Why don't Vietnamese understand Vietnamese spoken by a foreigner?

Thaiger wrote:

I have noticed, even in simpler Chinese, u can pronounce a word wrong (spelling) but ppl will still understand if the tone is correct.

I had a Singaporean in HCMC tell me the opposite.  That is he said that in Chinese you can get the tones wrong and still be understood, while simply sounding odd.  He affirmed what many have observed, that in Vietnamese wrong tones can, and usually do, change meaning of the entire word.  He said he had given up on learning Vietnamese despite having a Vietnamese wife.  Their common language was English.

Thaiger wrote:

PPl here just look at me in contempt/confusion when I try to speak Vnese. Partly my tones/ pronounciation. partly they r r*****s.

This may be true but it is still offensive, expressed this way.   

THIGV wrote:

Personally I feel that most of the posters here who say that they are pronouncing things perfectly and are still not understood are simply not as accurate at they think they are.

I tend to agree with you. Just over the week-end I tried to speak a little bit of Vietnamese to a South Vietnamese friend and said "Anh có thể ... khong" (can I do this or that) and she told me to emphasis the hook on the thể, a bit more down and up. I thought I was doing it right, but a subtle difference can make all the difference.

Jatinder05 wrote:

"He said he had given up on learning Vietnamese despite having a Vietnamese wife.  Their common language was English."

This line was quite discouraging!   

But still the fighter in me says... "Game on!"

He has plenty of company.  My husband speaks 3 languages (English, Italian, Spanish), one of them he learned on his own (Italian) but he has given up on Vietnamese.  My niece's SO speaks 4 languages (German, English, Italian, French), but he has also surrendered.  They both cannot master the pronunciation and intonation.

But just because almost everyone who tried to learn Vietnamese encountered the same problems doesn't mean it would also happen to you.  (I'd say it's more than likely but not definitely.)  Maybe you would be one of the few who sees Vietnamese is "dễ như chơi" (that's the first idiom for you to learn.)

Ciambella wrote:

Jatinder05 wrote:

"He said he had given up on learning Vietnamese despite having a Vietnamese wife.  Their common language was English."

This line was quite discouraging!   

But still the fighter in me says... "Game on!"

He has plenty of company.  My husband speaks 3 languages (English, Italian, Spanish), one of them he learned on his own (Italian) but he has given up on Vietnamese.  My niece's SO speaks 4 languages (German, English, Italian, French), but he has also surrendered.  They both cannot master the pronunciation and intonation.

But just because almost everyone who tried to learn Vietnamese encountered the same problems doesn't mean it would also happen to you.  (I'd say it's more than likely but not definitely.)  Maybe you would be one of the few who sees Vietnamese is "dễ như chơi" (that's the first idiom for you to learn.)

"As easy as playing" ??

Google Translate, so I'm likely wrong...

Jatinder05 wrote:

"He said he had given up on learning Vietnamese despite having a Vietnamese wife.  Their common language was English."

This line was quite discouraging! 

... then this should be quite encouraging for you    Ignore the kids, for them it must be a cakewalk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRJfo58tacU

TBH, every time I go to an Indian restaurant I see the floor managers and cooks communicating with their VN staffs in easy Vietnamese. Apparently little problem in mutual understanding.
So cheer up and keep going!  

Unfortunately it didn't work for me right from my Hanoi days, eight years ago ... just a few words and phrases for survival, that's all ... and I think I know why.
Very different from my experience with Chinese and Japanese languages.

senwl wrote:

TBH, every time I go to an Indian restaurant I see the floor managers and cooks communicating with their VN staffs in easy Vietnamese. Apparently little problem in mutual understanding.

I wonder if that staff has developed some kind of pidgin or creole for communication of key concepts needed to do their work.  (There is a formal difference between a pidgin and a creole language but it escapes me now.)  That is how such languages generally come about.  Although historically it may be more common in agriculture, there is no reason that a creole could not develop in a restaurant.   In many European style restaurants in the US, the top chefs are European or American while the bottom tier of help is monolingual Spanish speaking Central American, yet they manage to work it out.  This could be an interesting project for a graduate student in linguistics.

