We have a number of Vietnamese friends. Their children it to the 3rd generation the children all speak accented English because they learn Vietnamese first.
My wife was at a friend's house a couple of days ago. She remarked that's their dog understood Vietnamese but not English. "What language did you speak at home?"
We have a number of Vietnamese friends. Their children it to the 3rd generation the children all speak accented English because they learn Vietnamese first.
My wife was at a friend's house a couple of days ago. She remarked that's their dog understood Vietnamese but not English. "What language did you speak at home?"
Thai is a tonal language, and my damaged ears have difficulty with that. I once had "market That" ability and knew enough of the alphabet to make menu decisions and navigate. I always had the "that's what I said" "no you didn't" problem. If you can't hear the nuisance, you can't speak it. Mispronunciations in Thai can be beyond embarrassing, they could get you in a fight.
My grandfather came to America from Germany when he was 12. He spoke with a German accent all his life but I never heard him speak a word of German. I am fluent, from high school. My teacher was later called the best German teacher in the country.
The Chinese railroad workers who came to the USA in the 1840s were from Toisan province. Ten generations later they still speak Toisan at home.
My wife's accent will never go away, but there is never a day that I don't hear Thai on the TV or her talking on the phone with friends. In her case it is constantly reenforced.
I can do Vietnamese tones perfectly, I can even do both northern and southern "dialects." And my grasp of the idiom is good; where most westerners can only point at a sandwich and hold up a finger, I use the counting-word ô for sandwich (same word as for "umbrella") that shows I actually know idiomatic Vietnamese. Between tones and idiom, people think I am fluent, which I am not.
Today, living here 13 years, today I learned the word for "wrong." I am far from fluent.
But I can't speak fast. In any language, unless I am near passing out from barbituates or benzos, then I speak like an auctioneer. And Vietnamese is spoken very fast, like most tonal languages.
There was a phrase in the book I learned from that I could hear on the recordings, three difficult tones in a row, VERY fast. I was finally able to do it after the tones were solid. "There will be a big storm."
I got Cantonese tones in six weeks, one day I realized they were like G C E in music and after that I had no more trouble. Vietnamese tones took me a year to get right and several more to make them second-nature. Now they're easy.
I live in the south but I use the Hanoi dialect because it makes me sound more educated. But I doubt I will ever understand the spoken language very well.
I know four words spelled cu with different tones.
* old (things, not people)
* counting-word for underground vegetables (onion, etc)
* owl
* penis
Nobody smirks if I say onion or garlic, nobody thinks it sounds like penis. The tones are too fundamental for that.
My Vietnamese was very limited. There were plenty of Vietnamese people with functional English around US installations.
When not in convoy on the road between LZ Baldy and FSB Ross two young boys came running out of a field carrying mortar rounds. The big boy an 81mm, the little boy a 60mm. They were supposed to get 500 piasters for each round. The Marine at the fire base always shorted them. I'd ask if they had more. They always said no, but they became a regular feature of that ride while I was in that operations area. Impressive that the kids picked up the English they needed so quickly. Smart, they correctly assumed that since they were not carrying rifles, we would not shoot them, and we would know what they were up to. They were in more danger of getting caught by the VC who's cashe they were robbing than from us. They probably knew that too. They always came out where people were sparse.
The grammar is ridiculously simple. Subject, verb, object. “Want eat what.” “Want eat noodle.” Pronunciation is an obstacle but I’m past it. But my hearing isn’t great either and spoken Vietnamese is just too fast for me. Half the time I’m dumbfounded it turns out that every word I didn’t understand is in my vocabulary.
I had a few students whose English was astonishingly fluent. Idiomatic, clear American regional accent, never been outside Vietnam.
I experienced the same in Japan. American night at a hotel, two stupefyingly beautiful hostesses. I commented to one that her (American) English was perfectly unaccented Midwestern and asked how long she had lived in America. "Oh, you flatter me. I have never been outside of Japan and learned entirely in a university" Holy wow!
We have a number of Vietnamese friends. Their children it to the 3rd generation the children all speak accented English because they learn Vietnamese first.
My wife was at a friend's house a couple of days ago. She remarked that's their dog understood Vietnamese but not English. "What language did you speak at home?"
Thai is a tonal language, and my damaged ears have difficulty with that. I once had "market That" ability and knew enough of the alphabet to make menu decisions and navigate. I always had the "that's what I said" "no you didn't" problem. If you can't hear the nuisance, you can't speak it. Mispronunciations in Thai can be beyond embarrassing, they could get you in a fight.
My grandfather came to America from Germany when he was 12. He spoke with a German accent all his life but I never heard him speak a word of German. I am fluent, from high school. My teacher was later called the best German teacher in the country.
The Chinese railroad workers who came to the USA in the 1840s were from Toisan province. Ten generations later they still speak Toisan at home.
My wife's accent will never go away, but there is never a day that I don't hear Thai on the TV or her talking on the phone with friends. In her case it is constantly reenforced.
I can do Vietnamese tones perfectly, I can even do both northern and southern "dialects." And my grasp of the idiom is good; where most westerners can only point at a sandwich and hold up a finger, I use the counting-word ô for sandwich (same word as for "umbrella") that shows I actually know idiomatic Vietnamese. Between tones and idiom, people think I am fluent, which I am not.
Today, living here 13 years, today I learned the word for "wrong." I am far from fluent.
But I can't speak fast. In any language, unless I am near passing out from barbituates or benzos, then I speak like an auctioneer. And Vietnamese is spoken very fast, like most tonal languages.
There was a phrase in the book I learned from that I could hear on the recordings, three difficult tones in a row, VERY fast. I was finally able to do it after the tones were solid. "There will be a big storm."
I got Cantonese tones in six weeks, one day I realized they were like G C E in music and after that I had no more trouble. Vietnamese tones took me a year to get right and several more to make them second-nature. Now they're easy.
I live in the south but I use the Hanoi dialect because it makes me sound more educated. But I doubt I will ever understand the spoken language very well.
I know four words spelled cu with different tones.
* old (things, not people)
* counting-word for underground vegetables (onion, etc)
* owl
* penis
Nobody smirks if I say onion or garlic, nobody thinks it sounds like penis. The tones are too fundamental for that.
My Vietnamese was very limited. There were plenty of Vietnamese people with functional English around US installations.
When not in convoy on the road between LZ Baldy and FSB Ross two young boys came running out of a field carrying mortar rounds. The big boy an 81mm, the little boy a 60mm. They were supposed to get 500 piasters for each round. The Marine at the fire base always shorted them. I'd ask if they had more. They always said no, but they became a regular feature of that ride while I was in that operations area. Impressive that the kids picked up the English they needed so quickly. Smart, they correctly assumed that since they were not carrying rifles, we would not shoot them, and we would know what they were up to. They were in more danger of getting caught by the VC who's cashe they were robbing than from us. They probably knew that too. They always came out where people were sparse.
The grammar is ridiculously simple. Subject, verb, object. “Want eat what.” “Want eat noodle.” Pronunciation is an obstacle but I’m past it. But my hearing isn’t great either and spoken Vietnamese is just too fast for me. Half the time I’m dumbfounded it turns out that every word I didn’t understand is in my vocabulary.
I had a few students whose English was astonishingly fluent. Idiomatic, clear American regional accent, never been outside Vietnam.
I experienced the same in Japan. American night at a hotel, two stupefyingly beautiful hostesses. I commented to one that her (American) English was perfectly unaccented Midwestern and asked how long she had lived in America. "Oh, you flatter me. I have never been outside of Japan and learned entirely in a university" Holy wow!