I really enjoyed the Want to Learn Korean? Come in here thread in the Korean Chat so I decided to create a similar one for anyone interested in learning Vietnamese.

I'm no expert.. my Vietnamese is pretty elementary. My mom said I'm about a grade 4 level LOL So I'll just copy whatever I find useful from the net and post it here to begin. I would really appreciate any help you guyz could give me to keep this thread useful for those wanting to learn Vietnamese. Thanks so much in advance

Let's begin!

Vietnamese (tiếng Việt)

Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language spoken by about 68 million people in Vietnam. It is also spoken in Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Côte d'Ivoire, Finland, France, Germany, Laos, Martinique, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Norway, Philippines, Senegal, Thailand, the UK, USA and Vanuatu.

Vietnamese was originally written with a Siniform (Chinese-like) script known as Chữ-nôm or Nôm. At first most Vietnamese literature was essentially Chinese in structure and vocabulary. Later literature developed a more Vietnamese style, but was still full of Chinese loan words. The greatest literary work in Vietnamese is Kim Van Kieu, the 'Tale of Kieu', a romance written by Nguyen-Du (1765-1820).

Chữ-nôm was used until the 20th century. Courses in the Chữ-nôm script were available at Ho Chi Minh University until 1993, but since then knowledge of and interest in the script has died out.

During the 17th century, Roman Catholic missionaries introduced a Latin-based orthography for Vietnamese, Quốc Ngữ (national language),which has been used ever since. Until the early 20th century, Quốc Ngữ was used in parallel with Chữ-nôm. Today only Quốc Ngữ is used.

Vietnamese Alphabet

The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 39 letters (29 single and 10 clusters):

A Ă Â B C D Đ E Ê G H I K L M N O Ô Ơ P Q R S T U Ư V X Y

a ă â b c d đ e ê g h i k l m n o ô ơ p q r s t u ư v x y

The letters J, W and Z are also used, but only in foreign loan words.

Consonants & Clusters

There is a trend in the Vietnamese language to pronounce all kinds of consonants as single sounds. Groups of consonants are pronounced as if they were single consonants. Consonants located at the end of words are not pronounced at all, which make the language sound a bit more confusing for foreigner at the first contacts.

All consonants not listed here are pronounced as they would be in standard English

d like 'z' as in 'zero'
đ is the English 'd'
v sometime pronounced as 'y' too

ch like 'ch' in 'chat'
gh like normal 'g' as in 'go'
kh like nomal 'k' as in 'kite'
nh like French 'gn' in 'champaigne'
ng, ngh like 'ng' in 'bang'
ph like normal 'f' as in 'fur'
qu like normal 'q' as in 'queen'
th like normal 't' as in 'Tom'
tr as in 'try'


Vowels

The Vietnamese language uses a large numbers of vowels and groups of vowels to create different sounds, which are at first glance difficult for an English speaker to recognize. But when they are used in words, phrases or sentences, the context can help you to make them out easier.

a like 'a' in 'flat'
ă 'ah!' like when someone startles you
â like 'a' in 'father'
e like 'e' in 'heir'
ê as in 'Café' or 'eh'
i 'ee'
o like 'o' in 'block'
ô 'oh'
ơ like 'u' in 'put'
u 'oo'
ư like 'u' in 'ugh'
y 'ee'

Tones

For speaker of English the sounds of Vietnamese are quite different. They are typically short with single consonants and one or groups of vowels. The big issue is the pronunciation of the words using the correct tone. In Vietnamese there are many words which are spelt and pronounced in exactly the same way, but meaning something quite different. The way the words are distinguished is by the tone used when pronouncing it. English usually employs tones butthe tonal quality is used for emphasis or emotion.

There are six basic tones in Vietnamese, five of which are indicated by a diacritic above or below a letter, the last tone is not indicated at all, which means you keep your voice unchanged when pronouncing.

The word ma can have six different meanings depending on the tone:

ma meaning 'ghost' - no tone
má meaning 'mother' (southern accent) - raising ( / )
mà meaning 'but' - falling ( \ )
mả meaning 'tomb' - questioning ( ? )
mã meaning 'horse' - falling-raising ( ~ )
mạ meaning 'burgeon' - weighing ( . )

Tones are normally placed on vowels, not consonants.

