snow, water snow, sea snow, igloo snow, tall snow, & on & on & on....
Why does he need a vietmanese wife?
Shes tight fo long time.
@@Pepe-dq2ib 😂😂
Why not?😂 What kind of question is that?
@@extendo7137 Lets not be naive. Generally the only reason somebody would go all the way to SEA to get a wife, is because theyre old and want a young Chinese Wife!
He doesn't need a vietnamese wife he just lives in Vietnam that's his home now
he cant even talk Vietnamese tho
0:35 Speaking of that, Lunar New Year is near and I'm going to see my cousin families again. 🥲