Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

[korn]

Hi,

Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian languages like Korean, Japanese or Chinese?

I think it's because of the following reasons:
- it's difficult to learn and
- not a lot of people talk that language world wide
- Vietnam hasn't got the "hip" culture yet that you see in Japan and Korea with JPop resp. KPop/ K-Drama etc.
- Vietnam isn't seen by the media as an economical powerhouse, consequently people don't think it's "worth it".
- Vietnam don't get that much positive attention by the media like the mentioned Asian language. So people overlook what Vietnam has to offer.

Do you agree or disagree with that list. Do you think there are more reasons, why people prefer the above mentioned Asian language to Vietnamese?

Thanks in advance for the answers. Best regards

[モモンガ]

[flag]vi[/flag] em tin ly du là nước Việt Nam không giàu như các nước bắc.
không phải là ở thế giới không có nhiều người nói tiếng Việt Nam.
Có nhiều Việt Kiêu ở Âu chau, Mỹ chau và những nước giàu Á Chau.

[flag]en[/flag] I think the reason is because Vietnam is poorer than northern countries.
It's not that there are not many people who can speak Vietnamese abroad, there are plenty of Vietnamese Immigrants in Europe, America and rich Asian countries.

[הענט]

Hi,

Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian languages like Korean, Japanese or Chinese?

I think it's because of the following reasons:
- it's difficult to learn and
- not a lot of people talk that language world wide
- Vietnam hasn't got the "hip" culture yet that you see in Japan and Korea with JPop resp. KPop/ K-Drama etc.
- Vietnam isn't seen by the media as an economical powerhouse, consequently people don't think it's "worth it".
- Vietnam don't get that much positive attention by the media like the mentioned Asian language. So people overlook what Vietnam has to offer.

Do you agree or disagree with that list. Do you think there are more reasons, why people prefer the above mentioned Asian language to Vietnamese?

Thanks in advance for the answers. Best regards

1) I don't think that Vietnamese is more difficult than those languages you mentioned.
2) Well, that's not true. I think there's like 80 million speakers and that's a lot more than Thai for example, but many will rather choose Thai, because Thailand is one of the biggest tourist places to go.
3) True, but there are many beautiful Vietnamese songs.
4) True, but this is not the only factor, why would anyone learn a language and the number of Ainu fanatics here is just another proof of that.

Anh thích Tiếng Việt.

But I have made a list and it's not among the first languages I want to learn. It's above Korean though.

[Garethw87]

I'd agree it's probably because 1 not many people go there as a tourist and 2 it doesn't export it's dramas, movies and songs such as Canto, Mandarin and Korean does.

I have an interest in the place and language and would love to start to study it eventually! Maybe Amercians don't like it because of past events? Who knows!

As for them not speaking it abroad. I guess it depends where you are. Here in Manchester I have some Viet friends and they have their own supermarkets, hair saloons, restaruants so they'd be plenty of places to practice.

[eddeux]

I am actually looking for a Southeast Asian language to study, and a Vietnamese has always appealed to me (mostly after I got a few Vietnamese friends years ago). But I don't see many resources for it besides TY (which I've heard isn't that great), and I'm not totally sure where to start my search for Vietnamese music/movies either. Mandarin/Korean/Japanese are popular due to the sheer amount of resources available for them off and online, Japanese & Korean pop culture, and the economic clout China/Japan/Korea have. Though I'd say of the three Korean is the least popular (but rising fast due to Kpop & Korean dramas).

[korn]

But I don't see many resources for it besides TY (which I've heard isn't that great),

What is "TY"? Or was it just a typo you actually meant "YT"=youtube?

[ffrench]

TY generally stands for the Teach Yourself series of language-learning materials, which exist for a wide variety of languages, including Vietnamese.

I do find Vietnamese interesting sometimes, as I think I might like to explore a Southeast Asian language, and it has tones and supposedly different grammar but also uses (its own brand of) the Latin alphabet. So sometimes, that's appealing. Sometimes it just looks cluttered, with all those diacritics everywhere.

[korn]

Do you think Vietnamese as a foreign language would be more attractive, if it wouldn't use the Latin alphabet but pictograms instead like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.?

[linguoboy]

Do you think Vietnamese as a foreign language would be more attractive, if it wouldn't use the Latin alphabet but pictograms instead like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.?

More attractive for what? Tattoos?

[ffrench]

On the one hand, you could argue that with a more 'Asian' script, it would have more appeal to language learners, although quốc ngữ is pretty unique in and of itself, unlike if chữ Nôm was still used, where it would be difficult for outsiders to distinguish Vietnamese from Chinese. Actually, the Latin script is more accessible to non-linguaphiles who aren't in for the work of learning a new script. If you compare Latin Vietnamese to other Southeast Asian languages like Thai and Khmer, on UniLang and the wider world alike, I don't think you'd find that bit a disparity between learner numbers, as opposed to Chinese, Japanese and Korean, which are languages linked to more economically powerful countries.

[korn]

Do you think Vietnamese as a foreign language would be more attractive, if it wouldn't use the Latin alphabet but pictograms instead like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.?

More attractive for what? Tattoos?