THIGV wrote:

senwl wrote:

TBH, every time I go to an Indian restaurant I see the floor managers and cooks communicating with their VN staffs in easy Vietnamese. Apparently little problem in mutual understanding.

I wonder if that staff has developed some kind of pidgin or creole for communication of key concepts needed to do their work.  (There is a formal difference between a pidgin and a creole language but it escapes me now.)  That is how such languages generally come about.  Although historically it may be more common in agriculture, there is no reason that a creole could not develop in a restaurant.   In many European style restaurants in the US, the top chefs are European or American while the bottom tier of help is monolingual Spanish speaking Central American, yet they manage to work it out.  This could be an interesting project for a graduate student in linguistics.

For some of those managers and cooks it could very well be a pidgin solution that serves their immediate purpose, I agree, May be it's a needs-based limited vocabulary they have mastered to survive in their business.
For some others, I doubt it's anything like that.
I say this 'coz I know at least two such managers/owners who could easily discuss the finer nuances of  an order for a delivery in details with my wife in fluent V'namese over the phone ... but failed to discuss it properly with me in English.
Again, that could be needs-based learning, very different from learning a language in a comprehensive way ...
Whatever, they seem happy to use their limited Tieng Viet with strangers without any hesitation.
Same with that guy who is now a mini celebrity in Hanoi for his Clean Hanoi campaign.

Ciambella wrote:

...
But just because almost everyone who tried to learn Vietnamese encountered the same problems doesn't mean it would also happen to you.  (I'd say it's more than likely but not definitely.)  Maybe you would be one of the few who sees Vietnamese is "dễ như chơi" (that's the first idiom for you to learn.)

Yes, hopefully I will be the one who learnt it!

I was on a 4 day streak on Duolingo Vietnamese but after reading that message, I skipped a day as felt if it was all futile...

I'm back to learning again... I got reminded of  the story in which there were two frogs which were trying to climb out of a hole. The onlookers were discouraging by saying 'You will fall. You will fall and die.'

Then one of the frogs eventually fell down in the pit and died. But the other frog miraculously kept going and eventually climbed out of the hole.

He was deaf.

senwl wrote:

Jatinder05 wrote:

"He said he had given up on learning Vietnamese despite having a Vietnamese wife.  Their common language was English."

This line was quite discouraging! 

... then this should be quite encouraging for you    Ignore the kids, for them it must be a cakewalk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRJfo58tacU

TBH, every time I go to an Indian restaurant I see the floor managers and cooks communicating with their VN staffs in easy Vietnamese. Apparently little problem in mutual understanding.
So cheer up and keep going!  

Unfortunately it didn't work for me right from my Hanoi days, eight years ago ... just a few words and phrases for survival, that's all ... and I think I know why.
Very different from my experience with Chinese and Japanese languages.

Now... This sure was encouraging!

dec123 wrote:

it is not quite true to say that English is monotonal

tone in English DOES make for different meanings.

but, in tieng ang, we would use the word 'emphasis', not 'tone'

you should know that, depending on where we put the 'emphasis', ie which word, can change the meaning a lot eg "i shot the sheriff"  :-)

I think a good test would be to speak English in monotone and speak Vietnamese in monotone. I know which one would be understood better by a native speaker of each language.

THIGV wrote:

Personally I feel that most of the posters here who say that they are pronouncing things perfectly and are still not understood are simply not as accurate at they think they are.  See post #82 above.

Also have you ever noticed that almost all those you-tubers and other Westerners who appear on Viet TV are all in their 20's.  Particularly in urban environments there is real but gradual hearing loss as early as the 30's.  Most people posting here probably suffer some loss whether they know it or not.  You might ask, what about elderly locals.  They are using context clues to compensate.

