Learning Vietnamese is HARD! | How I learned  

I call it “a” with a smile ă

this is hilarious!! your vietnamese is truly great now (at least to an untrained ear) -- do you have any advice on how to improve? I've been mostly self studying with the occasional online Vietnamese lesson... would you recommend consistent lessons instead? Thank you!

All difficulties aside, you at least started out right; you got the sounds before you tried to write them. Failure to encourage this is one of the biggest problems in the teaching of Vietnamese. (It's a problem in language teaching in general, but we're talking about Vietnamese here, so…) [Linguistic geekery warning]: I think one of the biggest roadblocks to non-Vietnamese when they start learning, is that they almost always start with the alphabet, without spending time just listening. Then they confuse letters for sounds. What does that mean? For example, I hear people say that "in Vietnamese there are three kinds 'O's, or three kinds of 'O' sounds." Here's the thing: There is no such thing as "an 'O' sound." 'O' is a symbol, it's not a sound. It can represent any sound you want it to. O, Ô and Ơ are three very different sounds, but because people learn to think of them as "different kinds of 'Os'," they often end up pronouncing them as and English O. They are reading, not listening. And yet no English speaker would never confuse the sounds "aw" and "uh," or "uh" and "oh". Nobody would pronounce "bought" as "butt," (o/ơ equivalent) or "fun" as "phone" (ơ/ô rough equivalent). The point is, English speakers don't mispronounce those words because they are unable to pronounce the vowels; there are (almost) equivalent vowels in English. It's not the same as a Spanish speaker confusing "sit" and "seat" because they can't pronounce the short "i". Here, the problem is that they just have not been taught to listen and hear them. Learning to really listen is even more important when learning the tones. Teachers talk about the tones, they describe them, they do hand movements. And learners get the idea that Vietnamese tones are just about your voice going up or down or staying level. But if we stop limiting what we listen to when we try to distinguish between tones in use, we will hear that there's a lot more going on. Contrast bò and bỏ. Whether it's northern or southern speech, there's still more going on that distinguishes those words, than mere pitch. Listen to the change in voice quality in "bỏ".

I thought you were a Filipino at first, but after i watched all your vlogs i realised you are vietnamese american. How cute you are!

Ă -> That´s a bowl on top. That´s the reason why you use it for „ăn” = to eat

I love your attitude and can relate to your situation. I’ve also watched Annie’s videos for years. You’ve encouraged me to try harder to learn Vietnamese before moving back. Thanks ! Subscribed.

I speak vietnamese from mymother but can't read it, need to leatn...i'm french

Love these vids!! I've been learning for about 2 months now, I get a kick out of your vids and learn a thing or two. Keep them coming!

Same story, haha! Here you got an "a" with the hat, "a" with the smile, "o" with the hook, "o" with the wave... top-notch videos man, glad I subscribed!

So cool,bi understand everything you say in viet, but can't read it 🙈🙈

Con doi and có hông normally it is the way how southern Vietnamese say, it doesn’t happen with northern Vietnamese, because northern Vietnamese speaks with a more clear tone and voice😂

Yesss, haha, it was so helpful when one of my tutors finally taught me the way that Vietnamese people spell (onset and rime, add the tone), but you still have to have an ear for it to figure out what letters they're saying because the name of each letter is just the sound of the letter. I personally find the hats, hooks, and moons (my teacher said smiles) helpful because there doesn't seem to really be a word for it in VN besides the sound itself (I could be wrong), but I think teachers should definitely use the VN words for the tones since you need that for spelling. My first teacher said up tone, down tone, etc, but I think that's an unnecessary simplification that makes it harder in the long run.

Nếu được giáo viên tiếp xúc nhiều với tiếng Việt, bạn sẽ không gặp khó khăn khi không quyết tâm!!

tôi đã thấy tuyệt khi tìm kênh của bạn. ô em ghi

Did you do 1on1 classes with learn vietnamese with annie? Also is tutor better than language learning apps if I want to learn southern vietnamese?

I’m learning! Using apps :) I work at a salon

My first language was vietnamese, but I moved away from most my family when I was young. So, I lost it because my mom didn’t speak with me in viet. Do you have any idea on how I can relearn it?

Your video is so funny and on point :) Thank you

If you have a lot of exposure to Vietnamese by your teacher, you will not have difficulty when you are not determined.

Where was you born

Hilarious 😂

Your vids are top quality man, can't wait for you to get 1k this year!

#VietKieuProblems

Em là người Việt a ă â b c s d e ê

Very funny video, I relate to this! Vietnamese is my first language but I feel like I've lost my language at times because I grew up in America and I always speak English everyday. Still though, I am halfway fluent through it, I can kinda read it, say it, and listen to it. Easier than Chinese to be honest. Video rất buồn cười, tôi liên quan đến này! Tiếng Việt là ngôn ngữ mẹ đẻ của tôi nhưng đôi khi tôi cảm thấy như mình đã đánh mất ngôn ngữ của mình vì tôi lớn lên ở Mỹ và tôi luôn nói tiếng Anh hàng ngày. Tuy nhiên, tôi đã đọc được nửa chừng, tôi có thể đọc, nói và nghe được. Thành thật mà nói, dễ dàng hơn tiếng Trung Quốc.

0:25 yoghurt in Vietnamese is actually "da ua" (or gia ua; not sure the spelling). Don't think I've heard the word sữa chua, but the direct translation is "sour milk"

this video is so funny and relatable, i’m trying so hard to learn without quitting right now but it’s so difficult - i am also south, can slightly read and speak but can’t write and missing vocab

Been there almost a year and did a bit of homework before, not too much. No lessons and now I feel like I choke on my own blood when I speak and people yell at me and cram in razor blades in my ears when I listen. Listening is... I want to learn a harder language so long as I can hear what is said 😭😭😭

Yo, this was awesome. As a 40 year old white American, I appreciate this take so much

Vietnamese is harder to pronounce and understand. The diphthongs ai and ay have a similar pronunciation . Except ai is pronounced as in I in hi and ay has a slight stress more in I sound. The concept in Spanish is easier to understand. Vietnamese ai is ai in Spanish. The sound of ay is closer to ahí. But Vietnamese grammar is simple. Unlike Slavic languages, no declensions, no verb conjugations and there aren’t any noun genders.

Damn this guy learn southern accent 😂 respect bro

Can totally relate, nice video.

"I fat the door" got me hard lol

>"we are almost at 1000 subs" >is at 800 >this video was posted last year Daymn I feel bad for you man. I enjoyed the video too. How could one year of you hustling get so little results?

Great video. This needs more views.

I subscribed 😊

First time here. Where are you from bro?

Are you viet kieu?

really good video

Wow! You’re right on

👋

hello

This is so funny!!!