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

hoanghai9x wrote:

The point is not about you guys pronounced correctly or not. We could understand everything when we listen to a foreigner speaking vns. I think the guy whom you talked to was not trying to understand you or he was so lazy to think. Btw, the way when you speak vns is totally different compare to the way a vns does. So don't get frustrated about it. Every times when a foreigner talk to me in vns, I could understand all .

' Btw, the way when you speak vns is totally different compare to the way a vns does '.
Of course, its called an accent, when I teach my little gremlins, I use speech therapy, with diagrams on tongue position, etc, ( Lane's English ), I find this is a great help, especially words which start or end with TH.
      I wish I could find a Viet equivalent, anyone know of any?

I do believe wrote:

Palomanik said "Also, there are indeed social factors that I think westerners find difficult or impossible to comprehend, much less deal with, and it's worth pointing out that this situation is not unique to Vietnam; early western visitors to Japan claimed much the same problem - that the Japanese couldn't - or wouldn't - understand foreigners talking to them in their own language."
I don't agree with Palomaniks original first statement but his last paragraph is right on in many cases. No language has to be spoken perfectly and my lousy Vietnamese is understood by most once they realize that's what I am speaking. Many Vietnamese are not expecting you to speak Vietnamese so therefore you are not.

Regarding the problem in Japan a hundred years ago, it's worth noting that a lot of Japanese were reticent to speak to foreigners because they didn't know how to properly address them; this was such a problem that the government actually investigated the matter at the time to determine the proper way to address foreigners! While it would be pushing the analogy too far to say the same about the Vietnamese, the fact is also true that in Vietnam what you say to people is perhaps not as important as how you say it.

palomnik wrote:

On the surface of it, I have a hard time buying into this per se; if this were true, then Vietnamese would never learn how to pronounce English correctly.

I speak Thai and Chinese and I have no trouble making myself understood in those countries, a fact which has made me seriously wonder why people have a hard time understanding me here in Vietnam. Tones - true, to some extent, but it's not the only problem, and to concentrate on that as the only problem is overkill.

Vietnamese pronunciation is extremely unforgiving. If in Chinese I said the word "dou", I could pronounce it (using phonetics) like /dow/ /dəw/ or even /du/ and I would be understood. The same is unthinkable in Vietnamese. If I pronounce "tang", pronouncing the "a" as in English "father", Vietnamese have trouble determining whether I have said tang, tăng, tâng or even tong. The margin for error is tiny.

Also, there are indeed social factors that I think westerners find difficult or impossible to comprehend, much less deal with, and it's worth pointing out that this situation is not unique to Vietnam; early western visitors to Japan claimed much the same problem - that the Japanese couldn't - or wouldn't - understand foreigners talking to them in their own language.

And listen/speaking English is a very hard skills in Vietnamese students indeed. Translate/read/write is no problem.

ngoc anh nguyen thi wrote:

I dunt know how can u guys experience. Bút the funniest thing i found that i cant understand vnese in english vietnamese dict for foreigners.  They sound really weird, the international translation cant express right pronuncition of vnese @@

Hi Thi - I'm not really sure what you wrote but perhaps that's because it's late and I'm tired.

ParadiseCruiser wrote:

Study a pronunciation course in English actually can help, especially when it's taught by a Vietnamese. When I was in Uni,I studied in Hanoi university of foreign studies, now Hanoi university. They had an old professor teaching that course. Though it's about English language, he taught the revelant parts relating to Vietnamese. It really helped.

PC, Absolutely! most of us rush in a try to speak a language without mastering the difficulties and idiosyncrasies of pronunciation.  Many language courses, realizing this trait among students, brush over pronunciation to get to the vocabulary and syntax bits, when they should be concentrating on how vowels and consonants sound when spoken correctly. A home country native speaker who has mastered English pronunciation is the best person to teach the first phase of any English course, because they know the tricks and pitfalls by first-hand experience.

