Learning a Smattering of Vietnamese
pronounced: “chin loi” – so now I guess I know *15* words!
And thus, slowly but surely I’ve been trying to nail at least a modicum of Vietnamese as I frantically scurry about packing up in prep for landing on the tarmac in Hanoi.
Below are a whopping whole FOURTEEN Vietnamese words (though ironically, alas none of them is the word for “14”) that I’ve mastered so far. Bearing in mind that the Vietnamese language has no less than SIX tones (i.e. noway-nohow do I presume that I’m even CLOSE to nailing the proper spelling/pronunciation), nonetheless I present you with my entire Vietnamese vocabulary to date (spelled deliberately phonetically w/o all those cute little curlicue intonation bits):
sin jow (hello)
sin (please)
gam urn (thank you)
bow neeoo? (how much?)
moat (1)
high (2)
baht (3)
bone (4)
nam (5)
saou (6)
bayi (7)
tam (8)
chin (9)
mooui (10)
Clearly I have a loooooong road ahead of me if I hope to become even halfway stutteringly fluent in my new adopted home. But at least it’s a start. And no doubt good ol’ Ms. Necessity will ensure that I pick up more and more as I settle in.
And meanwhile, trust that I won’t be far from my trusty Lonely Planet Vietnamese phrasebook, along with a whole gaggle of nifty language audio apps (incl. Google Translate.)
About the Author
Dyanne Off-the-beaten-path travel is my passion,and I’ve always lived life “like-a-kid-in-a-candy-store” – eager to sample as many flavors as I can. Indeed, my life motto has long been: This ain’t a dress rehearsal, folks!
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Off-the-beaten-path travel is my passion, and I’ve always lived life “like a kid in a candy store” – eager to sample as many flavors as I can. Indeed, my life motto has long been:
I guess I am one of the lucky ones. My wife has a knack of picking up other languages but I think thats because English isnt her first and she thinks everything is easy. It really helps when you are someone you are with can some what communicate in the native language.
Best of luck, TravelnLass. I’ll be following every move:-)
You’re ahead of the game – you can almost survive off that! I’ll suggest two more that will be useful and make you feel like you can get by like a pro.
ch-oh-p – unit of money representing 10,000 VND. Eg. high chohp = 20,000 VND (so much easier to barter!)
ko-m – no (and not). You’ll use it frequently in the form of kom gam urn…
Thanks Ruth – 10k dong most handy, given that 10k = about 50 cents! And yes, no doubt “kom gam urn” (no thank you) will be my most common remark once I hit the tarmac in Hanoi! 😉
Hope the teaching there in Saigon is going well – I look forward to meeting you in person!