*Source: Vietnamese Online

This is good but from Western Gospel point of View women only created from a single rib bone of Adam and only as an after thought to keep give something so he would not too bored. This is why I think Viet Nam's culture is great as it has much more equality at its very core.

this is confusing, there r 3 "a"s and 3 "o"s?

It gets more confusing if you add on the 6 tones on top.

` , ' , ~ , ? , . , and neutral

But don't worry most foreigners can learn to speak well enough for about 1 year.

The 3 As are: ah, longer version of ah, and the other one is uh.
The 3 Os are: o, awe, and eh (this is a bit like the uh)
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Pronunciation guide for these alphabet:
A and ă -> the same when saying it alone, however it's quite different when they're in a word.
â, ơ -> rhymes with uh
e -> it rhymes with THERE, but drop the R
ê-> eh
i,y -> always ee
o -> awe
u -> oo
ư -> uh, likes the japanese u or korean (eu)ㅡ
Ch -> aspirated Ch, a little bit like ts
Đ -> D sound
D, Gi, R -> It's all pronounced as Z (in standard dialect)
Nh -> spanish ñ , like nyah
"S" is pronounced like English sh, and "X" is pronounced /s/.
Ph- is F
Qu- Kw, or most the time it's just W


______________________________________________

well here's some words for you

Em dep qua! (Em dep wa!) - To girls from a guy- You're beautiful!
Cai Thaang Cho Chet! (Kai thaang chor chet)- To guys from guys/girls- U Son of a b!tch!
Cai Thang nay Vo Duyen Qua! (Kai Thaang Nay Vo Zuen/Yuen wa!) - To guys from guys/girls- You're unmannered (don't know how to translate this one )

Interesting, do you have any simple phrases for us to learn too?

Raises Hand. Anything to polish my Vietnamese would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much for your contribution supernovasp... it's great! Good job!

Here are some basic phrases to begin with (as pronounced in English)

*Note: lower your accent when you see this symbol "\"

Hello (generic): Sin chow\

Hello, ma'am: Chow\ bah\

Mrs or ma'am: Bah\

Miss (when addressing a young lady): Go

Hello, sir: Chow\ owng

Mr or sir: Owng

Hello (to a female old enough to be your older sister): Chow\ chee\
(This, you will have to copycat the native's accent)

Older sister: Chee\

Hello (to a male old enough to be your older brother): Chow\ ahn

Older brother: Ahn

Bye: Tam\ be-yet\

See you again: Hen\ gup\ lie\


*Note: " - " Hyphenated words: treated as single syllable sounds

How are you?: Kw-eh/ kong?


*Note: raise your accent when you see this symbol "/"

Fine, thank you: Yah\ kw-eh/, cahm/ uhn

*Note: "Yah\" is always used in replying with respect

Thank you: Cahm/ uhn

Don't mention it or you're welcome: Kong kaw' chee

Yes: Yah\

No: Kong

That's right: Doong/ yay\

I don't know: Toy kong be-yet/

I don't understand: Toy kong he-ew/


*Note: when you don't know what's the person's name to address them with, you would address them as "Bahn" - meaning "friend" (only used with people in similar age groups as you.. not to elders)

What's your name?: Bahn\ tein yee\?

You or friend: Bahn\

What's your name? (asking a male slightly older than you): Ahn tein yee\?

You (a slightly older male): Ahn

What's your name? (asking a female slightly older than you): Chee\ tein yee\?

You (a female slightly older than you): Chee\

What's your name, sir?: Owng tein yee\?

What's your name, ma'am?: Bah\ tein yee\?

What's your name, miss?: go tein yee\?

Happy Birthday!: Chook/ muhng\ sin nuok\

Happy New Year!: Chook/ muhng\ num moy/

Congratulations!: Chook/ muhng\

Birthday: Sin nuok\

New Year: Num moy/

Good luck!: Chook/ my ma-an/!

I love you (male to a female): Ahn e-u ehm

I love you (female to a male): Ehm e-u ahn

I or me (when addressing someone slightly older than you): Ehm

When?: Hoy\ now\?

Last night: Daim home wah

Who?: I?

