Is learning Vietnamese worth the effort? - Có đáng để phải cố gắng học tiếng Việt?

Có đáng = Is it worth?

Có đáng để phải? = Is it worth doing something?

Cố gắng = Try / Try your best

Học tiếng Việt = To learn Vietnamese

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Is learning Vietnamese worth the effort?

Next week The environmentally-friendly E5 ethanol fuel has officially gone on sale in Viet Nam. E5 petrol was launched as part of the Government's bio-fuel development master plan to protect the environment while cutting costs. E5 costs VND15,500 (US$0.8) per litre compared to a regular litre of A92 costing $0.04 more. The fuel is now available at 20 filling stations in Ha Noi, HCM City and a number of provinces. It will be sold at more than 4,000 stations by the end of 2012. Demand, however, remains limited and it has yet to be embraced by motorists. Many people know nothing about this new fuel and those who are familiar with it are either hesitant to change their behaviour or not sure about quality. Do you have a motorcycle or a car and what kind of fuel do you use? Are you familiar with E5 petrol? If you are a foreigner, is environmentally-friendly fuel popular in your country? What are your suggestions to make people more aware of the advantage of this kind of fuel and how to make it popular in Viet Nam? We welcome your opinions. Emails should be sent to: opinion.vietnamnews@gmail.com– or by fax to 84-439332311. Letters can be sent to: The Editor, Viet Nam News, 11 Tran Hung Dao Street, Ha Noi. Replies to this week's question must be received by Thursday morning, August 20.

This week, Viet Nam News asked its readers whether they consider learning Vietnamese a challenge and if they think English now has become an international communicative tool and that knowing it is good enough to have access to and live comfortably in a foreign country. Below are some responses.

Kawasaki Kaori, Japanese, Ha Noi

English is a useful language. But it depends on each situation in each country. In Viet Nam, English is not a very useful language. In the centre of Ha Noi, many people understand it, but it's for tourists. | think foreigners should learn Vietnamese, if they live or work here. It will help them communicate and to understand Vietnamese people's mind and culture. It makes a good relationship. Even if they are going to live in Vietnam for just 1 year, they should learn it.
But for foreigners the Vietnamese language is very difficult because the language has six tones. If they make a very small mistake, Vietnamese cannot understand what they are saying.

Ha Noi is changing dynamically into an international city. I hope that many Vietnamese understand the difficulty of their own language. And if they imagine other words for foreigner's strange pronunciation, the communication between Vietnamese and foreigners will be easier.

 

 

Dave Curby, Australian, Ha Noi

Learning a foreign language is a challenging task, but not as challenging if you are immersed in the culture. One of the issues here is how many expats are truly immersed.

Many teachers spend most of their day speaking English, in an environment where everyone speaks English. Managers of corporations generally address their staff in English. One could say it's quite easy to live in a foreign country without learning the language, as long as you stay in the environment that is your comfort zone. The question is do what you want to. Much is learnt going outside and discovering things in a new language. Language is often the root of culture, words and phrases explain the reasons why people think a certain way.

One issue about learning Vietnamese is the tones, not only pronouncing them but also having people hear them. People who live in multicultural environments, with many different accents, often get used to the different tones and inflections of non-native speakers. However the mono-culture in Viet Nam, leads to Vietnamese people not recognising the differences when non-native people try to speak their language, and can lead to a blatant refusal to recognise that someone is trying to speak the language, or at least recognise the word within the content in which it's being said. After all you would say, "your mother is very helpful", however "your grave is very helpful", just would not fit.

Tim Russell, British, HCM City

I have been in Vietnam for over seven years but like many other foreign residents I know of, I gave up trying to learn the language after a few months. Not because it was particularly difficult - I speak French fluently and can generally pick up languages fairly quickly - but because of the reactions of Vietnamese people when I speak their own language to them.

All foreigners have experienced it - we say something in Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese person we're talking to sniggers and then dumbly repeats it to anyone who happens to be standing nearby, and then they also start to laugh. Whether they are doing it mockingly or maliciously is not the point - it is very off-putting and discouraging and deters many foreigners from making more of an effort to learn the language.

There is also the intonation issue. I find it incomprehensible that if I intone a word incorrectly, the person I'm talking to cannot guess the meaning from the context. If I tell a taxi driver "Ga Saigon", but pronounce the "ga" wrongly (as in "chicken"), he should surely be able to deduce that I'm not asking him for chicken, but asking him to take me to the railway station. But no, mispronunciation is always met with a shake of the head and zero effort to work out what it is I'm trying to say.

