Categories
Learning

Writing in a foreign language… Actually there are different kinds of writing.

write When you think about writing in a foreign language, what springs to mind? Writing essays for class? Writing a short text about a trip you went on or a fun evening you had with friends?

Those are great topics for practising your Vietnamese but to write about them, you usually have to sit down with the sole aim of writing. You have to be focused, think carefully about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. So sometimes you never even get started.

Beyond essays and diaries

Of course writing texts like that can be extremely beneficial, however these ‘essays’ are not the only forms of writing.

Do you ever send SMS messages to your friends in Vietnamese? Or chat with them on facebook? Or message back and forth with a potential language partner on iTalki*?

All of these are also writing practice, even if you don’t think of them as practice… It’s just chatting to your friends, right?

fb-chat
Chatting is writing practice. Yay!

Common types of writing

Bearing this in mind, it’s probably much easier than you first thought to get regular practice writing in a foreign language.

Here’s a taste of the different kinds of writing there are.

Formal

  • Writing opinion essays
  • Making an enquiry (eg. to a language school)
  • Sending work emails
  • Writing reports

Informal

  • Writing a diary or telling a story about a trip or film you’ve seen
  • Writing an email to an exchange partner or chatting with them on Facebook/Skype
  • Replying to comments on Lang-8
  • Writing blog articles or how-to’s

Very informal

  • Replying to an email from a close friend
  • Writing a status update on facebook
  • Commenting on a friend’s facebook status
  • Sending a SMS to a friend

Chances are, even if you think you don’t like writing in a foreign language, you actually do one or more of these on a regular basis.

Develop your skills

Each different style of writing requires a different tone, level of formality and often different vocabulary.

No matter what language you do it in, writing a cover letter when applying for a job is totally different to messaging a friend.

So mix it up.

  • If you only write about your day or a holiday, have a go at comparing the food or weather in Vietnam to that in your country.
  • If you usually just send messages to friends, try to write the occasional longer essay or story.

By varying your practice, you’ll develop the ability to use Vietnamese in a wide variety of situations.

If you’re not sure what to write about, check out these 12 topics to kickstart your Vietnamese writing.

Over to you: Have you realised you do more writing in a foreign language than you first thought? What styles of writing do you practice most often?

Categories
Language & Culture

Why is kitchen ‘nhà’ bếp not ‘phòng’?

Most rooms in the house have ‘room’ (phòng) as part of their name. Phòng ngủ (bedroom), phòng khách (living room), phòng ăn (dining room) but bathroom and kitchen are a notable exception: they use nhà (house or building).

This seems weird in this day and age where houses and flats are self-contained but think back several years to when outhouses were the norm, and it starts to make sense.

Traditionally Vietnamese people also cook outside of the main house, usually in outbuildings to protect the cooking area from wind and rain.

Not really the picture I was looking for, but the building on the left could be the kitchen... Source.
Not really the picture I was looking for, but many countryside houses have outbuildings… Source.

Having outbuildings is still a really common set-up in the countryside. In cities, where space is an issue, these facilities have been taken inside yet the names remain: nhà bếp (kitchen) and nhà vệ sinh (bathroom).

Is it phòng tắm or nhà vệ sinh?

Nowadays phòng tắm (where tắm means shower or wash) is often used for an inside bathroom, like you’d find in a house or hotel room. Whereas, like in English, toilet facilities in restaurants or other public places would be nhà vệ sinh.

Categories
Resources

3 more ways to learn Vietnamese through facebook

Use facebook to learn VietnameseA few months ago I shared 3 ways to learn Vietnamese through facebook.

To recap, they were:

  1. Chat with native speakers
  2. Translate your Vietnamese friends’ status updates
  3. Consider changing your language settings

I’ve since become a bit more conscious about how I practice and learn Vietnamese through facebook and come up with 3 more.

1. Click on the links your friends share

Instead of scouring the web, or picking things at random from our Resources List, just select the things that your friends recommend. Chances are a lot of these posts will interest you as you have things in common with your friends.

This is my favourite way of finding interesting authentic materials – whether that’s articles, songs, videos or even infographics.

2. Write statuses in Vietnamese

Quicker and less pressure than writing a diary about your day, share short funny anecdotes from your day or ask questions. Interact with the people who comment and continue a short conversation.

In some ways, this is a bit like chatting with someone but you have more time to look up new words and consider how to phrase what you want to say. You’re also just talking about one topic and don’t need to think of different things to say like you do in a chat.

3. Like fan pages

To get more exposure to authentic material (ie. Vietnamese written by and for Vietnamese people), you can like fan pages for Vietnamese a favourite musician, magazine, cooking blog or other celebrities like the most famous ‘foreigner’ who can speak Vietnamese, Joe Dâu Tây.

