Vietnamese - ILuvEire

[ILuvEire]

Frankly I don't think reading corpora with elaborated and layered lexicon like poetry and mystery novels is a good restart for your learning process, esp. with a language so dissimilar from your own. I would hang myself trying to work my way through the same things in German. But oh well, whatever floats your boat; the upside is that those things can actually stretch our attention span.

Make sure you get a hang of word boundary, otherwise having a dictionary is just as useless as not having one. Telling native words from Sinic ones is important too, even at a beginner's level. Things like knowing "yêu cầu" is a indivisible Hán-Việt unit meaning "to request, to demand" and not "to love a bridge" (yêu + cầu) are what make you a successful learner.

Hmm, maybe you're right. I think I'll start with the newspaper, that'll be more down to earth and understandable I think.

Are there any tricks to figure out the word boundaries, or is it just something you get a sense for? I guess a useful one would be that, if it makes no sense, then you've got a Sinic root (like "to love a bridge" )

maybe an online Vietnamese newspaper?

Please choose between communist Vietnam and right-wing Vietnamese diaspora in America. Tough choice, I know.

This will definitely be one of those situations where I turn my brain off to learn language

[ILuvEire]

What would be the most natural way to say that I don't eat meat? Something like "tui kh̀ông ăn thịt" or like "tui ăn chay" or "tui kiêng thịt"? (kiêng is a verb, right?)

[Tenebrarum]

What would be the most natural way to say that I don't eat meat? Something like "tui kh̀ông ăn thịt" or like "tui ăn chay" or "tui kiêng thịt"? (kiêng is a verb, right?)

Kiêng thịt means you're on a diet that excludes meat. And remember that thịt is usually understood to be meat from species other than fish, often terrestrial ones.

If you do consume the flesh of fish and other aquatic critters, then obviously you can't be said to practice vegetarianism (ăn chay). But If you don't eat any meat from any species, just be straight forward and use ăn chay. If your vegetarianism is life-long, you 'ăn chay trường' (trường is from Chinese 'long', like 'chang' in Chang'an).

When you have problems only with eating terrestrial flesh, say you không ăn thịt, you chỉ ăn cá thôi hà. The other person will assume that by 'cá', you don't literally mean fish, but seafood in general... no, excuse me, all edible aquatic animals. If they don't assume, they'll ask you for specific details on your compatibility with crustaceans and mollusks.

If all of that is too much for you, of course you can always be taciturn and simply say you không ăn thịt.

[ILuvEire]

What would be the most natural way to say that I don't eat meat? Something like "tui kh̀ông ăn thịt" or like "tui ăn chay" or "tui kiêng thịt"? (kiêng is a verb, right?)

Kiêng thịt means you're on a diet that excludes meat. And remember that thịt is usually understood to be meat from species other than fish, often terrestrial ones.

If you do consume the flesh of fish and other aquatic critters, then obviously you can't be said to practice vegetarianism (ăn chay). But If you don't eat any meat from any species, just be straight forward and use ăn chay. If your vegetarianism is life-long, you 'ăn chay trường' (trường is from Chinese 'long', like 'chang' in Chang'an).

When you have problems only with eating terrestrial flesh, say you không ăn thịt, you chỉ ăn cá thôi hà. The other person will assume that by 'cá', you don't literally mean fish, but seafood in general... no, excuse me, all edible aquatic animals. If they don't assume, they'll ask you for specific details on your compatibility with crustaceans and mollusks.

If all of that is too much for you, of course you can always be taciturn and simply say you không ăn thịt.

That was perfect. I had a feeling that something like this would be the case, with the cultural distances along with the linguistic distance. I actually don't eat any animals whatsoever, so I'm going to go with ăn chay trường. Just out of curiosity, does this usually mean that's it's because of a religious obligation? I find this all so interesting, there are so many distinctions It's so much more specific than English, where you just say "I'm vegetarian" and hope they don't stick any critters in your food

[Tenebrarum]

I actually don't eat any animals whatsoever, so I'm going to go with ăn chay trường. Just out of curiosity, does this usually mean that's it's because of a religious obligation?

Ăn chay trường is like a promise you make to yourself - and to others too if you you actually tell them about it. It would be less embarassing to just say you ăn chay, if you're not sure you can commit and don't reverse to meat eating.

In the little Viet world, ăn chay trường can be nothing other than a part of Buddhism. Viet people will find it very... strange, when you ăn chay trường but không theo đạo Phật. Feel free to widen their horizon though, if you can.

[Pangu]

Learning Chinese is fun because there are so many words you already know in a way (via Sino-Vietnamese)

I feel the same way when learning Vietnamese as well.

[Imbecilica]

So ILuveEire, how are you progressing thus far?

[ILuvEire]

So ILuveEire, how are you progressing thus far?

I'm...progressing. My pronunciation has gotten a lot better, although it seems that I manage to mangle every word to sound as dirty as possible to their ears. I've also learned a lot of dirty words this way. I was trying to say gu, but cu kept coming out. Grah.

[Pangu]

I was trying to say gu, but cu kept coming out. Grah.

I, too, can't seem to distinguish between "c" and "g" when speaking, although I can hear the difference after much practice.

People never know if I want chicken or fish

[ILuvEire]

I had a hilarious example sentence from my book today: "Chắc chắn rằng chủ nghĩa cộng sản sẽ được thực hiện trên khắp thế giới" meaning - There's no doubt that communism will be achieved in the world."

I can tell that the Vietnamese government had some hand in producing it. Oh well, it's good nonetheless!

This brings me to my question: are there any buzz-words I should avoid in Vietnamese? In German, for example, certain words are associated with Nazi Germany, and so avoided because of the bad memories associated with them. I want to learn what not to say - particularly in the South (the area I'll most likely be visiting) and in diaspora communities (where I practice everything).

[Tenebrarum]

In Vietnam: anything political, but esp. dân chủ, tự do tôn giáo, Việt Cộng, Việt Nam Cộng Hòa, cộng sản, tư bản, plus any insult directed towards Ho Chi Minh
Among overseas communities*: phản động, Ngụy, Bác Hồ / Cụ Hồ, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh (use Sài Gòn instead)

Those are just a few most contentious ones. My list is by no means exhaustive. To be safe just stay the hell away from topics like the war, politics and ideologies.

*If you ever visit Germany or Eastern Europe, remember that most Vietnamese communities there are friendly to the Vietnamese government, being made up from Northerners having migrated in the Soviet era.

I was trying to say gu, but cu kept coming out.

But G is not even [g]. It's [ɣ], like in Dutch but with less force.