Chris and I have (maybe) learned how to say thank you in Vietnamese and even be understood. We had some of the same issues in Slovakia, if you recall. The use of accents in both languages is extensive.
Vietnamese is a tonal language, which is very hard for English speakers to learn. Each Vietnamese syllable is pronounced with one of six tones centered on the main vowel or group of vowels.
These tones differ in duration, pitch melody, pitch height, and phonation. Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel. Look at the accents that appear in my iPhone keyboard when I use the Vietnamese keyboard!
The six tones include mid-level (‘ngang’), low falling (‘huyền’), high rising (‘sắc’), mid rising (‘hỏi’), creaky high breaking-rising (‘ngã’), and creaky low falling constricted (short length) (‘nặng’).
In addition to saying these tones correctly, it is also challenging to accurately distinguish between them at all! Different tones can change the entire meaning of the word, so it’s hard. And so we use Google translate! And everyone is used to it.
In addition, the same letter may represent several different sounds depending on its location in a word. Different letters may represent the same sound. Pronunciation of the same word varies depending on the region.
The Vietnamese alphabet has 29 letters, including seven letters that have four diacritics (ă, â/ê/ô, ơ/ư, đ). There are five diacritics to designate tone (à, á, ả, ã, and ạ). Diacritics can be stacked twice on the same letter (ấ).
There are 12 vowels and 17 consonants. The alphabet is mainly derived from Portuguese with influence from French. Italian, Greek, and Latin also influence it.
The reason that there are so many European influences on the alphabet is that the current version of the Vietnamese alphabet was adapted from Chinese characters to Latin script in 1651 by a Frenchman!
In the 15th century, the language was represented by ‘Chữ Nôm,’ a logographic writing system that uses Chinese characters (‘Chữ Hán’) to represent the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words and new characters to express other words.
In 1651, Alexandre de Rhodes, an Avignonese Jesuit missionary and lexicographer, developed an early Vietnamese alphabet for his 1651 Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum.
This writing system reflected the pronunciation of the Vietnamese in Hanoi at the time and used a new Latin-script alphabet instead of the Nôm script. This marked the beginning of the Middle Vietnamese. This system became the foundation of the modern Vietnamese writing system, which is used today.
Thankfully, the Vietnamese are very kind and patient people, and many speak a few words of English. So we all get along.
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