And I think you may find it harder because even though you’re learning the easy dialect (saigon), you are still bound to use the official writing system which belongs to North. I go work yesterday. In both Mandarin and Vietnamese, we categorize the tones into 2 groups: bằng (level 平) and trắc (oblique 仄). I studied both languages in a very intensive environment, but when I recall my (much greater) proficiency in Chinese after the equivalent period spent learning Vietnamese, I can only cringe in shame at my Viet inadequacy. Maybe because I’m Vietnamese, I find it no difficuty. It’s not as easy to learn as people make it out to be. Some will sound drastically different like 日記: ri ji vs jat gei vs nhật ký. One thing that might make it easier than Chinese is more European loanwords (mostly from French and English). I think knowing Mandarin will help you a lot though, in multiple ways: Being aware of tones. English and Spanish, although belonging to separate families (Germanic and Romance respectively) fall under a broader family called Indo-European. That even applies even if the woman is older than the man in a relationship and marriage. Here’s a real-life example of why this is so critical: a very common dish in Vietnam is phở bò tái—rare beef pho. Since he has a background in Chinese and linguistics, he goes into detail about how he used his knowledge of Chinese and other Asian languages to pick up Vietnamese quickly. It’s “bác”, to be exact. @Dinh Ton: I think you make some confusion in the use of d, đ, t, and th. i went to 重庆 2 times and Hongkong once, but what a shame to my chinESE cos I just can ask for directions and order food, as one local says 他 可以说和听懂简单的汉语.Back to vietnamese,i think learners should learn Hanoi voice first as I think it is standard, I don’t remember what Chinese to me sounded like when I didn’t know it, but Vietnamese does sound very difficult phonologically. We rather use bắc (Hồ Chí Minh is a good example), there’s a slight difference between these two words. For mandarin, ia ie becomes ya ye, ua uo becomes wa wo. Yes, I hear people say bắc alot. We even have a saying for it: “Phong ba bão táp không bằng ngữ pháp Việt Nam” (heavy storms are less difficult to deal with than Vietnamese grammar). Reading this makes me want to study Vietnamese. If you analyse it carefully, it actually does a great job at encompassing the two major regional speeches. But if I go to Mexico they cannot. I think English pronunciation is difficult for foreigners because of our large variety of subtly different vowel sounds. If she is around in her 30s and far from your age, it should normally be cô. Vietnamese has single, double and even triple vowels. I’ll add it to that list of languages I want to learn someday but never probably will unless I end up living there. This is far easier than its image may suggest. But look at something called the 'quasi-Sino-Vietnamese' or 'Vietnamized Chinese' it's harder since it's ancient Chinese far older, with more complete phonemes than Middle Chinese. But when I pronounce this in Vietnamese, my teachers say they hear ‘phở bò đái’, literally ‘cow piss pho’. Loanwords: In terms of loanwords, Vietnamese borrowed most of its during the Tang Dynasty (7th to 10th centuries) so by that stage Mandarin of today was drastically different. For instance bác is generally used for your paternal uncle/aunt who’s older than your father. I'm looking for people who have studied both these languages to a decent level to answer this. There were SLIGHT differences between the dialects in the north and central regions. In IPA it is recorded as /tʰ/. It is a real pain to start over.I learn Mandarin myself now.But I made mistake that I tried to learn both traditional and simplified Mandarin at the same time.Second,I should have applied grammar translation method because Vietnamese has 70 % vocabulary of Hán Việt. Umm…waiter? There are a lot of overlapping words that have been borrowed, but the languages differ more in their structure and origin. Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt) is an Austroasiatic language that originated in Vietnam, where it is the national and official language.Vietnamese is spoken natively by over 70 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. I am Vietnamese and my major is English.I graduated 2011, I had to learn Mandarin in my third year of college.After graduation,. Serge, as a learner / speaker of Mandarin myself, I do also want to know what words are the same in Chinese rather than attempt to recognize them or guess when I encounter then. Vietnamese is Austro-Asiatic while Chinese languages are Sino-Tibetan. The following is a guest post by “Prince Roy.” If you’ve been following the blogosphere for a long, long time, you might recognize the name and remember his China blog, which was hosted on the (now defunct) Sinosplice blogging network. Another layer of difficulty in Vietnamese is “I” and You”. While we’re on the topic， I’d say dấu hỏi is pronounced exactly like the Mandarin 2nd tone （名,国,人，etc） and dấu nặng is pronounced like the 3rd tone (我，你，etc.). For me, Vietnamese is not hard because it is my native language. I think this happens more in the North than the South. Not for men so much: Em, if they’re a lot younger; Anh if the same age or up to a decade older; and Ông for the elderly or someone in a position of authority. Mandarin 平: 1st and 2nd tones, Examples: Chinese is like so easy. If the female is older than you it should usually be Chị. Most closest words are Cantonese. Vietnamese food is also generally considered much healthier with fresher ingredients, less fried foods, with lighter ingredients like rice noodles, basil leaves, mung bean sprouts, and an abundant use of fresh vegetables. Also, the writing system in Vietnamese, although it uses roman characters, has a staggering amount of diacritical marks...so...it's easier in a sense, being phonetic, but harder in a sense too. There is one powerful step, however, that many Westerners avoid taking: learning Mandarin Chinese. Pronunciation: Definitely harder in Vietnamese. However, one unforseen difficulty is terms of address. Another very good dictionary for looking up Sino-Vietnamese words: Hán Việt Từ Điển Trích Dẫn – 漢越辭典摘引 http://www.hanviet.org/, Some other ones http://hvdic.thivien.net/ http://www.viethoc.org/hannom/tdtc_intro.php. I had hoped my experience with Chinese would prove beneficial—the tones in Mandarin always seemed somewhat intuitive to me, even from when I first began to study the language. 人 -> nhân Do you know of any resources, hopefully online and free, that show specifically ONLY the words shared in Chinese and Vietnamese? But don’t forget modern Vietnamese are pretty much different we don’t said “Long” but we said “Rồng”. Very well written post btw. Perhaps Vietnamese may be easier to you but I doubt it’s the case for everyone, especially given how many more consonants and vowels there are in Vietnamese in comparison to Mandarin. Hôm qua tao đi làm. Not impossible though but tones are everything. Southern tones are too exaggerated and hard for speakers of non tonal languages to make. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWZ620nh_S0. So, you might be able to get by in Jordan, but have a hard time in Kuwait. I woudld say the “th” is most closer to the English t. Easy trick to remember t and th: T = Spanish t. Th = English t. The Vietnamese “đ” (with a little slash on top) is pronounce very similar to the English d (not completely the same but almost). I never got any sense for the grammar, but I believe you. Other than China, no other Asian countries feature in the list of top 15 countries with the most confirmed cases, while Western countries dominate, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. Anyway, yes, tiếng việt rất khó : why did I have to fall in love with an Hanoian girl, for crying out loud! The currency symbol is ₫. Chinese has several vowels that English does not have, like the previous Vietnamese /ɯ/ and /ɤ/, the funny “vowel” sound (syllabic consonant) you get in 日, both vowels in 月 (/ɥ/ and /œ/ -although the latter is used in New Zealand English and a few other places), the French-like vowel in 女 (/y/), and nasalized vowels (ɑ̃ ə̃ ʊ̃). If she’s older it’s chị. I grew up hearing much more Vietnamese than Mandarin, and I find Vietnamese harder and less intuitive. You’re not wrong about chị but it’s not only used for married women. Basically no real grammar. I speak like B2 Mandarin which I learned mainly for fun (I passed HSK5 easily if that's any qualification), but I recently found out about a really nice job opportunity if I get to B2 or beyond with Vietnamese within a few years (think 1-3). Onetime war enemy stands out in Southeast Asia with its support for US president . Yesterday I go work. Angela, I’ve argued (in vain up to now), for a re-designation of Vietnamese to a ‘super-hard’ rather than just ‘hard’. It doesnt matter how I say it, how many times I say it, to this day, waiters etc will be baffled when I ask for the bill…. However I think Southern tones are easier for Chinese people to make. Grammar: They're about on par but I find that Vietnamese has somewhat more exceptions. If you’re a foreigner then generally you can stick to the default kinship