Me or I (when talking with respect): Toy

Me or I (when talking to close friends or talking without respect): Tao

You (when talking to close friends or talking without respect): m-ay

Us or we: Too-ey\ toy

Grammar

Vietnamese grammar, compared with English grammar is really quite simple. There are no verb conjugations, no plurals, no articles, and at a elementary level has a sentence order similar to English.
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Word order

Like English, the Vietnamese word order is subject-verb-object.

The sentence "I speak Vietnamese" follows exactly the same order in Vietnamese:

I speak Vietnamese Tôi nói tiếng Việt

But on contrary as in English, adjectives are put behind the nouns they describe:

The big house Cái nhà lớn

Nouns

Nouns are usually made up of one, two or occasionally several words. There is no masculine/feminine form:

tree cây
hotel khách sạn
museum viện bảo tàng

Plural form is optional. It is created by adding the particles "những" or "các" in front of the single form:

tourist khách du lịch
tourists (những) khách du lịch

Pronouns

Probably this is the most confusing issue for foreigner when speaking Vietnamese. Personal pronouns in Vietnamese change in accordance to the conversation context as well as to the gendre and relations between each participants.

Personal pronouns - Basic form:

tôi I, me
anh (male) you
chị (female) you
ông (elder male - formal) you
bà (elder female - formal) you
chị (bà) ta she, her
anh (ông) ta he, him
nó it
chúng tôi we/us
các anh (used among friends) you (pl)
các ông (formal) you (pl)
họ they/them

Demonstrative Pronouns:

cái này this
cái kia that
những cái này these
những cái kia those

Verbs

When a Vietnamese speaker uses the verb 'to eat' (ăn), for example, it doesn't change according to the subject or tense. There are no 'eats', 'eaten', or 'ate', just 'eat'. Past or future is normally indicated by using an expression of time:

Yesterday I ate fish Hôm qua tôi ăn cá

Similarly Vietnamese verbs don't alter according to the subject:

I eat tôi ăn
you eat anh ăn (male)
you eat chị ăn (female)
he it eats anh ấy ăn
she eats chị ấy ăn
it eats nó ăn
we eat chúng tôi (or mình) ăn
you (pl) eat các anh ăn
they eat họ ăn

*Source: Vietnamese Online

More Grammar

To Be

Although Vietnamese has an equivalent to the English verb 'to be' - là, it is not used in quite the same way as in English. Vietnamese only uses the verb là when a noun is involved like in a sentence such as 'I am a student'. With adjectives, là is dropped altogether - a Vietnamese speaker would say 'I hungry' instead of 'I am hungry':

I am a student Tôi là sinh viên

I am hungry Tôi đói

Tense

Tense is indicated by expression of time like 'yesterday', 'tomorrow', 'a while ago' and so on. However, Vietnamese does use the particle đã to indicate actions that have been done in the past, the particle đang to express something is being done in the present time and the particle sẽ to indicate actions in future:

He has gone to Hanoi Anh ta đã đi Hà Nội
He is going to Hanoi Anh ta đang đi Hà Nội
He will go to Hanoi Anh ta sẽ đi Hà Nội

However in Vietnamese there is a similarity with the compound past tense in English:

I have learned English Tôi có học tiếng Anh
I have known him Tôi có biết anh ta

Commands

Commands in Vietnamese are formed by giving a dynamic emphasis to the verb,
that means adding the verb đi (go) to the end of the verbs you want to emphasize:

Do it! Làm đi!

Go away! Đi đi!

Commands in the negative are formed by using đừng (not do) or không được (not allowed).

Don't be noisy! Đừng làm ồn!

Don't go! Đừng đi!

Negatives

There is basically one particle không (no/not) that is used for forming negative in Vietnamese, which is placed before verbs or adjectives:

I'm not going to Hue Tôi không đi Huế

It's not good Cái này không tốt

Yes and No

In Vietnamese there are no exact specific words for 'Yes' and 'No'. There are several forms dạ phải, vâng ... which you can use to answer in affirmative. For negative you can use không in most cases.

Are you going to Hue? Ông đi Huế phải không?

Yes Dạ phải (or Vâng in the North) (lit: Yes, right)

No Không (lit: No)

Usually when the Vietnamese are asked a question, they repeat the verb used in the question to answer in affirmative:

Are you going to Hue tomorrow? Mai ông đi Huế phải không? (lit: tomorrow you go Hue?)

