Today Japanese is the only non Sinitic language that still uses Chinese characters.  In the past Korean and Vietnamese used to be written with them too.  Since Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese are unrelated to Chinese, many difficulties were faced during the adoption process.  I wonder if my understanding of the various modifications during the adoption process is accurate.   Japanese (kanji) – Japanese is an agglutinative language with verb and adjective conjugations.  As a result a logographic script was a poor fit for it.  For Chinese loanwords they use the original Chinese character for word bases but use a syllabary called hiragana to display grammatical conjugations.  For native words they use the same Chinese character but give it a new reading.  For example 心 can be pronounced as “shin” (the Chinese loanword pronunciation) or as “kokoro” (the native Japanese word) depending on meaning.  The verb to see can be conjugated using by changing the hiragana ending.  For example “見ますmimasu (I see)” compared to “見ました mimashita (I saw)” .   Note how the word base still uses the same chiense character 見.  Before the development of hiragana and katakana Japanese was written exclusively in Chinese characters.  This was a lot more complicated because it was difficult to tell whether a character was used just for meaning or just for sounds.    Korean (hanja) – Korean, which is also an agglutinative language, faced similar difficulties that Japanese had.  When hangul was invented around 1400 it seems that they limited chiense characters only to Chinese loanwords.  Native Korean vocab was written using hangul.  In other words Korean never developed the “multiple readings” technique used by the Japanese.  Ever since around 1970 chinese loanwords started being written in hangul.  Nowadays Koreans basically never use any Chinese characters at all.    Vientamese (chu nom) – Unlike Korean and Japanese, Vietnamese is an analytical language.  This means that it has no conjugations, Vietnamese grammar is very similar to Mandarin and Cantonese.  Before the French colonization, Vietnamese was written using “chu nom”.  Chinese loanwords were written with their original Chinese characters while native Vietnamese vocabulary was written using newly invented characters.  These characters often consisted of a semantic and a phonetic component (or radical) squeezed together.  According to Wikipedia “thousands” of new characters were developed this way.  Chu Nom seems to have dropped out of use around 1920 and now a Latin alphabet based script is used.    Mongolian – for some reason Mongolia never seemed to have adopted Chinese characters.  I am also under the assumption that Mongolian has far fewer Chinese loanwords compared to Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.  In other words Mongolia was not within the Chinese sphere of influence during ancient and medieval times.    I know that Mongolia borrowed a modified form of the Syriac script and then made it vertical.  I kind of wonder why Mongolian never adopted Chiense characters.   I look forward to your responses.  I am confident about my understanding of the Japanese adoption method for kanji but I’m not completely sure about Korean (hanja) or Vietnamese (chu nom).  Thank you

Vietnamese is the third language I've seriously studied, after French and Russian. Particularly with learning Russian, I was a great believer in immersion - listening a huge amount to stories, reading, watching documentaries, etc, so far as possible in natural, normal topics. This is relatively easy in French and Russian since they have amounts of content available and there is quite a bit that is subtitled, and even a lot of bilingual texts - some of my favorites have been FolioBilingue for Russian, which has French on the left, Russian on the right, and I have enjoyed a lot of Russian podcasts.

By contrast, Vietnamese is harder since there is much less in the way of this mid-level content. There is plenty of basic language learning content, and I can see there is a fair bit of material available once you get to a level capable of roughly understanding native speech, but little in between. It is also difficult because of the different dialects, and not wanting to get confused by their differences as a beginning learner: I'm learning the northern dialect, although of course eventually it would be good to have exposure to the other ones. Has anyone found anything in this niche?

So far I've found some channels like Slow Vietnamese, there is LingQ, there are a whole bunch of songs with both Vietnamese and English captions, Zoopdog gives a really valuable dictionary tool, and I'm planning on figuring out how Whisper AI subtitles work. Are there any other sources people have for learning content besides the normal purely language teaching material?