If you were serious: More attractive as a foreign language....like I already said.
If you were joking:

[Yasna]

Do you think Vietnamese as a foreign language would be more attractive, if it wouldn't use the Latin alphabet but pictograms instead like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.?

Yes. The current script is quite hideous, especially compared to the other scripts in the Sinosphere.

[korn]

Apart from the "hideous" writing system, another complaint I heard is that Vietnamese sounds "awkward", "ugly". Do you share this opinion too?

[eddeux]

I actually don't care that Vietnamese uses the Latin script. Although character use in Chinese languages & Japanese does make them somewhat intriguing, I'd rather not go through the burden of having to memorize thousands of characters. I'd prefer to just learn a script (example: Latin, Hangul, Hiragana/Katakana, etc)..Besides as already stated the use of diacritics makes Vietnamese look very interesting.

When I first heard the language I thought it was ugly, but now I can see the beauty in it. If anything Vietnam not being an economic or cultural power is probably why the language isn't very popular.
But the same can be said for other SE Asian languages.

[JackFrost]

Maybe you all should see what handwritten Vietnamese looks like before judging since not everyone writes with block letters, which can also be said for Chinese and Japanese characters.

Apart from the "hideous" writing system, another complaint I heard is that Vietnamese sounds "awkward", "ugly". Do you share this opinion too?

It sounds somewhat jarring listening a northern or central dialect, but the southern one sounds just fine to me.

Sometimes it just looks cluttered, with all those diacritics everywhere.

It has a lot of vowels, so. Fortunately, an English speaker is probably better suited to handle them better than those whose language uses a simple vowel system (like Spanish [a, o, e, i, u, j, w]). Again, my bias, better than memorizing how to combine loopy lines thousands of times over.

[mōdgethanc]

While I do find Vietnamese to be rather ugly both in speech and writing, that isn't likely to be the reason it has few learners. I'd say rather that it's because it's mostly spoken in one smallish country which doesn't have a lot of cultural exports and has only lately become a popular tourist spot. Also, in the past it was a French holding and many people there spoke that tongue as well.

Do you think Vietnamese as a foreign language would be more attractive, if it wouldn't use the Latin alphabet but pictograms instead like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.?

None of those use pictograms; you mean ideograms. And no, I don't think it would make a big difference.

[Tenebrarum]

Do you think Vietnamese as a foreign language would be more attractive, if it wouldn't use the Latin alphabet but pictograms instead like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.?

Yes. The current script is quite hideous looks quite hideous to me personally, which could stem from numerous reasons, from lack of exposure to the language to my own narrow and prejudiced view of how things should look. But that should say nothing about its inherent attractiveness.

Fixed.

"Diacritics everywhere" applies to a lot of other Latin alphabets as well, but I don't see you good Anglo folks say anything about them. That's intriguing.

In any case, please make don't state your view on aesthetics like it's the only truth in the world. Vietnamese is a language with very nationalistic speakers so the potential for flame is high. Some people would construe your smug disapproval of the way their language looks as a personal spit in their face (and frankly, you can't really blame them). If a statement like "I think Celtic languages will go extinct in 200 years" warrants someone going bad shit insane, I think we must cut back on this type of it-doesn't-fit-my-idea-of-beauty trashing.

That's saying nothing about the idiocy behind the "but but but Vietnamese is in the Sinosphere why doesn't it use a script that at least looks like the Chinese script" school of "thought". The Vietnamese alphabet wasn't created yesterday. It has been in existence and evolving for about 400 years, giving us precious clues on the previous stage of Vietnamese phonology, and a wealth of literature has developed under its reign. You're posting on a language hobbyist forum, so please at least equip yourselves with a certain amount of knowledge if you're going to comment on something.

[korn]

I'd say rather that it's because it's mostly spoken in one smallish country

What do you mean by "smallish"? Vietnam is comparable with Germany regarding it's size and population. And I never heard of anyone saying "Germany is a smallish country."

None of those use pictograms; you mean ideograms.

We are both wrong I guess:

Linguists and writing theorists avoid “ideogram” as a descriptive referent for hanzi (Mandarin) / kanji (Japanese) / hanja (Korean) because only an exceedingly small proportion of them actually convey ideas directly through their shapes. (For similar reasons, the same caveat holds for another frequently encountered label, pictogram.) It is far better to refer to the hanzi / kanji / hanja as logographs, sinographs, hanograms, tetragraphs (from their square shapes [i.e., as fangkuaizi]), morphosyllabographs, etc., or — since most of those renditions may strike the average reader as unduly arcane or clunky — simply as characters.

Source:
http://www.pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html

[ffrench]

"Diacritics everywhere" applies to a lot of other Latin alphabets as well, but I don't see you good Anglo folks say anything about them. That's intriguing.

Personally, I prefer Slovak over Czech for its less cluttered appearance in some ways, such as the rhythmical rule and use of ie over ě, for example, but Vietnamese tops that in having diacritics on top of diacritics in a way that I can't think of another language using.

[Tenebrarum]

Vietnamese only has diacritics on vowel letters and there are rules governing where to put the tone marks, and in some cases, seemingly to balance visual ' weight' of a syllable. That's why the accents stack up. It's got a rhythm of its own.