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I cannot say I am surprised. I could talk about Arabic almost every time I comment here. That get's boring. Let's move to Vietnamese. So one of the coolest

by 616c 11y ago

I cannot say I am surprised. I could talk about Arabic almost every time I comment here. That get's boring. Let's move to Vietnamese. So one of the coolest co-workers my father had was a recon pilot during the Viewnam War. Not doing the high altitude picture stuff, but SIGINT and comm monitoring over the radio stuff. He volunteered and went to Nam for the Navy. He was sent to schools stateside to study Vietnamese first, since he did well on the ASVAB, or whatever the hell it was then. While studying with Vietnamese, in DC I think, they would play cards and learn to talk. His first mis-step was crossing his legs, putting one leg on a knee, and showing his instructor the sole of his foot. Super offensive apparently, and off to a more boring instructor he went. Then, once he was in country on intel flights, almost all of the people in the bases were South Vietnamese, but he is trained to speak Northern, for less than obvious reasons. So this got him into trouble routinely, and made him an issue with on-base stuff. One woman, a cook, on his first day was in the room and he asked "How are you, sister?" In Nothern, this is fine. In Southern, he called her a slut or a whore (someone can back me up on this). She ran out crying, and they needed a new cook. He said he caused a lot of problems like that. That was the first time.

cageface 11y ago
I've been living in Vietnam for the last four years and there's a huge difference in dialects from southern, central and northern Vietnam. People from the center in particular are often unintelligible even to other Vietnamese. It's a treacherous enough language already since getting a tone wrong can mean you're unintentionally saying something quite vulgar. Luckily the Vietnamese will almost always give foreigners a pass for making these kinds of mistakes and they're happy that you're even make an effort to learn their language.
- chinhodado 11y ago
  > Luckily the Vietnamese will almost always give foreigners a pass for making these kinds of mistakes and they're happy that you're even make an effort to learn their language. This is correct. It is always expected that foreigners will speak broken Vietnamese, and given that it is already rare in the first place to hear a foreigner speak Vietnamese, most will be delighted to see you do it, no matter how broken it is.
  - apendleton 11y ago
    An American friend who lives in Vietnam has told me he finds that while Vietnamese people aren't bothered by foreigners speaking broken Vietnamese, they also don't have an especially practiced facility for guessing what someone might have meant when they butcher something. He theorizes that because there's almost no non-native speaker population, Vietnamese people just don't get much experience having to do that the way Americans do with non-native English speakers. The impression I got was that if you messed up tones, you might get a delighted, but also perplexed, response.
    - 616c 11y ago
      Well, after my time in China, I sucked it up and tried to learn Chinese and communicate in broken Chinese with my students. When other kids complained about our old Taiwanese teacher's English accent, I asked them simply: "let's say hypothetically we inverted the situation and found an exact parallel of your Chinese accent to her spoken English when Chinese comes out of your mouth, and you understand the accent is native. How hard will you laugh?"
    - cageface 11y ago
      I've found that, ironically, Vietnamese that already speak English are also more likely to understand my amateur Vietnamese. Maybe that's because they're more familiar with the sounds of English and can make more educated guesses about what I'm trying to say. I suppose this is true of all tonal languages but Vietnamese is very unforgiving. Even when people really butcher the pronunciation and grammar of English I can still usually guess what they're trying to say. If you don't really nail the pronunciation and tones of Vietnamese people won't understand you at all. I've seen a lot of foreigners give up in frustration even after years of living here. If you really want to learn to speak tiếng Việt you have to find a real teacher and drill the basics of tones and pronunciation. If you try to pick it up a phrase at a time chatting with people you'll never get it.
      - carelesslisper 11y ago
        That makes sense. As a non-native English speaker I find it easier to understand people from my country speaking English than other accents. I also found out that after starting studying Chinese it is easier to me to understand Chinese people speaking Portuguese (my native language) because I understand a bit of the Chinese grammar and phrasal structures.
- 616c 11y ago