By liking a page you can take part in the community – read news updates about the person or magazine, read other fans’ comments or even post comments yourself. These news updates should be easier to understand than friends’ status updates which often use a lot of slang or shortened ‘text speak’.

Though if you just want to chat about learning Vietnamese, there’s always the More Vietnamese page.

Over to you: Do you use facebook to practice or learn Vietnamese?

Categories
Resources

Review: Language Master Key

Listening is absolutely crucial for language learners. Being able to understand the person you’re talking to means you can nod in agreement, respond, ask questions… ie. have a conversation and connect with people.

If you want to improve your conversation skills, this is where you should start.

But what’s the best way to practice listening? Is simply watching a YouTube video enough?

The e-book Language Master Key by Ron Gullekson presents a listening-based approach to learning.

Language Master Key

Ron draws on over 10 years of experience when he explains why sound is an essential part of language learning. Not only that, but the book is full of actual techniques you can use to practice the two forms of listening he identifies: free and active listening.

I had a lot of ‘a-ha’ moments when reading the book, but my favourite section is on active listening. While free listening can be great for beginners and high intermediate learners, I think people at the middle levels in particular can really benefit from a more hands-on approach. The chapter sets out, step-by-step, methods that you can start using today.

In truth the guide not only covers why and how you should listen to improve your language skills but also includes tips on vocabulary, speaking and general learning activities. The last chapter encourages you to follow a plan for 21 days.

Normally I don’t have a lot of patience reading on my computer but I zoomed through the first 30 pages without even realising it. The book is that easy to read!

While it used to be free, it’s now available on Amazon at a reasonable price.

Practice listening to authentic Vietnamese

For active listening you need to be able to understand a lot of what you hear. Here are our top suggestions for graded or easy to understand material.

For radio stations and/or materials for free listening practice, head to the Resource List.

Over to you: What role does listening play in language learning? Are you going to download Ron’s e-book?

Categories
Experiences

The story behind my Vietnamese name, Thảo

You’ve seen my Vietnamese name, Thảo, all over this site but I’ve never explained how I came to have a Vietnamese name and why it’s Thảo.

Thảo in Tây Ninh

The problem I faced

The problem of what to call myself always occurs outside of English-speaking countries. Nowadays I use my middle name, Elisabeth, but when I first went to Vietnam I was still using my first name, Ruth.

When embarking on my Asian adventure in 2010, it slipped my mind that I’d had difficulties with my name in the past so I started teaching with the name Ruth. Cue the problems. The ‘th’ sound (phoneme θ) doesn’t appear in many languages. This error alone is not a big deal but the initial ‘r’ can be tricky too. From Vietnam to Italy I’ve had people struggle with that sound and have even been asked if my name starts with ‘br’!?

A lot of my students in Vietnam simply addressed me as ‘Teacher’ as opposed to my title, Ms Ruth (or nowadays, Ms Elisabeth). While this form of address is a common and respectful thing to do in Vietnam, I do wonder if I had a higher occurrence of this due to the difficulty of pronouncing my name.

So my students found a way around the problem, but there was still the issue of interactions outside of work.

Roo

When speaking English with people, my name was sometimes a difficulty, often not. However, when speaking Vietnamese my name was just too strange. It Vietnamized as ‘Ru’. I’ve known a Ru and a Rew before but mostly the name reminds me of Roo from Winnie the Pooh.

Later, one of my Vietnamese teachers refused to call me Thảo and pronounced Elisabeth with every syllable stressed. It was kinda painful to listen to.

Even for myself, when I switch to English pronunciation mid-sentence to say my name, this affects my subsequent Vietnamese pronunciation (I slip into a stronger English accent).

The solution: use a Vietnamese name

The simple and obvious solution was to choose a Vietnamese name.

I expressed this desire to some of my friends and randomly one friend had a list of his classmates’ names on him that day. Together they went through the list and one of them read out female names that they liked. If they all agreed that it was a nice name, it was then my turn to repeat it.

Some names I couldn’t pronounce well, other fared a little better – with two friends thinking my pronunciation was up to par but the other one thinking I was a little off. Finally we got to Thảo. I repeated it successfully to a unanimous opinion not once but three times in a row.

At this point we got into the meaning. As the pool of Vietnamese names is relatively small, most people know the meaning of common names. Thảo has two meanings – the first one I heard is along the lines of ‘herbal’. The second is about respecting your parents or ‘honour’.

Thảo means herbal.
Thảo means herbal.

So there I had it – my Vietnamese name. Thảo.

Over to you: Do you have any problems with your name when abroad or when speaking a foreign language? Have you ever used, or would you consider using, another name?

Photo credit: degrassi and gabriel77