Bac Hoai Tran - Survival Vietnamese: How to Communicate without Fuss or Fear - Instantly!

CONTENTS Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd. www.tuttlepublishing.com Copyright 2015 Bac Hoai Tran All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Data for this title is in progress. ISBN 978-0-8048-4471-0
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vietnamese

INTRODUCTON All the Basics at your Fingertips Is Vietnamese easy or difficult to learn? Well, maybe it is neither easier nor more difficult than any other language, as the determining factor in learning and mastering anything seems to be the level of motivation of the learner. Survival Vietnamese , however, is not aimed at those interested in formal study, but at those who will be traveling to Vietnam shortly and want to communicate with native speakers when the need arises. It is a crash course in Vietnamese that will give you all the basics you need. Now a little more information about the language. Spoken by over 90 million people in Vietnam and by roughly 4 million members of the Vietnamese diaspora, Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language employing a total of 6 tones.

A firm grasp of the tones is encouraged, since a word normally changes its meaning when used with a different tone. As a learner, youll find it convenient that Vietnamese uses a romanized script; however, the diacritics representing the tones or used with some vowels will need some familiarization. We will deal with these presently.

The Alphabet The Vietnamese alphabet has 12 vowels and 17 consonants, as seen in the chart below:

a	b	c	d	e	g	h	i
k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t
u	v	x	y

The 12 vowels are:

a

e

i

o

u

y

And the 17 consonants are:

b	c	d	g	h	k
l	m	n	p	q	r	s
t	v	x

Pronunciation Guide English has various pronunciations for pairs of letters such as ou, but usually each Vietnamese letter or pair/group of letters has just one pronunciation, although there are some regional variations. Lets take a close look at the Vietnamese tone, vowel, and consonant systems. The Tone System There are 6 tones in the Vietnamese language.

A tone is always an integral part of a vowel. When we talk about the pronunciation of a tone, we mean the pronunciation of a vowel carrying that specific tone. 1. The level tone ( ) has no symbol and is produced at a relatively high pitch, as high as when you stick out your tongue and say ah on your doctors orders.
ma ghost 2. The rising tone ( ) is symbolized by the acute accent and produced at a very high pitch.
m mother; cheek 3. The falling tone ( ) is expressed by the grave accent and pronounced at a rather low pitch.
m but; who/that/which 4.

The low-rising tone ( ) is indicated by the question mark minus the dot; it starts at a low pitch and then rises.
m grave, tomb 5. The broken, low-rising tone ( ) is represented by the tilde. In its production, the voice starts low and rises abruptly, resulting in a glottal stop.
m horse (in Sino-Vietnamese) 6. The lowest tone ( ) is symbolized by the dot placed beneath a vowel and pronounced at the lowest possible pitch.
m rice seedling NOTE : This book is aimed at the visitor to Vietnam who does not have time for formal language study, and needs a quick, functional grasp of language used for daily communication. Each Vietnamese word and phrase in this book is followed by a transcription in brackets, to help you approximate Vietnamese pronunciation to sounds you know in English. Tone marks have been kept in these transcriptions.

If a word has only one vowel, that vowel will carry the tone mark. For words with a combination of vowels, the tone mark will be usually be attached to the first vowel and the tone should be distributed equally over all the vowels in the combination. When the second vowel carries the tone mark, it means that the first vowel is much shorter than the second one.

The Vowel System Single Vowels

a	as in calm
like a as in hot
as in run
e	as in bed
as in day
i	as in need
o	as in lawn
as in oh
as in sof a
u	as in food
as in huh
y	as in need

Vowel Combinations

ai	as in Thailand
ao	as in town
au	a combination of ah as in hot and oo as in food
ay	a combination of ah as in hot and ee as in need
u	a combination of o as in oh and oo as in food
y	as in may
eo	a combination of e as in bed and oo as in food
u	a combination of ay as in day and oo as in food
ia	as in dear
i	as in yes
u	as in hew
oa	wa as in memoir
e	as in quest
oi	as in toy
i	a combination of o as in oh and ee as in need
i	a combination of a as in sofa and ee as in need
ua	wa as in qualm when preceded by q; elsewhere a combination of oo as in food and a as in sofa
u	as in sway
ui	as in gooey
u	a combination of oo as in food and o as in oh
u	as in twirl
uy	as in tweet
a	a combination of uh as in huh and a as in sofa
i	a combination of uh as in huh and ee as in need
a combination of uh as in huh and a as in sofa
iu	as in yew
oai	as in t wi ce
ui	a combination of oo as in food , o as in oh , and ee as in need
uya	a combination of wee as in tweet and a as in sofa
uy	a combination of wee as in tweet and ay as in may
i	a combination of uh as in huh , a as in sofa, and ee as in need
u	a combination of uh as in huh , a as in sofa , and oo as in food