  No surprise here. I majored in Arabic in college. I have looked into Chinese, Farsi, Hindi/Urdi, Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese, in order of effort, with a year of Chinese at college level (in the US that is bullshit, but while doing grad level Arabic, caused people to laugh in conversation at my masochism). The ASEAN languages, so Thai and Indonesian and Vietnamese, seemed so so much harder than Chinese. Not even sure why. Mandarin was hard, with 4 tones. I think standard Vietnamese has ... five? God help me if I ever learned Cantonese Chinese! I actually knew people from the south, and eight/nine tones made me wonder how they fuck people stop learning the language and move onto anything else. Me: 200 characters of Mandarian Southern Chinese Dude w/ College Degree: Spoken Cantonense with 9 tones and 20,000 chacters in Mandarin Chinese Fuck my life.
antjanus 11y ago
I'm Czech and I can attest to something similar in my country with its measly 10 million people. There's a Bohemian and a Moravian/Silesian dialect. Bohemia is part of the country where Prague is and with that dialect, you can fare very well all over the country. You'll stick out, and sound downright silly in the depths of Moravia, but you'll be fine. I can't ever remember not being able to understand a Bohemian simply because most TV shows are dubbed by Bohemians. But if you're a Moravian (like me), you'll be quite unlucky in the rest of the country. Moravians speak quite quickly and in a deep voice. The language in the thick of it is nearly impossible to understand. There's nothing offensive about it, it just sounds like garbage to any person that speaks the proper Czech language.
- dilap 11y ago
  This reminds me of the Scottish english accent. It's pretty cool sounding (to my west-coast US ears), but a thick Scottish accent can be quite tricky to understand.
  - gadders 11y ago
    Geordies (people from Newcastle) are a struggle for me as well, as a Londoner.
  - gregpilling 11y ago
    I dated a girl whose parents were from Scotland. We were in Canada. I could barely understand anything her father said - one time at dinner he had to ask me to 'pass the salt' three times and I couldn't get it.
- gambiting 11y ago
  Polish has a Silesian accent too(hardly surprising, seeing how the Silesian region changed ownership in the last few centuries), and people with really strong Silesian accent are really really difficult to understand for everyone speaking "normal" Polish.
lordnacho 11y ago
This is interesting. My parents grew up in the north, so I understand when they speak. The thing is, even if I'm not very good at it and I've never even been there, I can tell what part of Vietnam someone is from. It seems the southern dialect is very easily distinguished from the northern one. It makes a difference to the diaspora people because it gives you an idea of whether you're of similar background. The exodus seems to have had different stages and groups (eg people who left with the Americans vs Hoa who left a few years later).
scott_s 11y ago
The Amana Colonies in Iowa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies) was settled by Germans, and many continue to speak German. A friend of mine is a professor at the University of Iowa, and a colleague of his grew up speaking German. But, much of her diction sounded quaint to German speakers in Germany; the word she used for "airplane" was closer to the word "dirigible".
- alanctgardner3 11y ago
  French in Quebec is kind of similar - to avoid being assimilated into English Canadian culture, it's very resistant to change. French speakers from Europe tend to find it kind of quaint because it's been developing independently since the 1700s.
simonebrunozzi 11y ago
That's a great story. I'm curious about Arabic now - can you tell us more?
- nandemo 11y ago
  I'm not the grandparent but: Arabic is highly diglossic: in any given area, people use a standard written language called Modern Standard Arabic (used in speech only in certain formal situations) and a local spoke language ("vernacular") used in everyday life. They differ greatly in terms of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Note that vernacular isn't mere slang: it's one's native language. Also, the vernaculars form a sort of dialect continuum: a Iraqi might have little problem understanding a Syrian from a nearby area, and Syrians might have little trouble understanding Palestinians, and so on, but Iraqi and Moroccan Arabic have little mutual intelligibility. Neither phenomenon is unique to Arabic. Some Americans speak, say, African American Vernacular English but can also use "standard" American English; of course the difference isn't that big in this case. Brazilian Portuguese is another case of diglossia: the written language has multiple verb tenses and conjugations that aren't used in spoken language, for example. Dialect continuums also happen in other places, e.g. the Getman speaking countries. But Arabic is an especially extreme and interesting case (subjectively speaking).