Yes Mai tôi đi (lit: Tomorrow I go.)

When a question is in the past tense you can use the word có (have) to answer in affirmative:

Have you visited Vietnam? Ông đã đến thăm Việt Nam chưa?

Yes Tôi có (lit: I have)

No Tôi chưa (lit: I have not yet).

Questions

Questions in Vietnamese are usually formed by adding the particles không (no/not) or chưa (not yet) to the end of the sentence in affirmative form. Questions with the verb 'to be' involved are created by adding phải không (right isn't it) to the affirmative sentences:

He can speak Vietnamese Anh ta biết nói tiếng Việt

Can he speak Vietnamese? Anh ta biết nói tiếng Việt phải không?

He has met his family Anh ta đã gặp gia đình[/size]

Has he met his family? [b]Anh ta đã gặp gia đình chưa?[/size]

We [b]will go to Hanoi tomorrow? Chúng ta sẽ đi Hà Nội ngày mai

Will we go to Hanoi tomorrow? Chúng ta sẽ đi Hà Nội ngày mai phải không?

Other Vietnamese question words include the following:

Who Ai
Who are you? Anh là ai?
Which? Nào (or cái nào)
Which place? Chỗ nào?
What? Cái gì
What is this? Cái gì đây?
Where? Ở đâu?
Where is the bathroom? Nhà vệ sinh ở đâu?
How Thế nào
How do I get there? Đi đến đo' thế nào?
When Khi nào
When do you go? Khi nào anh đi?

Comparison

Comparisons are easy in Vietnamese. They are made in the following way, using the word hơn (close to English 'more'):

Saigon is bigger than Hue Sài Gòn lớn hớn Huế (lit: Saigon big more than Hue)

This one is cheaper than that one Cái này rẻ hơn cái kia (lit: This one cheap more than that one)

The superior form is created by using the word nhất (lit: first) behind adjectives:

Saigon is the biggest city in Vietnam Sài Gòn là thành phố lớn nhất Việt Nam (lit: Saigon is city big first Vietnam)

Possession

To show the ownership or possession, place the word của between the noun and pronoun:

My backpack Ba lô của tôi

Her room Phòng của cô ta

Your breakfast Bữa điểm tâm của ông

Quantity

All tất cả

Every mỗi

Enough đủ rồi

Many/Much nhiều/bao nhiêu

Little/few ít

A bit một chút

Several vài

*Source: Vietnamese Online

thanks ddha but i think learning Vietnamese like this is not a good way, Vietnamese is very complicated

Thanks Donna. Great initiative. I will monitor this thread and help just in case anyone need my help. I can speak n write Vietnamese fluently.

Its complexity is about the same as any other languages, however if you know Cantonese or Thai you will pick up vietnamese more quickly than if you know romance languages

haha. cool. it looks so complicated. i should bookmark it and work on it over the summer... would be cool to know some basic vietnamese.

Looking at those accent marks gave me a headache. I do want to learn Vietnamese, but it looks damn hard.

think of all the chinese characters there are in chu-nom, and it'll make ya feel less queasy about learning the accents.

It is like musical notes; it looks foreign to untrained eyes. But once you are used to it, no worries too much. Just learn to speak it first that is the easy part. As said, most foreigners can speak it fluently for as little as a year. Some Indo guy here said he has been learning Vietnamese for 2 years and his Vietnamese is very good, writting and all. It is really a fun language to learn, until you have to spell every word correctly. That will take some memorization.

Actually learning Vietnamese with chu nom characters is much more fun than learning it with alphabet. It is really not as hard as everybody says. With chu nom I have learnt many words that I always forgot before. But since everyone only uses alphabet, who cares for chu nom?

About the tones, Vietnamese is tonal, each word is spoken with an inherited tone. There are 6 tones, 5 are marked with an accent, and 1 is unmarked. But in most dialects there are only 5 tones because two of them are pronounced the same. The tones spoken by southerners are easier to speak. Speaking like northerners additionally requires glottal strictures and/ore breathiness in some tones to distinguish from each other. So lets describe the southern tones here.