Hello, everyone. I am not sure if this is the correct sub to post this in, but I need help with translating from English to Vietnamese. I hope someone could DM me, as it contains some personal info regarding my relationship. I need to get some information to my child's grandmother, who is Vietnamese. I am Latina, so we have quite a language barrier. I have tried translator apps, but there may be some mix-up. I also want to be sure that it is coming off as polite and respectful as possible. I already have a couple of paragraphs that have been translated to Vietnamese, so if someone wouldn't mind reading over it, comparing it to my english version. Thanks in advance.

It's a Vietnamese live-action movie featuring a little girl who gets lost in the woods and befriends a bear. Together, they bake bread, and the bear helps her return home in a barrel. The girl presents the baked bread to her parents while the bear hides behind a tree at the end. The bear is a costume, looks like life size a teddy bear. The film was live, not a cartoon. I used to watch it sooo much as a kid and i’d do anything to relive it.

Is the hook above tone pronounced similar or the same to the third tone in mandarin when speaking fast?

Can anyone tell me what the function of đi is in this sentence? Should I maybe see the đi mà as one unit?

I want to learn vietnamese by listening to the language and reading the subtitles.

Almost every show I find on youtube is with the southern accent.

I love videos where people are interviewed about random things on the streets.

I am in my twenties.

I would be thankful for your help!

Hello, I am currently staying at my friends mom in HCMC. She is super sweet but she refuses to have me pay for anything. I’m here two days and she has picked me up from the airport, payed for me and my wife’s bus fare , drinks , food and she got me a sim card. She does not have a lot of money and I feel bad for her paying. She will not accept money directly so is it rude if when I leave I put money somewhere in her house with a little note ? Thank you for your insight!

Hi, are migrants from South Vietnam mad that the Western democracies are now working with the Vietnamese regime out of geopolitical necessity? Thanks!

Hi, if war breaks out between China and the US, which side will Vietnam help? Thanks!

Hi folks!

Are there any beginners here?

I was thinking of creating a discord learning group so we can motivate each other to stay on track and also try and converse as we learn more!

I will create one if there's much interest!

Drop a comment with your level of learning.

Hello! I'm about to study Vietnamese, which accent is good for beginners?

I see a literal transliteration of gaslighting (as in manipulating the environment or disingenuinely/dishonestly representing what seems true) but I've heard there's a loose idiom or approximation for being gaslighted as "being put under hypnosis" before. Can anyone else confirm this or explain alternative phrases that capture this idea?

Should I say Ơi nhớ bạn lắm ó. Or Mình nhớ bạn lắm ó

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone,

I have a tutor who is Vietnamese and is one of the most selfless and dedicated people I know. She gave up her own pursuit of higher education, despite getting into a prestigious program, to focus on teaching her students. She often feels inadequate for not having a university degree, even though she’s one of the most well-spoken and knowledgeable people I’ve met.

I want to get her a necklace with a nameplate that honours her, maybe something that means highly educated or giving, or something sentimental. Any suggestions for a word or phrase that captures this?

Thanks in advance! :)

I’m trying to delve more into Vietnamese folktales and mythical stories and was wondering if there were any stories that involved a brother and sister? The only one I found turned into incest 💀 so I’m wondering there are any other ones out there. Thanks!

Hi! This shrine is in my local nail salon. I asked the lady who did my nails about it and she said it was for good luck and to bring in customers but she didn't understand my other questions and got another guy to tell me about it. Funny enough, he didn't know much about it as he said he's Catholic other than telling me what some of the items were (coffee, tea, incense).

I'm just wondering if anyone can explain the significance of any of these items. I found some information on Google but not much.

I did ask if it was ok to take a picture of it.

During my Google search, I was reminded there is a Vietnamese Buddhist temple near me. I've wanted to visit when I pass however I wasn't sure if that's ok to do. I read through their website using Google translate and see they sell candy to fund their temple and it looks like they sell the candy onsite.