by 616c 11y ago

cageface 11y ago

I've been living in Vietnam for the last four years and there's a huge difference in dialects from southern, central and northern Vietnam. People from the center in particular are often unintelligible even to other Vietnamese. It's a treacherous enough language already since getting a tone wrong can mean you're unintentionally saying something quite vulgar. Luckily the Vietnamese will almost always give foreigners a pass for making these kinds of mistakes and they're happy that you're even make an effort to learn their language.

chinhodado 11y ago
> Luckily the Vietnamese will almost always give foreigners a pass for making these kinds of mistakes and they're happy that you're even make an effort to learn their language. This is correct. It is always expected that foreigners will speak broken Vietnamese, and given that it is already rare in the first place to hear a foreigner speak Vietnamese, most will be delighted to see you do it, no matter how broken it is.
- apendleton 11y ago
  An American friend who lives in Vietnam has told me he finds that while Vietnamese people aren't bothered by foreigners speaking broken Vietnamese, they also don't have an especially practiced facility for guessing what someone might have meant when they butcher something. He theorizes that because there's almost no non-native speaker population, Vietnamese people just don't get much experience having to do that the way Americans do with non-native English speakers. The impression I got was that if you messed up tones, you might get a delighted, but also perplexed, response.
  - 616c 11y ago
    Well, after my time in China, I sucked it up and tried to learn Chinese and communicate in broken Chinese with my students. When other kids complained about our old Taiwanese teacher's English accent, I asked them simply: "let's say hypothetically we inverted the situation and found an exact parallel of your Chinese accent to her spoken English when Chinese comes out of your mouth, and you understand the accent is native. How hard will you laugh?"
  - cageface 11y ago
    I've found that, ironically, Vietnamese that already speak English are also more likely to understand my amateur Vietnamese. Maybe that's because they're more familiar with the sounds of English and can make more educated guesses about what I'm trying to say. I suppose this is true of all tonal languages but Vietnamese is very unforgiving. Even when people really butcher the pronunciation and grammar of English I can still usually guess what they're trying to say. If you don't really nail the pronunciation and tones of Vietnamese people won't understand you at all. I've seen a lot of foreigners give up in frustration even after years of living here. If you really want to learn to speak tiếng Việt you have to find a real teacher and drill the basics of tones and pronunciation. If you try to pick it up a phrase at a time chatting with people you'll never get it.
    - carelesslisper 11y ago
      That makes sense. As a non-native English speaker I find it easier to understand people from my country speaking English than other accents. I also found out that after starting studying Chinese it is easier to me to understand Chinese people speaking Portuguese (my native language) because I understand a bit of the Chinese grammar and phrasal structures.
616c 11y ago
No surprise here. I majored in Arabic in college. I have looked into Chinese, Farsi, Hindi/Urdi, Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese, in order of effort, with a year of Chinese at college level (in the US that is bullshit, but while doing grad level Arabic, caused people to laugh in conversation at my masochism). The ASEAN languages, so Thai and Indonesian and Vietnamese, seemed so so much harder than Chinese. Not even sure why. Mandarin was hard, with 4 tones. I think standard Vietnamese has ... five? God help me if I ever learned Cantonese Chinese! I actually knew people from the south, and eight/nine tones made me wonder how they fuck people stop learning the language and move onto anything else. Me: 200 characters of Mandarian Southern Chinese Dude w/ College Degree: Spoken Cantonense with 9 tones and 20,000 chacters in Mandarin Chinese Fuck my life.

antjanus 11y ago

I'm Czech and I can attest to something similar in my country with its measly 10 million people. There's a Bohemian and a Moravian/Silesian dialect. Bohemia is part of the country where Prague is and with that dialect, you can fare very well all over the country. You'll stick out, and sound downright silly in the depths of Moravia, but you'll be fine. I can't ever remember not being able to understand a Bohemian simply because most TV shows are dubbed by Bohemians. But if you're a Moravian (like me), you'll be quite unlucky in the rest of the country. Moravians speak quite quickly and in a deep voice. The language in the thick of it is nearly impossible to understand. There's nothing offensive about it, it just sounds like garbage to any person that speaks the proper Czech language.

dilap 11y ago
This reminds me of the Scottish english accent. It's pretty cool sounding (to my west-coast US ears), but a thick Scottish accent can be quite tricky to understand.
- gadders 11y ago
  Geordies (people from Newcastle) are a struggle for me as well, as a Londoner.
- gregpilling 11y ago
  I dated a girl whose parents were from Scotland. We were in Canada. I could barely understand anything her father said - one time at dinner he had to ask me to 'pass the salt' three times and I couldn't get it.
gambiting 11y ago
Polish has a Silesian accent too(hardly surprising, seeing how the Silesian region changed ownership in the last few centuries), and people with really strong Silesian accent are really really difficult to understand for everyone speaking "normal" Polish.

lordnacho 11y ago

This is interesting. My parents grew up in the north, so I understand when they speak. The thing is, even if I'm not very good at it and I've never even been there, I can tell what part of Vietnam someone is from. It seems the southern dialect is very easily distinguished from the northern one. It makes a difference to the diaspora people because it gives you an idea of whether you're of similar background. The exodus seems to have had different stages and groups (eg people who left with the Americans vs Hoa who left a few years later).

scott_s 11y ago

The Amana Colonies in Iowa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies) was settled by Germans, and many continue to speak German. A friend of mine is a professor at the University of Iowa, and a colleague of his grew up speaking German. But, much of her diction sounded quaint to German speakers in Germany; the word she used for "airplane" was closer to the word "dirigible".

alanctgardner3 11y ago
French in Quebec is kind of similar - to avoid being assimilated into English Canadian culture, it's very resistant to change. French speakers from Europe tend to find it kind of quaint because it's been developing independently since the 1700s.

simonebrunozzi 11y ago

That's a great story. I'm curious about Arabic now - can you tell us more?

nandemo 11y ago
I'm not the grandparent but: Arabic is highly diglossic: in any given area, people use a standard written language called Modern Standard Arabic (used in speech only in certain formal situations) and a local spoke language ("vernacular") used in everyday life. They differ greatly in terms of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Note that vernacular isn't mere slang: it's one's native language. Also, the vernaculars form a sort of dialect continuum: a Iraqi might have little problem understanding a Syrian from a nearby area, and Syrians might have little trouble understanding Palestinians, and so on, but Iraqi and Moroccan Arabic have little mutual intelligibility. Neither phenomenon is unique to Arabic. Some Americans speak, say, African American Vernacular English but can also use "standard" American English; of course the difference isn't that big in this case. Brazilian Portuguese is another case of diglossia: the written language has multiple verb tenses and conjugations that aren't used in spoken language, for example. Dialect continuums also happen in other places, e.g. the Getman speaking countries. But Arabic is an especially extreme and interesting case (subjectively speaking).