Difficulties Foreigners Face Studying Vietnamese in Saigon

The following is an English version of an essay I wrote in Vietnamese entitled "Những khó khăn người nước ngoài gặp phải khi học tiếng Việt ở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh."

This will obviously read differently from my regular posts, in that this is a structured essay and not a narrative hastily reorganized into something coherent and semi-intelligible.

Nevertheless, this was still fun to write (in both languages) because I could finally reflect on and relay some of my experiences with learning Vietnamese in three completely different places, the University of Washington (GO DAWGS!), Ha Noi, and Saigon. For those studying Vietnamese, perhaps this will resonate with or even help you in your studies. For everyone else, I hope that you'll enjoy this nuanced glimpse into the life of someone studying Vietnamese.

Lastly, I realize talking about regional Vietnamese accents can actually be a touchy subject. Southerners call northerners "bắc kỳ," and northerns call southerners "nam kỳ." No one agrees on what is considered to be "standard Vietnamese" -- although I will argue in a future post that there is no such thing as a standard Vietnamese accent. Many people do seem to agree, however, that NO ONE can understand people from the central region (sorry Huế peeps, much love).

Basically, note that these are my personal observations only. I'll gladly welcome your comments telling me that I'm right or wrong, but please refrain from -- and I can't believe I'm typing this... -- putting down regional accents or engaging in debates about which accent is better, more correct, etc.

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I’ve studied Vietnamese at the University of Washington for two years, in Ha Noi for three months, and in Saigon for four months. Based on my experiences studying Vietnamese in these three locations, I’ve come to realize that other foreigners may encounter some of same the difficulties that I’ve faced when studying Vietnamese in Saigon as opposed to any other city in Vietnam and abroad.

In this opinion piece I will explain what I perceive to be the three main difficulties with studying Vietnamese in Saigon: The southern regional accent has a few words that are said but not written, Saigon has many people who come from different regions and thus speak Vietnamese differently, and Saigon has many locals who insist on speaking English with foreigners.

Before I continue, I want to state clearly that I neither intend nor want to compare the different regional accents in Vietnam. The goal of this piece is to better understand the difficulties foreigners face when studying Vietnamese in Saigon, a city with many foreigners and many schools that teach Vietnamese to them; this isn’t to judge which regional accent is more correct or more standard.

First, foreigners must differentiate between writing and speaking when studying Vietnamese through the southern regional accent. This difference between the two actions appears through two ways: first through “words,” and second through “letters.” As it relates to words, the southern regional accent has a few words that people say but never write in newspaper articles, essays, etc. For example:

• ảnh (a colloquial form of “anh ấy,” which means “him, he”)
• tui (a colloquial form of “tôi,” which means “I”)
• hổng (a colloquial form of “không,” which means “no”)

If a foreigner wants to speak more accurately in the southern regional accent, then they have to try and remember which words are for speaking and which words are for writing. As it relates to letters, those who speak in the southern regional accent have a habit of omiting vowels and changing the final consonant of their words. When a southern Vietnamese says a word that contains two or three vowels in succession, they will often omit the second vowel. For example, “trường” becomes “trừng,” and “chuối” becomes “chúi.” When a southern Vietnamese says a word that ends with the consonants “t” or “n,” it will often sound like the consonants “c” or “ng” respectively. For example, and in keeping with the first mention of vowel omition, “miền” becomes “mìng,” “muốn” becomes “múng,” and “việt” becomes “vịc.” In the southern regional accent, a number of initial (or leading) consonants are also pronounced differently from how they are written, but that’s too much ground to cover for this particular piece. Your teacher can explain this difference in class.

All said, foreigners who study the word “muốn” in class will most likely not understand when a person says “múng.”

The second difficulty is related to the first, in that Saigon has many people from the three other primary regions in Vietnam, and each regional comes with its own specific way of speaking Vietnamese. The regions in question are the northern, central, and western regions of Vietnam.

The northern regional accent pronounces all six of the tonal accent marks (a á à ả ã ạ), but the leading consonants letters ‘d,’ ‘gi,’ and ‘r’ are all pronounced the same, as are the leading letters ‘tr’ and ‘ch,’ and the ‘x’ and ‘s’.

The central regional accent often sounds “heavier” than the three other regional accents. In other words, it seems as though the central regional accent has replaced all six of the tonal accent marks with one, the heavy accent mark (dấu nặng).

The western regional accent is a bit difficult to understand because there's a common tendency for people from the western region to run their words together and not enunciate clearly as compared to those from the northern region. Think of this as similar to the southern drawl accent we hear back in the States (“y’all” versus “you all”).

The northern and central regional accents respectively have a few of their own colloquial words that the other regions do not use. I speak Vietnamese with a northern regional accent, so my friends from the southern region smile and chuckle when I call an umbrella “ô.” Southerners call an umbrella “dù.”

In the case where a foreigner comes to the southern region (mainly Saigon) to learn Vietnamese and learns it through the southern regional accent, they may often times feel frustrated and disappointed when they attempt to speak with someone who comes from one of the other three regions. On one hand, it’s good to have people from other regions and provinces come into the city because it gives foreigners the chance to learn more about Vietnam from their stories and experiences. On the other hand, speaking Vietnamese with people from different regions is much more difficult than just trying to speak with someone from the southern region. This frustration with trying to understand four different kinds of Vietnamese regional accents may be why some foreigners only study Vietnamese for a short period of time and then opt not to continue.

The third difficulty is that there are many Vietnamese in Saigon who insist on speaking English to foreigners, be it because they already speak English well or they want to practice. I have two separate instances in which a Vietnamese local who I have never met spontaneously greets me in English with the intent on practicing their English, I respond in Vietnamese, and they reply with “why don’t you speak English to me?” In both of these instances, the two locals appeared to be annoyed because I didn’t let them practice speaking English with me, as if I was their free English tutor simply because I was a foreigner. I explained that I was living in Vietnam in order to improve my Vietnamese, so I was going to speak in Vietnamese with any Vietnamese person I met during my time in the country. I also encounter this issue when I’m at a café or restaurant. I will ask for the bill, and half the time the waiter or service person will only respond to me in English, despite having used clear and correct Vietnamese. It’s wonderful that there are so many Vietnamese who are able to speak English, but their insistence on speaking English to foreigners makes it a little difficult for foreigners to practice their Vietnamese.

I’ve met a few foreigners who have shared similar complaints. They also don’t appreciate it when Vietnamese people insist on speaking English when they try to speak Vietnamese. I advised these foreigners to keep speaking in Vietnamese even if the person they’re talking to replies in English. If the foreigner asks “bao nhiêu tiền” and the service person responds with “one-hundred thousand Vietnam Dong,” then that actually means that the service person understood the foreigner’s Vietnamese, and that the foreigner said it correctly enough to be understood. When speaking Vietnamese, foreigners have two opportunities: practice speaking and practice listening. If a Vietnamese person speaks English, then at the very least the foreigner will be able to practice speaking in Vietnamese. Practicing one out of the two is good enough. However, if the foreigner feels disappointed and doesn’t want to make the effort to speak Vietnamese anymore because they’re worried that Vietnamese people will always respond in English, then that person will never be able to improve their Vietnamese at all.

In summary, foreigners who study Vietnamese in Saigon will face three among many challenges: The southern regional accent has words that are said but not written, Saigon has many people come from other regions and who speak with their own regional accents, and Saigon has many locals who insist on speaking English to foreigners. Schools that offer Vietnamese classes, teachers who teach Vietnamese, and foreigners who study Vietnamese can use this information to think about how to make the act of studying and teaching Vietnamese easier for everyone involved.