MINH THAY CAI NAY CUNG HAY NE !!!!

Linguistic difficulties in learning Vietnamese
1. Stress and tones
1.1. One of the phonetic typological differences between Vietnamese and English is
that Vietnamese is a syllable-timed language in which the rhythm appears to be fairly
even, with each syllable giving the impression of having about the same duration and
force as any other; English is a stress-timed language in which stressed syllables recur
at intervals. Another key difference is that Vietnamese is a tone language in which the
pitch levels are used to distinguish words; English is a non-tonal language.They should be careful with pauses in a sentence or in a phrase that should be placed properly, otherwise a misunderstanding may occur, for instance:
Nhiều người nói / tiếng Ý hay lắm. (Many people say Italian sounds very beautiful.)
versus Nhiều người / nói tiếng Ý hay lắm. (There are many people who speak Italian
very well.) That is, the two syllables of a two-syllable compound should be spoken
together. At a higher level of the language structure, words in a phrase should be
pronounced together with one another. It is a good idea to split a long sentence into
phrases between which short pauses are made, whereas there should not be any pause
between the syllables of a two-syllable word (a compound, a reduplicative etc.).

1.2. The six tones in Vietnamese cause a variety of difficulties for learners, both in
producing and maintaining the tones in speech flow.
The pitch pattern of the mid-level tone, called thanh ngang or thanh không, which is a
register tone, does not change at all. This tone stays at a single pitch level. It seems
easiest to produce but is in fact hardest to maintain at the same pitch. Learners'
attention should be directed to the importance of keeping the same pitch of voice at all
times when they pronounce words with the mid-level tone. In other words, all the
words and syllables with the mid-level tone in a sentence should be pronounced at the
same pitch, no matter how long the sentence is and how many words with other tones
are inserted between them.For example: Tôi ăn cơm. (I am eating.) and Tôi mời anh
tối nay đến nhà tôi ăn cơm với gia đình tôi. (I invite you to come over to my house for
dinner with my family tonight.)
The pitch pattern of the low-falling (thanh huyền) tone does not vary significantly.
The pitch pattern of the high-rising (thanh sắc) tone is more complex. Generally speaking, these two tones should be produced at a low or high enough pitch in order to maintain contrast between the tones. Learners very often pronounce the mid-level tone at a lower pitch when it occurs before a word with
the high-rising tone. For instance, they would say Đấy là một nhà thờ lớn. (That is a
big church.) when they want to say Đấy là một nhà thơ lớn. (That is a famous poet.)
The pitch patterns of the contour high-rising-broken (thanh ngã), low-falling-rising
(thanh hỏi) and low-falling-broken (thanh nặng) tones change significantly.

2. Grammar
2.1. Morphology
Vietnamese morphology is not as complex as the morphology of inflected languages.
When introducing Vietnamese morphology, an instructor should point out the
following morphological issues.

2.1.1. Vietnamese has a number of tense markers. Unlike European languages in
which a verb in a sentence must have a tense form (past, present or future), in
Vietnamese a tense marker is usually left out if there is a time expression in the
sentence or if the tense is clear from the context. In those cases a sentence with a tense
marker may sound unnatural. For example, in order to convey the meaning of the
question/answer Why didn't you come to class yesterday?/I didn't come to class
because I was sick. learners would say Vì sao hôm qua anh đã không đi học?/Hôm qua
tôi đã không đi học vì tôi đã bị ốm. Đã should be omitted in both question and answer.
The time expression hôm qua makes the tense clear.

2.1.2. In English, aspect is a grammatical category referring to the way that the time
denoted by the verb is regarded. English has two aspects: the progressive (or
continuous) aspect (He is teaching French.) and the perfect aspect (He has taught
French for ten years.) The meaning of aspect in Vietnamese is expressed by a group
of words. Learners should be drilled on the use of a number of words indicating
aspects like vừa, mới, đang, liền, thì, rồi etc. For example, they should recognize the
difference between the two sentences Tôi học tiếng Việt ba năm. (I learned
Vietnamese for three years.) and Tôi học tiếng Việt ba năm rồi. (I have learned
Vietnamese for three years.) The position of the adverbial of time is critical for the use
of the word mới in the sense of "just" Anh ấy mới về tối qua. (He just came back last
night.) and in the sense of "not … until…" Tối qua anh ấy mới về. (He did not come
back until last night.)

