Dễ Vietnamese!

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księżycowy
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Dễ Vietnamese!

Postby księżycowy » Sat Jun 19, 2021 7:01 pm

As it is hot as the fires of Gehenna currently (and also Summer), I thought I'd start one last "easy" project. The reason I bring up the heat and it being Summer is because that always gets me thinking about hot places. Like Vietnam! And I've always has a bit of a soft spot for this underdog. I'm only looking to pick up some basics for the time being. As my focus is still Japanese, I'm going to say something quite similar to my Malayalam/Tamil project: I'm going work on it whenever I have the extra time and will. I've always wanted to learn a tonal language, and have made some attempts over the years. I can remember learning some Mandarin and Taiwanese a year or two ago. Hopefully this "project" sticks. At least long enough to make it through my chosen textbook.

My weapon of choice: Easy Vietnamese by Bac Hoai Tran, which as it happens teaches Southern Vietnamese. As I'm far more likely to run into a speaker of that dialect, I think it's a good starting place. I do intend on eventually learning the Northern dialect as well, but that's neither here nor there.

For now, I'll going to work on Lesson 1 (which is just pronunciation) and the first dialogue and notes for Lesson 2. I'll be back with an update once I'm ready to move on.

[This is my last new thread for a while, I swear! :lol: ]
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Re: Dễ Vietnamese!

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Jun 20, 2021 1:06 am

Good luck with your Vietnamese, księżycowy!

It's a language here in Australia that I come across frequently and in my experience one of the most useful languages to know in my region of Australia. In health care it would be so handy (just the other day I had to organise a phone translator for a patient and a doctor. I'm not that keen on diving into Asian languages given I've far too much wanderlust for European languages to open up a whole new region. Still never say never and were I to choose to learn an Asian language, Vietnamese might just come in at top spot. I've always found the people rather friendly and the French influence in the culture is also a point of interest for me, not to mention the positive things I've heard from people having travelled there (my wife included). I'd be curious to know what the Assimil course is like, but I don't think I'll find out from yourself, given it's not on your radar, it seems. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your adventures in Vietnamese! Keep up us updated on your progress!

MC Mollenburg.

PS Throw a garbage truck over your shoulder, like for realio.
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księżycowy
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Re: Dễ Vietnamese!

Postby księżycowy » Sun Jun 20, 2021 12:08 pm

In the interest of full disclosure, I almost went with Cantonese instead. But as I didn't want to learn Chinese characters yet (yes, I'm that weird. :P I wanna write Cantonese too.) and quite a few of my resources for it have that temptation, I opted for Vietnamese. Don't get me wrong, it was a close match between the two.

Anyway, yeah, unfortunately I do not have that book. I do have a a good few other books, however:
Northern: Elementary Vietnamese & Continuing Vietnamese by Binh Nhu Ngo, the Modern Vietnamese series by Phan Văn Giưỡng

Southern: Vietnamese Basic Course by FSI, Spoken Vietnamese by Robert B. Jones, Easy Vietnamese by Bac Hoai Tran, Vest Pocket Vietnamese by Cortina, and a series of pdfs that I can only assume have been written by Overseas Vietnamese diaspora for learning Vietnamese ("Conversational Vietnamese")

Both (?): Intermediate Spoken Vietnamese by Tran Trong Hai & Franklin Huffman

As far as my study so far, I find the pronunciation to be an interesting puzzle.

So far, I have noticed things such as <ph> being pronounced as [pʰ] and <kh> being pronounced as [kʰ] on the audio for Easy Vietnamese. Every resource I have thus far says that these are pronounced as [f] and [x] respectively in Southern Vietnamese. Upon referencing Thompson's reference grammar, he concurs that these sounds in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City dialect are indeed pronounced like that ([f] and [x], to be clear). But also states that the rural Southern Cochinchina dialect has (at the least) [pʰ] for <ph>. Granted, he was writing in the 60's (I'm not sure what changes occurred in the "revised edition", or when they took place). I'm guessing that there is some variation in the wider Southern dialect as to whether these sounds are aspirated or fricative.

I'm still getting used to the tones (as I only started yesterday :P ), and I'm still working on <ơ> and <ư>. I'm also trying to figure out the diphthongs and vowel combinations. I'm contemplating if I want to go through the pronunciation lessons in the Basic Course or not.
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Re: Dễ Vietnamese!

Postby księżycowy » Sun Jun 27, 2021 8:17 pm

So far I've been working on listening to the first dialogue of Chapter 2, and the vocabulary associated with it. It's slow going, but I'm getting there.

EDIT: I have also decided that I will leave the FSI course for after I am done with Easy Vietnamese. There was something else I wanted to add too, but I'll be damned if I can remember it now. Hopefully it'll come back to me at some point.

EDIT2: That's it! I also find the pronunciation of <qu-> to be interesting in Southern Vietnamese. On the tapes for EV, it sounds very much like a [w].
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Re: Dễ Vietnamese!

Postby Axon » Sat Jul 31, 2021 4:29 am

Hooray! My smattering of Vietnamese has served me well as long as I've known it, as a very necessary language of communication in Vietnam, a surprisingly useful lingua franca at times in Laos, and a way to make a brief connection with the Vietnamese diaspora in the US.

You may already know that Glossika offers a Southern Vietnamese course, which may be one of the most complete Southern Vietnamese courses available.

Elementary Vietnamese has a marvelously complete pronunciation guide for Northern Vietnamese with some helpful notes on the Southern Vietnamese pronunciations as well, so don't forget to look into that as well!
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Re: Dễ Vietnamese!

Postby księżycowy » Sat Jul 31, 2021 1:36 pm

Axon wrote:You may already know that Glossika offers a Southern Vietnamese course, which may be one of the most complete Southern Vietnamese courses available.

No, I didn't. Thanks for letting me know! I was hoping it was one of their free courses, but alas...

Elementary Vietnamese has a marvelously complete pronunciation guide for Northern Vietnamese with some helpful notes on the Southern Vietnamese pronunciations as well, so don't forget to look into that as well!

I have to admit, I have been torn at times between wanting to learn Southern Vietnamese and Northern Vietnamese. In part because of how good Elementary Vietnamese is. I was always planning to learn both anyway, but in the end I decided I wanted to go with the Southern dialect for first.

I think, after hearing plenty of audio from both Easy Vietnamese and Vietnamese Basic Course that Elementary Vietnamese has some holes in it's coverage of Southern pronunciation. But that is easily forgiven, as it's intended to teach Northern anyway. Still, it is helpful!
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Re: Dễ Vietnamese!

Postby księżycowy » Wed Aug 18, 2021 12:19 pm

Sorry for the long delay in updates. There were some unforseen issues that have delay progress. Rather than writing it twice, I'll link to where I already wrote it here.

I feel like I'm getting more used to the tones, and can pronounce them with relative accuracy. I still haven't gotten beyond the first dialogue in Chapter 2 of Easy Vietnamese, but I'm honestly contemplating switching to the FSI course. I'll make my decision this week, and stick with whatever I choose. If I do go with FSI, I'll probably still take a pass at EV to pick up some more modern idioms and what not.

More to come, hopefully!
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