So my questions are: would it be ok to visit and buy candy? I'm not concerned with a language barrier, I just want to make sure it wouldn't be seen as rude to come in as a non Buddhist and non Vietnamese speaking person. I enjoy visiting religious buildings of any kind. If that's ok, how can I be respectful and are there any words or short phrases I can use to be polite like titles, greetings, and 'thank you's'?

Thanks in advance!

Trang web nào để tải xuống mp3 file free để nghe đọc truyện khi offline ?

Hello, I am making an ofrenda to pay tribute to my lost loved ones this year, and wanted to include my girlfriend’s late Vietnamese grandma’s “pastime” of removing the shell of these certain types of seeds, putting them in an aluminum tray, then leaving them out in the sun to dry.

My question is does anyone know what kind of seeds they might have been? I recall them being fairly small after being de shelled and off white. I know it isn’t much help and I regret not taking a picture. Excuse my ignorance if it’s not a Vietnamese thing to do, I just know she was Vietnamese and I’d see her doing that in her free time.

Thank you!

https://preview.redd.it/kwkp9pxgyovd1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=efe468ad14675aac95dc6dba62e7b28938a0bb65

Hello,
My name is Nguyên (not Nguyễn), I am local citizen of Da Nang. I am organizing Vietnamese tutoring classes for foreigners living in Vietnam, with offline sessions available in Da Nang and online classes for those in other regions. I have 2 years of experience teaching Vietnamese and nearly 4 years of experience teaching English to Vietnamese students. I hold a university degree in English, specializing in translation and interpretation. If you're interested, feel free to message me directly on Reddit or via the contact information below the image.
Looking forward to hearing from you <3

Hello,

I'm Vietnamese but am not 100% Fluent. This post is not meant to cast any stereotyping or perpetuate any negative views towards men or vietnamese men in particular.

I was once told by another Vietnamese woman that some Viet men can say the most vile and hurtful insults to women when fighting (say boyfriend and girlfriend/spoouse dynamic). While I know this is just a generalization, and her experience, I'd like for you all to please submit Vietnamese insults below with the english translation.

Please specify if you feel the phrase is common or if this was something you specifically heard someone say or had someone say it to you.

For example, some of us who grew up with vietnamese parents had some mean/violent phrases told to us to scare us into behaving even if they didn't "mean it', it was simply based on culture.

Thanks for your help.

Minh trang

Is there like a surname to this? And how do I pronounce this?

Grew up in America and spoke Vietnamese (southern dialect) mainly in my household so I am so used to calling myself “con”.

In public, I get anxious and stumble more with strangers when trying to order things. I typically refer myself as “em” and them as “anh chị” unless the person is clearly much older then I usually call myself “con” and them as “chú cô”. Is this appropriate? Or should I be using a neutral pronoun such as “tui”? What should I call myself when speaking to people of the same age?

Another question is how do I level up my basic Vietnamese and learn how to speak more naturally? Most content is geared towards foreigners learning Vietnamese but I am Việt kiều who wants to learn how to have better conversational Vietnamese and not sound like grade-school level.

hi y'all. ive been learning vietnamese on and off for about 10 years now. i lived with a friend for a summer & thats where i initially started to learn vietnamese; her family was from the north. i then began to learn some phrases and words from another friend; her family is from the south. lastly, i lived with my ex boyfriend and was heavily integrated into his family. his family spoke the Hué accent, and i eventually picked that accent up pretty well, as it was my longest and most frequent exposure to the language. i speak pretty decently, or so i've been told. my current partner's family is from the south so im trying to catch onto that accent again since there are some major differences in pronunciation and words. anyway, i wanted to ask if anyone knows where i can continue to learn the Hue accent?? i like the southern accent, it sounds so much softer, but im so used to the Hue accent i think i actually understand it a bit better. also, does anyone have tips for learning vietnamese in general? sometimes i struggle because so many words sound the same and have different meanings lol also so hard for me to structure a sentence correctly