terms. This is an old post so I’m not sure if you’re still learning Vietnamese or have already mastered it. For example “Đi ra”(go out,get out) will turn into “đi ga” and “đi vô”( go in) turn into “đi dô”. I will use America as an example. He also wrote the guest article Integrated Chinese (Levels 1, 2): A View From the Trenches on Sinosplice as well. It seems like while I can't bank on guessing Vietnamese words based on my Mandarin, comparing the forms of words between the two will give me an easier way to remember new vocabulary. Its flaw is that it doesn’t provide definitions or examples of usage. But few words in Hà Nội still pronounced different like letter “L” can become “N”,Nokia will turn into Lokia. We don’t have tenses and and question form is only to put some words at the end. 国 -> quốc, Group 2 – Trắc (oblique 仄) They pronounce “v” like it’s “d” or “gi” or “r” like “g”. Up to 70% Vietnamese lexicons, are borrowed from Chinese, mostly Middle Chinese. Other than that, they belong to different language family. Thus I can totally understand your frustration in learning Vietnamese. Luckily, at my age and station in life, I’m probably never going to tackle either one. I learned to partially speak many languages, I was never able to be totally fluent since once an emergency ended I returned home. Shutterstock/VPales . But I know we share a lot of words with Chinese. The supposed difficulty of Vietnam's official language is a point of national pride amongst its 90 million inhabitants, and locals are happy to tell you “tiếng Việt khó!” (Vietnamese is hard) at every possible opportunity.. Grammar: They're about on par but I find that Vietnamese has somewhat more exceptions. Guangdonghua always seems horribly daunting to me, as well, but from what you’re saying the grammar is probably still much easier than Vietnamese. That’s why I want to make sure I learn the right “accent” for Mandarin. AFAIK there is no such thing. It may be fair to say that indeed, for Chinese the script is the real problem, whereas for Vietnamese it’s the actual spoken language. Also, while someone said that Vietnamese borrowings are from pretty old Chinese, I actually have some decent Wenyanwan up my sleeve (I've read the 4 Books in the original) that I didn't mention that could be of some help. sơn is san (mountain) I also believe Chinese is more flexible than Vietnamese—in the former, once you learn a particular sentence pattern, you can pretty much plug anything into it, and while it might not be the way a native speaker would say it, they will often understand you. At least, now I have a 50/50 shot as opposed to 1/4. I thought it would be the same, I thought I could get by without tones. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! True, this is just my own experience, but don’t take my word for it—every person I know who has studied both languages sings the same sad song—Chinese is far easier than Vietnamese in every way except, just maybe, reading. The Southern Vietnamese pronunciation is more straightforward. So it’s more beneficial to learn The Hanoi dialect. Also, the dấu sắc (high-rising) tone is tough for me, because I tend to produce it like the second tone of Mandarin, which is wrong. In Vietnamese, it seems people like to use all of them. However, I agree that if you want to get those sounds right, you need to practice with a coach. English and German are of the same linguistic family. Hải is hai (ocean/sea) Just how difficult is the Vietnamese language? 政治 -> chính trị But to most beginners, Vietnamese is a HARD language. I’m never sure how to address any female older than 30. I definitely plan to stock up on these kinds of reference materials once I arrive in Saigon. Northern tones are like the tones you use in singing. But if we’re talking about “Chinese” in the broader sense, I wonder how Vietnamese stacks up to Cantonese? I’ll leave you with this song, which I think has quite easy pronunciations and slow enough for a learner to catch up with all the words, I think another feature that makes Vietnamese hard is also the amount of Chinese vocabulary we have acquired. Even though there are many native Vietnamese who does not use the Hanoi dialect, they still have to know all the 6 marks. If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend you use Chữ Nôm to identify Chinese cognates for Vietnamese words. Having spoken Chinese for so many years, I plead guilty to tonal transfer, but in my own defense, tones in Vietnamese are more subtle, and for me, not nearly as intuitive. Having done considerable Mandarin and a smattering of Vietnamese, I have had much the same