After over seven years here I have nevertheless amassed a fair smattering of Vietnamese, but use it only when absolutely necessary, which is very sad as I came to Vietnam with the best intentions and enjoy speaking foreign languages. But as it seems the Vietnamese prefer to laugh at foreigners speaking their language, and are not willing to make allowances for errors of pronunciation, I no longer bother to make an effort.

Nguyen Ngoc Dung, Ha Noi

In this twenty-first century, everything is developing and changing very fast. People are achieving a lot of success in many fields and one of the reasons is through co-operation between different nations. To improve this co-operation, people all over the world are now using English as a common language. Knowing English makes it easier for people to communicate and get more opportunities when they live in a foreign country. In Viet Nam, English is becoming more and more important, especially for the young in this time of integration.

As a Vietnamese, I admire the foreigners who try to learn Vietnamese. They must love Viet Nam so much that they want to learn our language which is not popular in the world.

Learning Vietnamese is not very difficult because it has syllables and rhymes. It is easier for you to learn Vietnamese when you live here. Try to learn it everywhere, in the supermarkets, the bus-stops, the offices, etc.

To sum up, I hope that English will be the bridge that connects five continents and Vietnamese will always retain its value as the pride of the Vietnamese people.

Hong Than Nhan, Soc Trang

I've more than once observed Western backpackers holding the Lonely Planet, uttering unintelligible phrases to crowds of people and bystanders. In most cases, people rolled their eyes and shrugged which would disappoint anyone who wants to communicate across a language barrier. However, persistence and confidence can overcome these problems accompanied by note-writing and gesticulation.

Although human beings are bestowed with a natural language learning capability, a few hours in the classroom should always be combined with maybe ten times as much practical work.

Moreover, language courses taught in class are not always appropriate for everyday communication. We've heard of people spending a dozen years learning English, then being dumbfounded at their first encounter in an English speaking country.

Ryu Hashimoto, Japanese, HCM City

English is a worldwide language and we can enjoy communicating with foreigners using English. However there are still some countries where English has not penetrated deeply such as Japan, Thailand, North Korea and Viet Nam. I guess each country is proud of their own language or culture so they don't need English conversation in their daily life.

I have tried to learn Vietnamese for the past decade, but I am always blocked by difficult pronunciation and rich vocabulary. For me, Vietnamese language is easy to read because once I can translate the meaning of Vietnamese words into Kanji (similar to Chinese character), it's easy for me to learn by heart. But nothing is more important to Vietnamese language than its pronunciation.

There is no easy road to learning Vietnamese! Foreigners who would like to learn Vietnamese must follow the steps in learning pronunciation. I failed this step and got in the habit of mispronouncing my words that lead to arguments over pronunciation with my Vietnamese wife.

Pham Thanh Truyen, HCM City, Viet Nam

Never before has English played such an important role as an international communicative tool. Whatever conferences or events you are attending from any corner of the world, English always must be the official and ultimate language. In my personal view, it is understandable and convenient for us in the context of globalisation when it is necessary to find a common language for international communication. Regarding this aspect, no other language can be a better choice than English. As an economic hub, it takes no effort to see that English plays the dominant role for communication here. I myself sometimes have to communicate entirely in English with Vietnamese attendees at events here.

Thanks to its emerging role in international communication, foreigners with a basic knowledge of English find almost no difficulty in integrating into another community. My friend, an English teacher, told me that he did not encounter any difficulties or misunderstandings in his daily activities without knowing any Vietnamese.

Realising its ever-important role, most international universities offer courses in English besides traditional ones in their own language for students encountering language barriers.

According to research, Vietnamese is one of the most difficult languages for foreigners. According to me, the difficulty here is not in vocabulary or grammatical structures but in the variety of accents and meanings in different regions. I often recommend my foreign friends learn Vietnamese with a Hanoian accent because it is maybe the most standardised one.

More and more foreigners are moving here. I suggest we should have a complete programme of Vietnamese for foreigners wishing to work long-term here. In doing so, we promote not only Vietnamese language but also the country's value to foreigners. — VNS(Source: http://vietnamnews.vn/opinion/your-say/202519/is-learning-vietnamese-worth-the-effort.html)