Remember how the marching saints song begins with "Oh, when the saints ..."?
With that in mind the tones are spoken like this

a - mid level like the "when" in the above song
á - high tone like the "saints" in the above song
à - low tone like the "oh" in the above song
ạ - like "oh when" but contracted to a glide, like the gliding "I" in "I come from Alabama with ..."

ả - like "oh ... saint" but contracted to a glide
ã - the same like ả.

This last tone ã is northern thing. Speaking the south accent there is no need to speak it different than ả. Only northerners pronounce it not as a glide but as two separate tones like saying "à á" with a glottal stop in between.

You wonder what's about the other bows and ears? Those are not tones! That are just different vowels. You write aeiouy, we write aăâeêioôơuưy. So if you see ố, its an ô with a high tone. What, you can't recognize the difference between ố and ô? As I already said, Chu nom is more fun learning

haah that helped a lot! thanks!

For those who want to learn some chữ Nôm :-)
and by the way, "chúng tôi" doesn't mean "chúng mình".
"chúng tôi" = "we", excluding the listener(s)
"chúng mình" = "chúng ta" = "we", including the listener(s)

sorry for double posting. just to finish the ...
bye :-)

Wow thats long to look up, how do you say "Oh my god?"

delete

Trời ơi!

Edit: LOL jujulay is like 2 sec earlier. You mean "Trời đất ơi", right?

Sheesh, without those freaking accent marks, I'd probably be able to teach myself Vietnamese.

delete

Choi/troi oi

It's like...heavens above? Skies above

Lmao, just heard my dad say "troi dat oi"

Weird coincidence

Screw the accent marks. I honestly suck.

Ôi , lạy chúa tôi

and u would be a lot better if u can teach urself Vietnamese with those accents because without those accents, it wouldnt be VIETNAMESE anymore

True, true. But the letter "a" alone is pronounced 20 something different ways. Make my eyes hurt.

"Trời" does not only mean the sky but it also means "heaven". And "Ông Trời" = God.

So that's how correctly spelled, I assume?


Chooy duc ehyyy, is the pronounciation right? lol.


I tried saying that to you!!!! XD lol. Is it like for every expression? Like whenever you're mad or happy?

delete

What's evil is the accent overloading. Some accents are tone marks some are not. It's hard to tell đây, đầy, đãy, dây, dẩy, đấy, or đày from all the other days... On screen you need big glasses to see those micro spots, on paper it looks like noise made by the copier.

I helped myself by using a transcription of the viet letters, that is similar to the TELEX method but more readable. In German the letters äöüß are written ae, oe, ue, ss when it is necessary. I use combinations for viet letters in a similar way:


đ -> dh
ă -> ae (short a, "fun")
ê -> ei (long e, "day")
ô -> ou (long o, "toe")
ư -> uh (like japanese u or korean eu, "uh")
ơ -> oh (long schwa sound, long "the")
â -> ah (short schwa sound, "the")


The h in ah/oh/uh is special, because it moves to the right if a vowel follows. For example người becomes nguòih (and not nguhòhi).
Three exeptions: iê, yê, uô are written ie, ye, uo, for example vien, nguyen, vuon.
The tone marks remain the same á, à, ả, ã, ạ or are replaced by VPS numbers a1, a2, a3, a4, a5 if there is no possibility to type those accents.

This system is 100% reversable and compatible with regular vietnamese alphabet. So if you use this transcription you can later convert to normal alphabet with no problem. I also often use it to write Vietnamese on devices that support no viet letters, e.g. mobile phones.

With this transcription lesson one in Vietnamese looks something like this:

*** Adressing people ***
toui - I - 碎 say between toi and tui, with unaspirated t
anh - you (male of same age) - 英 say "un" like in fun
chị - you (female of same age) - 姊 say "dyee"
em - you (person of younger age) - 俺 say "am" like in pam
bác - you (person that is one generation above you) - 伯 say "bak" rhymes on bark
nó - he, she, it (not in polite speech) - 伮 say "naw"

*** Verbs ***
là - to be (how or who) - 罗 say "la" rhymes on far
ỏh - to be (where) - �� say "a" rhymes on "the" but much longer
có - to have - 固 say "gaw"
nói - to say - 呐 say "noy" like in annoy
dhi - to go - say "dee"
yeu - to love - say "eeyoo" in a glide

*** Phrases ***
Anh yeu Em - I love you (male to younger person, i.e. girlfriend) - say "un eeyoo am"
Em yeu Anh - vice versa "am eeyoo un"
Anh Tein gì - You older male person, what's your name?
Anh Tein Micky - My name is Micky
Nó là Micky, hả? - He is Micky, really (question word)?
Tein gì lạ quá - What a rare name

hey um once again , oh my god is not Trời đất ơi. It is Ôi , lạy chúa tôi

VPWW, isn't "lạy chúa tôi!" meaning "Praise the Lord!"