I once asked one of my TA's how does a Vietnamese who is deaf or partially deaf learn to speak.  His answer was rather bluntly that they don't.

I found your suspicion of hearing loss from the age of 30 plausible.

However, I noticed the following last week:
I was on the balcony and hung the clothes to dry.  The neighboring apartment is only about 3 meters opposite and the windows and balcony doors are permanently open.

As so often there was karaoke at the neighbour's house.  And as so often, there was constant acoustic feedback, starting with whistling and ending with humming.

I (well over 30  ) had to cover my ears because the high whistling tones in my ears hurt and I was afraid of permanent hearing damage.

But the karaoke singer (about 22 years old) continued singing after the first acoustic feedback with loud whistling until the acoustic feedback with loud humming.

Then I remembered your theory and asked myself why the very high tones hurt me even though I have an age-related hearing loss.  But the young Vietnamese didn't disturb the high tones at all (and she was closer to the source of the noise).

So I wonder if the Vietnamese don't also have a hearing loss in the upper frequency range.  Or what is the explanation that it does not interfere with the whistling of an acoustic feedback?

I also wonder why the Vietnamese can endure permanent sound beyond the harmful 100dB.  I never noticed that the Vietnamese are very hard of hearing.

cafengocmy wrote:

And context is actually more important than the tones.

Unless, very seldom, you have a sentence like:

Tôi đã đi thăm công viên với bố của tôi (I went to visit the park with my father)
Tôi đã đi thăm công viên với Bồ của tôi (I went to visit the park with my lover)

I suppose you could say '.....cha tôi' to mean 'my father'.

This is how come I try to learn words with same/similar meaning. So, if a vietnamese person dosen't understand me due to my bad pronunciation I can try another word.

e.g. I find it hard to pronounce 'Thỉnh thoảng' (sometimes), so after trying, it's not understood, I just use 'đôi khi' (sometimes) instead. 'đôi khi' is much easier to pronounce for me.

sanooku wrote:

his is how come I try to learn words with same/similar meaning. So, if a vietnamese person dosen't understand me due to my bad pronunciation I can try another word.

Bravo. 

That's one of the ways I learned new languages, by memorising as many synonyms as available and by asking the question "How does one say ...?"

And above all, I love idioms.  In my experience, people always appreciate a foreigner who can use idioms (of the host country) correctly.

cafengocmy wrote:

I have found that I can no longer understand Vietnamese very well when it comes through a microphone.  I do okay on telephones but I miss a lot that comes from the stage on a mic.

Some mics have such poor frequency response that a lot of the tonal information is distorted or not captured. The telephone has a mic too but is designed to capture voice and convey it properly.

Jim-Minh wrote:

Some mics have such poor frequency response that a lot of the tonal information is distorted or not captured. The telephone has a mic too but is designed to capture voice and convey it properly.

The PA system at my intermediate school used for ceremonies and stage performances was so bad that I could barely make out what people were saying when they spoke English.  Yet every Vietnamese present seemed to understand the Tiếng Việt that came through those speakers.  Is it possible that Vietnamese are so used to working with context clues in situations like holding a conversation in heavy traffic while wearing a face mask and maybe having their ears covered by a helmet, that they have no problems if vowel tones are distorted by a mic?  I am sure all of you have witnessed bike-to-bike conversations as well as passenger-driver.  Of course the distortion is predictable, unlike the tonal errors of a foreign speaker.

sanooku wrote:

e.g. I find it hard to pronounce 'Thỉnh thoảng' (sometimes), so after trying, it's not understood, I just use 'đôi khi' (sometimes) instead. 'đôi khi' is much easier to pronounce for me.

That "khi" word seems to be a central ingredient, used with "khi nao" (when/time), "khi" (when this or that) and now "đôi khi", thanks because that's one expression I was in great need of and still missing. I was planning on looking it up.