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 …
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!
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!