I asked my mum and the first reponse she gave was "Troi oi".

The she said the "lay chua", but I guess the first is used moer often.

I agree. It is difficult to fully learn Vietnamese this way. It's only meant to gave people a basic understanding of the Vietnamese language.



Thanks Preydominator... I need all the help I could get cuz my Vietnamese still needs a lot of improvements. I still get the ? and ~ tones mixed up.



The accent marks are not really that difficult cuz there's only 6 of them... 5 really. It only gets a little confusing when they're placed on the vowels. But once you familiarize yourself with the vowels then the accent marks just helps you pronounce the word.

For instance, I speak Vietnamese Tôi nói tiếng Việt

We would pronounce like this:

Tôi, t-oh-ee, with no accent marks, would be pronounced like toy
nói, n-aw-ee, with accent mark / would be pronounced with a raising tone like nawee
tiếng t-ee-eh-ng, with accent mark / would be pronounced with a raising tone like t-ee-ehng
Việt, v-ee-eh-t, with accent mark . would be pronounced with a dropped down or weighted tone like v-ee-eh-t

Does this kinda help.. or does it confuse you even more?

If people want to learn they can just go to school. No point trying to teach people here cuz they wouldn't understand a thing.

It is just and intro. Nothing wrong with it.

Good to look at alternate interpretations here. I am just a stupid white guy trying to learn. Glad the grammar is not so complicated, but everything else is hella trouble for me.

I must find a class near Daytona or Orlando. In one class in Canada we had one teacher from the north and one from the south. The one from the north was cute. Different pronunciations were confusing.

In Sai Gon I talked to two students. They both talked about "Tet". One said "Teht" the other said "Tuht". They were surprised when I asked the second if his friend came from up north. Yah and Zha for da... help, no one will ever understand my speaking.

You're so sweet for trying so hard... poor guy. You're definitely not a "stupid white guy" for getting as far as you have with learning Vietnamese. Vietnamese is a difficult language to learn in terms of pronounciation.

Don't be so worried about pronouncing words in the Northern or Southern accent... most people should be able to make out what you're saying as long as you pronounce the tones (or accent marks) correctly. For instance, the word cụ (when addressing someone 80yrs old and up) should be pronounced with an emphasis on the . accent mark and not as cu cuz then that's an entirely different word!

I speak with a mix of both Northern & Southern accent... more Southern though.. and I'm still able to do interpreting for Teacher/Parents nights at various schools... so it's okay to mix accents. But you'll find it easier to read & write Vietnamese if you use the Northern accent.

I was just wondering if anyone could pronounce the different tones/accents between these words:

1. ốc (snail) and óc (brain)

2. sửa (milk) and sữa (to fix)

For the life of me, I cannot pronounce the difference between the first two... I'm getting better with the second two though

Want to really learn Viet, then buy a Vietnamese dictionary like LacViet with pronunciation. Learn 5 words a day pretty soon you will speak like a pro. Vietnamese does not have that strict gramma and its language is very poetic.

Are your sure with the second two? sữa = milk and sửa = to fix something

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I don't know how to show you here. But I will try:
ốc like oak.
óc is pretty much like you say it in 'stock'.

It seems you are a Southerner. Then I guess you don't have any problem with "sửa". For "sữa" : you say it like a little bit from inside out, shortly stop at the end.

as someone has pointed out.
Sửa: to fix.
Sữa: milk.

Hello Preydominator,

Good to see you about. Want to go to Vietmedia and have some fun.

im pretty sure with that !!

YOu can always check it with online dictionary available at many forums.

You're right ... my bad. Told you I get my ~ and ? mixed up