2.1.3. In European languages most nouns used in a sentence take either the singular or
the plural form. Các and những in Vietnamese not only have grammatical meanings
but also have their own lexical meanings. In many instances, các or những is dropped
when the context conveys the plural meaning. For example, các in the sentence Các
sinh viên lớp này học khá lắm. should be left out. On the other hand, the use of những
is significantly restricted by the context which suggests that only a certain number of
the total possible number of people or things are referred to.
2.2. Syntax
2.2.1. Vietnamese and English have the same basic SVO word order. Vietnamese is an
isolating language in which the relationship between parts of a sentence is indicated by
the word order and auxiliaries. As a result, word order is critical to convey the
meaning of a sentence. Learners should focus their attention on the following points:
2.2.2. A word follows the noun it modifies (sách mới, anh tôi, vấn đề đầu tiên, văn học
Việt Nam hiện đại), unlike English which has the reverse word order (new book, my
brother, first issue, modern Vietnamese literature). The basic word order of noun
phrases should be stressed:
Number/PlurMark
Classifier
Noun
Adjective
Pronoun
2.2.3. In the basic structure SVP (Subject + Verb + (Subject) Predicative) the English
copular verb to be is used to link 1) a noun to a noun, e.g., My name is John. 2) a
pronoun to a noun, e.g., He is my friend. and 3) a noun or pronoun to an adjective,
e.g., The movie is good. In Vietnamese the sentences of type 3) do not use the copular
verb là, that is 1) Tên tôi là John. 2) Anh ấy là bạn tôi. and 3) Bộ phim ấy ______ hay.
2.2.4. In English, interrogative words (who, what, which, how, where, when, why) are
placed at the beginning of a question. In Vietnamese, some interrogatives are placed
at the beginning of questions (vì sao, tại sao, sao). Some others are put at the end of
questions (đâu, ở đâu). For instance, Vì sao chị không đồng ý với chúng tôi? (Why do
you disagree with us?); Anh làm việc ở đâu? (Where are you working?) The position
of the interrogative words ai, gì, nào depends on their grammatical function in a
sentence. Interrogative words with the meaning of time (bao giờ, khi nào, ngày nào,
hôm nào, lúc nào, thứ mấy, ngày bao nhiêu) refer to the past tense when placed at the
end of questions and indicate the present or future when put at the beginning. For
instance, Bao giờ anh ấy đến? (When will he arrive?) vs. Anh ấy đến bao giờ? (When
did he arrive?)
2.2.5. In interrogative sentences, Vietnamese native speakers distinguish the purpose
and the reason by using different interrogative words, whereas the context identifies
the purpose or the reason in English, for instance: Anh đi đến đấy làm gì? (Why do
you go there? Literally: For what purpose do you go there?) vs. Vì sao anh không
muốn đi đến đấy? (Why don't you want to go there?)
2.2.6. Some words have a position different from the position of English words with
similar meanings and functions. For example: đẹp hơn vs. more beautiful, Quyển sách
này hay hơn quyển sách kia nhiều. vs. This book is much better than that one. Tháng
sau tôi đi Việt Nam. vs. I am going to Vietnam next month. Some words have different
meanings when placed in different positions, for instance: được nghỉ ba ngày (to be
allowed to take three days off) and nghỉ được ba ngày (to be able to take three days
off).
2.2.7. The adverbs of degree rất and lắm are used without the adverb nhiều "much"
when the verb conveys the meaning of feeling. The adverb much is necessary in
English: Tôi rất thích quyển sách này. or: Tôi thích quyển sách này lắm. versus I like
the book very much.

4. Vocabulary
4.1. New words should be introduced in a context. When a new word appears, learners
must memorize 1) the type of syllables to which the word belongs, 2) the tone with
which it is pronounced and 3) its meaning in a sentence or a communicative situation.
4.2. Learners' attention should be drawn to the essential role of particles in Vietnamese.
Drills on particles point out 1) their positions in a sentence (initial, final or in the
middle of a sentence), 2) the type of sentences in which they appear (assertive
statements, negations, questions or exclamations), 3) which particles receive sentence
stress and which particles are pronounced lightly, 4) whether they are used in formal
or informal speech.
4.3. Learners should be warned of potential interference of English, for example, chờ
ai, đợi ai without the preposition cho, not *chờ cho ai, *đợi cho ai because of the
English interference to wait for someone; or Tôi đi làm bằng xe buýt. (I take the bus to
go to work.), not *Tôi lấy xe buýt đi làm. English learners tend to use cho whenever
they want to convey the English for, e.g. Anh ấy làm việc *cho năm tiếng liền không
nghỉ. instead of Anh ấy làm việc năm tiếng liền không nghỉ. (He worked for five hours
without a break.) Tôi đi bác sĩ *cho khám sức khoẻ. instead of Tôi đi bác sĩ khám sức
khoẻ. (I went to see my doctor for a check-up.) Cô ấy mua cái xe máy *cho mười triệu
đồng. instead of Cô ấy mua cái xe máy mười triệu đồng. (She bought the motorbike
for ten million dong.) Tôi trả ba nghìn đồng *cho vé. instead of Tôi trả ba nghìn đồng
tiền vé. (I paid three thousand dong for the ticket.) Ông ấy đi bộ *cho vài cây số.
instead of Ông ấy đi bộ vài cây số. (He walked for a couple of kilometers.)
4.4. The use of Vietnamese personal pronouns is not as complicated as it may initially
appear. Vietnamese has few words which are personal pronouns by their lexical
meanings (tôi, mình, tao, mày, nó, hắn, họ, chúng). The other personal pronouns are
1) kinship terms (bố, mẹ, anh, chị, em), 2) nouns denoting occupations (giáo sư, bác
sĩ), 3) personal names (Hùng, Mai, Thắng, Thuỷ). Personal pronouns should be
introduced in the context of the relationship between the speaker and the person she/he
is talking to, their age and, in some cases, their social status.

Binh N. Ngo (Ngô Như Bình)
Harvard University
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