Learning Vietnamese

Steven and I had our first Vietnamese Lessons this past week, Friday and Tuesday. Our teacher's name is Phuc, pronounced "Phuh-uh (with an upward intonation), which I had to ask her to pronounce before attempting it myself. She is a 51-year-old, single mother of two and a full-time Vietnamese teacher.

For our first lesson, we practiced pronouncing the Vietnamese alphabet, "A - Ah, A with a "u" on top - Ah (like you are surprised), A with a hat - uh-uh, B - Buh, C - Cuh, D- Yuh, D with a line through it - Da, E - Aye, F - Fuh, G - Guh, H - Huh, I - ee, K - Guh, L - Luh, M - Muh, N - Nuh, O - Aw, O with a hat - Oh, O with one ear - uh, P - Puh, Q - Guh, R - Ruh, S - Shruh, T - Thuh, U - ooo, U with one ear - uh with your jaw out like you have an underbite, V - vuh, X - suh, Y - ee. Most of the letters are easy enough, but the vowels are a little tough.

After going over the letters, we practiced the tones. Vietnamese is a tonal language, which means that one word can have six different meanings when pronounced differently. The six tones are 1) mid tone or Khong Dau ("No accent"), 2) rising or dau rac, 3) falling or dau huyen, 4) low rising or dau hoi, 5) high broken or dau nga and 6) low broken or dau nang. My cheat sheet says, 1) flat, 2) "surprise", 3) "sinking into the couch after a long day, 4) long up and down, 5) short up and down, 6) stacatto. It is as difficult as it sounds. By our second day, Steven had the tones down, but I'm still struggling.

On Tuesday, we learned basic greetings. "Chao" means hello, but it is followed by a different pronoun depending on who you are saying hello to. So if I were saying hello to a man, close to my age, I would say "Chao, Anh." If he were older, "Chao, Ong." A woman my age, "Chao, chi." Older woman, "Chao, ba." Or a kid, "Chao, em." This all gets that much more complicated when you want to move beyond hello.

"Chao, Anh. Xin Loi. Anh ten la gi?" - Hello, sir. Excuse me, what is your name?
"Chao, Chi. Xin Loi. Chin ten la gi?" - Hello, ma'am. Excuse me, what is your name?
"Chao, em. Em ten la gi? - Hey kid. What's your name?

"Toi ten la Sharon" - My name is Sharon. "Rat vui doc gap anh." - Nice to meet you.

"Chao, Ba. Ba co khoe khong? (Baa co kwe kong)" - Hello, ma'am. How are you or literally you are fine, no?"

"Cam on. Toi khoe. (Cam ern. Toi kwe)" - Thank you, I'm fine"

Now let's practice that on the street...