experience. chinese is the hardest in my opinion|yes, chinese is the hardest and for me korean is easier English (US) French (France) German Italian Japanese Korean Polish Portuguese (Brazil) Portuguese (Portugal) Russian Simplified Chinese (China) Spanish (Mexico) Traditional Chinese (Taiwan) Turkish Vietnamese Personally, I find grammar to be the easiest aspect of Vietnamese by far. In this post he’s going to share his personal experiences learning Vietnamese in preparation for being stationed there by the U.S. State Department, after having already learned Mandarin Chinese years ago to an advanced level. The northern (Hanoi) dialect has 6 tones; the southern (Saigon) has 5. I have the information I was looking for now. The Grammar Is Totally Different… But That’s a Good Thing. I'm not sure what you mean by Vietnamese sounds being less intuitive. Then I finally sat down and started learning Vietnamese and I made barely any progress the first year despite working on it every day. As you already pointed out, there’s a lot of cognates between Vietnamese and Chinese so knowing Chinese is a great advantage when it comes to learning Vietnamese. Will my Mandarin help me at all if I decide to take up Vietnamese, like are there loanwords or will I learn the tones more easily or whatever? i don’t know chinese, i’m a Vietnamese speaker. If a female is younger than you it’s em. I want to konw your opinions about this,friends from all over the world.Especially the friends from Vietnam,because Vietnam maybe is the only country which has both many strong chess masters and xiangqi masters besides China.Thanks. Prince Roy, yes people do use “bác” to address older women, but usually they have to be much older than you. 4 Reasons It’s Actually Easier Than You Think! You also use “bác” for women in the family that hold the rank “bác” in particular, but you won’t get to use it anyway so I won’t go deeper. Thai took a while, but after one year, I managed to speak like a 6 year old, ”me like me no like’count to ten, tell time etc, I was able to be understood quite easily with my pigeon Thai / English as I traveled around doing development projects. Mandarin has some sound distinctions that are alien to English but ultimately the number of possible syllables is far more limited than in Vietnamese (or English, for that matter). Everything is just putting the words together. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, Tiếng Việt [N] | Français [C1] | English [C2] | 한국 [A1]. The sound system is not problematic for native English speakers. ); ɲin12, Ôc zaŋ12, Ts ʐjən12, Shuangfeng in12, Nx lan31, Hm ʐin12, $ laŋ12, Hai. My Spanish hasn’t changed at all. (No spam!). The word đồng derives from the Chinese tóng qián, which refers to Chinese bronze coins from the dynastic periods of China and Vietnam. Actually you can omit pronouns in informal situations. That’s why I’m in awe of those among my classmates who are making good progress in Vietnamese without the benefit of Chinese. Most vietnamese words derive from French and Cantonese due to its history, New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the languagelearning community. *For older people, they can still use chị and cô as well but same thing applies, it depends on the age range. This, compounded with the tones, can easily render one’s speech unintelligible or worse. 十 -> thập (we got this from the Cantonese sap6) I tried to learn a few Vietnamese phrases about ten years ago when I was helping a friend of the family who was a Vietnamese immigrant. Regular Chinese-Vietnamese/Vietnamese-Chinese dictionaries abound. Phrase memorization is more useful than patterns, because if you don’t say it exactly like a Vietnamese does, you will usually encounter a blank expression on the face of your listener. ----- Our purpose is the importance of education in our society. I guess another “nasal” sound you refer to is the Spanish ñ. Stu Jay wrote a very interesting article about learning Vietnamese. Good luck. Mandarin 仄: 3rd and 4th tones Also, what is with that “few of the vowels being remotely similar to English”? My undergraduate degree was in Chinese, and I learned Thai quite well when I lived there. Vietnamese is very easy to read. Everything I wrote above still applies, largely validated in my experiences here. We do still have words,but moder Vietnamese don’t used much of those from Chinese anymore. Vietnamese is indeed a very rich, complex language—in fact my classmates and I have an inside joke: Tiếng Việt rất phong phú (Vietnamese is a very rich language) = Vietnamese is really, really hard. 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