Real Vietnamese teacher from the south

Common question, some old threads by searching the forum..

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There are several Southern speakers who have recorded free, online lessons. One such site is everydayviet.com, which also has the same lessons on youtube. You may find these useful as a start.

Accents are a big problem for learners of Vietnamese  because, like in Britain, every village has its own accent.

Check out the classifieds.....https://www.expat.com/en/classified/asia/vietnam/ho-chi-minh-city/33-language-classes/360898-private-vietnamese-tutor.html

mcharters wrote:

I am looking for a real Vietnamese teacher (someone to teach me Vietnamese) who lives in Saigon and is from southern Vietnam.  I have a Vietnamese girlfriend and I used to take VN lesson, but from someone from Hanoi, and my gf told me I was saying things wrong.  When she learned that my teacher was from Hanoi, she explained that was why; so now I am looking to get back on the (language) horse again and looking for someone who is more than a Vietnamese but a Vietnamese, English-speaking, Vietnamese teacher.  Does anyone have any recommended suggestions?  Please advise.  Thanks.
Marty

Maybe you could check your Girlfriend is Real Vietnamese or not. I don't think this is a problem with a teacher, maybe you pronounced it the wrong way.

mcharters wrote:

I have a Vietnamese girlfriend and I used to take VN lesson, but from someone from Hanoi, and my gf told me I was saying things wrong.  When she learned that my teacher was from Hanoi, she explained that was why; so now I am looking to get back on the (language) horse again and looking for someone who is more than a Vietnamese but a Vietnamese, English-speaking, Vietnamese teacher.

It's strange to hear (or rather, read) someone saying speaking Vietnamese in Hanoi accent is wrong.  The truth is actually the complete opposite of what your girlfriend said (I'm not saying she fibbed, mind you, just that her grasp of the language seems rather limited.) 

The problem some Northerners have is the ability to differentiate s from x, tr from ch, and r from d.  They can do the second letters well, but the first ones poorly.  That inability, fortunately, doesn't create confusion, rarely change the meaning of the word, and can always be understood by speakers from other regions.

OTOH, many Southerners cannot pronounce 1/3 of Vietnamese letters and half of diacritical marks.  Many times they distort the words until the pronunciation and the written word do not resemble each other, and the meaning is shot to Hades.

I agree with Collwing that your girlfriend may not speak Vietnamese well, thus her erroneous judgement, and your pronunciation may not be at all accurate.

I've been teaching English to Vietnamese and Vietnamese to foreigners (I was a high school teacher in Saigon and a teacher-assistant in CA, although I don't teach for a living now) and I have to correct all of my students on daily basis.  The students with South Vietnamese accent have more problems with English pronunciation than the ones from the North.  The foreigners who picked up words from Vietnamese who do not speak the language well are now difficult to be re-taught. 

Learn things the right way the first time so you will not have problems later on.  Find someone from the North who speaks well and try your damndest to imitate him/her.  Forget about the stuff people speak on the streets, that's not the kind of grammar, vocabulary, accent, and rhythm you'll use to converse with everybody.

I seldom find myself in disagreement with Ciambella but I think I must take issue on one point.  Professors of Linguistics will tell you that no one speaks their own L-1 incorrectly.  It simply is what it is .  If it differs from speech in another part of the country, that is just another form or subset of the same language.  In the same way, someone from Dallas and another from New York City, or someone from London and another from Glasgow may not be able to understand each other, but they all are perfectly fluent in the language that they speak.  There may be forms of a language that hold people back in socio-economic terms but they are still just as valid in a linguistic sense.

I stand corrected.  I should have said many Southerners do not pronounce many words the way they should be pronounced. 

Many Southerners cannot differentiate v and d, for instance, so they pronounce vài (a few) exactly the same as dài (long). vợ (wife) as dợ (small string) and also similar to dở (not good). 

A great majority of Southerners can't pronounce dấu ngã (~) so they change the mark to dấu hỏi (?), which, as we all know, can drastically change the meaning of the words. 

When the Northerners don't roll their r and tr or curl their tongue to pronounce their s, the meaning of the words rarely ever change so misunderstanding rarely happen.  But when the Southerners substitute dấu hỏi for dấu ngã, and d for v, things can go haywire quickly.

THIGV wrote:

I seldom find myself in disagreement with Ciambella but I think I must take issue on one point.  Professors of Linguistics will tell you that no one speaks their own L-1 incorrectly.  It simply is what it is .  If it differs from speech in another part of the country, that is just another form or subset of the same language.  In the same way, someone from Dallas and another from New York City, or someone from London and another from Glasgow may not be able to understand each other, but they all are perfectly fluent in the language that they speak.  There may be forms of a language that hold people back in socio-economic terms but they are still just as valid in a linguistic sense.

Just get back to the main point, His girlfriend said he pronounced is wrong because she thinks the teacher was taught him the wrong way. I think she cannot tell him directly, his Vietnamese incorrect, so she is blaming his teacher. I don't think none of Vietnamese they speak Bad Vietnamese or broken Vietnamese This is the way of different accent

ralphnhatrang wrote:

There are several Southern speakers who have recorded free, online lessons. One such site is everydayviet.com, which also has the same lessons on youtube. You may find these useful as a start.

Accents are a big problem for learners of Vietnamese  because, like in Britain, every village has its own accent.

I seem to recall watching the everydayviet.com youtube videos some time ago. The videos are easy to follow, plus the tutor Donna is smoking hot!

BTW, can you access the everydayviet.com website?

I can access their youtube channel and facebook page, but www.everydayviet.com, no can do.

Their facebook page say's they are based in California USA, so the site https://www.everydayviet.edu.vn/ must be a different site.

No, I tried, but couldn't open everydayviet.com. It seems they have a new, very much updated website. Thanks for the new url.

ralphnhatrang wrote:

No, I tried, but couldn't open everydayviet.com. It seems they have a new, very much updated website. Thanks for the new url.

Are you sure www.everydayviet.com is now www.everydayviet.edu.vn or are they two separate companies?

Original Everyday Viet is this set of videos.
Unfortunately the last one was made 5 years ago and the Everydayviet website and facebook went dark. I recall Donna and her brother made those in Southern California. Don't know if they are involved in website or someone stole her picture. Why would they not use the original domain name? Fishy.

Sanooku, Sorry can't answer your question it appears that everydayviet.com url has closed, but you can watch the lesson videos at everydayviet on youtube.