Shelf-Agent wrote:

Do you guys know that even Vietnamese is having problems understanding Vietnamese spoken by other Vietnamese from different regions? People from the North speak with different accent from those spoken by people from the Central or people from the South. It will depend a lot on who you are talking with.

Yes, and I know that anybody who has tried to learn Vietnamese has heard this, probably several times. However, after learning Chinese and Thai and encountering constant encouragement from locals when making the effort to speak it, it is very, VERY discouraging for a foreigner to try to speak Vietnamese here and encounter nothing but the hand waggle in response. I was recently in Bali, and any effort to speak even a few words of Indonesian, to say nothing of Balinese, was greeted with an almost rapturous response. The difference from Vietnam was amazing.

It in fact, the typical response in Vietnam discourages foreigners from even making the effort. After all, why try if nobody cares? If somebody could explain why this is the typical response in Vietnam it might help considerably. Instead, foreigners are left to make their own conclusions, which are generally not flattering to the Vietnamese.

palomnik wrote:

It in fact, the typical response in Vietnam discourages foreigners from even making the effort. After all, why try if nobody cares? If somebody could explain why this is the typical response in Vietnam it might help considerably. Instead, foreigners are left to make their own conclusions, which are generally not flattering to the Vietnamese.

Dear, we care so much, for sure. We feel very interested when we hear a foreigner speaks Vietnamese. And surprise too. Maybe because many Vietnamese are not good at English, they always try to learn but they can't speak English well. When they hear you guys speak Vietnamese, they feel interesting so that they don't pay attention to hear, hic.

When I study English at my University, my English teacher sometimes speaks Vietnamese, he made us very surprised and wondered: why he is good at Vietnamese? Vietnamese is hard to learn....

But until now, I know that you guys can speak many languages, not only 1 language.
So, try to learn Vietnamese, we are happy for that, we will try to understand you guys. Maybe we need time to understand your efforts.

emmy.vn wrote:

Should speak with true tone.

Not really emmy, many Vietnamese understand Vietnamese with an accent as they are continually correcting my pronunciation even when I speak correctly. The previous poster made a good comment when he said many Vietnamese have decided you aren't speaking Vietnamese regardless of your skill. There is no language in the world that requires perfection in pronunciation to be understood. Although correct pronunciation does help, it is a never ending learning process with different Vietnamese coaching against each other on some words. In America about 400 million people will understand poorly spoken English but the percentage of comprehension is much lower in Vietnam as the average Vietnamese is not commonly exposed to foreigner speech.

palomnik wrote:

I've been living in Vietnam for two years now, and while I experienced the same frustration that most of the readers of this post have mentioned, I have gradually seen the clouds part and find that - most of the time any more, anyway  - when I speak to people here they understand me quite well. Maybe people are friendlier because I'm in a smaller town (Nha Trang), but I suspect that a large amount of listening drill has helped. I agree that to a certain extent there is a problem with people freezing up in the presence of a foreigner, but good pronunciation really does make a great difference. Tones are critical, and every tone must be clearly pronounced; the relationship between tones in two adjacent syllables ("tone sandhi" to linguists) is also important. But most foreigners neglect the fact that proper pronunciation of vowel sounds is equally important. Vietnamese is very unforgiving about not getting the vowel sounds right, and this is complicated by the fact that Vietnamese vowel sounds are not quite the same as ones in any western language, both in terms of length and quality. In fact, this can even make you more incomprehensible than getting the tone wrong. Vietnamese are not stupid or lazy; after living in China and Thailand before this, my opinion is that Vietnamese by comparison are almost unfailingly polite and hardworking. The point is well taken about people being more shy around foreigners, at first anyway, which shows in that people will understand you better the second time they see you.

True that! Most Vietnamese would freak out when you speak in Vietnamese to them for the first time. People would normally expect you to speak English instead ( which is a bit of a shame tbh ) Therefore, they will get what you mean better the second time around