Learning a Smattering of Vietnamese

Among my most valued “travel tips” to anyone presuming to drop into some far away foreign land (as a guest, after all) is to at least learn to speak a few of the basic words in the new language. Foremost of these would be the simple (but oh so important to making a good first impression among strangers) “manners” words of “please” and “thank you”. Indeed, those two words – plus a great big ol’ friendly SMILE – will take you far, and endear you to most every stranger you bump into ’round the globe.

pronounced: “chin loi” – so now I guess I know *15* words!

And thus, slowly but surely I’ve been trying to nail at least a modicum of Vietnamese as I frantically scurry about packing up in prep for landing on the tarmac in Hanoi.

Below are a whopping whole FOURTEEN Vietnamese words (though ironically, alas none of them is the word for “14”) that I’ve mastered so far. Bearing in mind that the Vietnamese language has no less than SIX tones (i.e. noway-nohow do I presume that I’m even CLOSE to nailing the proper spelling/pronunciation), nonetheless I present you with my entire Vietnamese vocabulary to date (spelled deliberately phonetically w/o all those cute little curlicue intonation bits):

sin jow (hello)
sin (please)
gam urn (thank you)
bow neeoo? (how much?)
moat (1)
high (2)
baht (3)
bone (4)
nam (5)
saou (6)
bayi (7)
tam (8)
chin (9)
mooui (10)

Clearly I have a loooooong road ahead of me if I hope to become even halfway stutteringly fluent in my new adopted home. But at least it’s a start. And no doubt good ol’ Ms. Necessity will ensure that I pick up more and more as I settle in.

And meanwhile, trust that I won’t be far from my trusty Lonely Planet Vietnamese phrasebook, along with a whole gaggle of nifty language audio apps (incl. Google Translate.)

Tags: planning

About the Author

Dyanne Off-the-beaten-path travel is my passion,and I’ve always lived life “like-a-kid-in-a-candy-store” – eager to sample as many flavors as I can. Indeed, my life motto has long been: This ain’t a dress rehearsal, folks!

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Thomas | Jus Getaway

12 years ago

I guess I am one of the lucky ones. My wife has a knack of picking up other languages but I think thats because English isnt her first and she thinks everything is easy. It really helps when you are someone you are with can some what communicate in the native language.

Mary Moss

12 years ago

Best of luck, TravelnLass. I’ll be following every move:-)

Ruth

12 years ago

You’re ahead of the game – you can almost survive off that! I’ll suggest two more that will be useful and make you feel like you can get by like a pro.

ch-oh-p – unit of money representing 10,000 VND. Eg. high chohp = 20,000 VND (so much easier to barter!)

ko-m – no (and not). You’ll use it frequently in the form of kom gam urn…

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Reply to Ruth

12 years ago

Thanks Ruth – 10k dong most handy, given that 10k = about 50 cents! And yes, no doubt “kom gam urn” (no thank you) will be my most common remark once I hit the tarmac in Hanoi! 😉

Hope the teaching there in Saigon is going well – I look forward to meeting you in person!