Undoubtedly, one of the most significant barriers upon arriving in Vietnam is the language. This is a common concern raised by most travelers upon their arrival. But, is the Vietnamese language truly that difficult?
If you ask Vietnamese people, they will tell you it is “really complicated.” The perceived difficulty of the language is a source of national pride for its 90 million inhabitants, and locals are pleased to tell you “Tiếng Việt khó!” (Vietnamese is difficult) whenever they have the opportunity.
Therefore, if you are learning Vietnamese, or considering it, you have most likely encountered discouragement. For this reason, we aim to shed some light on your journey and, in this article, provide you with a different perspective and some encouragement. While it is true that Vietnamese is a complex language, this article will demonstrate that it is not as challenging as you might believe.
Allow us to help you overcome this linguistic barrier. Here are nine reasons why Vietnamese is easier than you think:
The Vietnamese Language Has No Genders
If a foreigner has learned French, Spanish, Italian, German, or almost any European language except English, they will simply breathe a huge sigh of relief that Europe’s linguistic system has the concept of “masculine” or “feminine” words. Vietnamese, however, does not. You can simply learn the word as it is, without needing to assign it a gender.
The Vietnamese Language Dispenses with Articles and Pronouns
If someone studying Spanish asked you when to use “un/una/unos/unas” before a word and when to use “el/la/los/las,” could you explain it? It is a surprisingly complex topic.
But is it truly that important whether you refer to “a something” or “the something”? Generally, it is obvious from the context what you are referring to. It is much simpler to eliminate them entirely, which is what Vietnamese does. ‘Người’ can mean both ‘a person’ and ‘the person,’ and you never have to worry about the distinction.
The Vietnamese Language Has No Plural
In Spanish, when we want to make something plural, we usually add “s/es” to the end. “Perro” becomes “perros,” “mesa” becomes “mesas,” “casa” becomes “casas,” “ventilador” becomes “ventiladores.”
However, there are many exceptions, and some words do not change at all.
In Vietnamese, nothing changes. The word ‘người,’ which we have already mentioned, can be used for both singular and plural. “Chó” is “dog” or “dogs,” “bàn” is “table” or “tables,” and so on. If you think this might be confusing, ask yourself: can you recall a single time in your life when you heard someone speaking about both singular and plural and were confused because you did not know the exact quantity?
If you truly need to be specific, you simply add an extra word before the noun, such as một người (one person), những người (some people), or các người (all people).
The Vietnamese Language Has No Confusing Verb Endings
How complicated is verb conjugation in Spanish, isn’t it? Even to say something as simple as the word “to speak” (hablar), one has to learn five or six (depending on the dialect) different verb endings just for the present tense. I speak, you speak, he/she speaks, we speak, and the list goes on. Consider the different verb tenses and subtleties, such as grammatical “mood” (indicative versus subjunctive), and a single Spanish verb has over fourteen different forms that learners must memorize.
The technical term is that verbs (and nouns and adjectives) in Spanish inflect, meaning the same word can take different forms depending on the context. English is not as inflective as Spanish, but we still do it to some extent; for example, the word “speak” can change to “speaks,” “spoke,” or “speaking.”
Here is the good news: Vietnamese is a completely uninflected language: no word changes its form in any context. Learn the word “nói,” and you know how to say “to speak” in all contexts and tenses for all speakers. I “nói,” you “nói,” he or she “nói,” we “nói,” all of you “nói,” and they “nói.” This also applies to the past and future, without any modification.
In Vietnam, you will never have to conjugate any verbs!
Verb Tenses Can Be Learned in Two Minutes
Vietnamese verb tenses are so easy they are practically a cheat code. You simply take an original verb, e.g., “Ăn” (to eat), and place one of the following 5 words before it:
- “đã” = in the past
- “mới” = in the recent past, more recently than “đã” = I have just…
- “đang” = at this moment, right now = to be + gerund
- “sắp” = soon, in the near future
- “sẽ” = in the future
Here are some specific examples (“tôi” means “I”):
- Tôi ăn cơm = I eat rice.
- Tôi đã ăn cơm = I ate rice.
- Tôi mới ăn cơm = I have just eaten rice. / I recently ate rice.
- Tôi đang ăn cơm = I am eating rice (right now)
- Tôi sắp ăn cơm = I am going to eat rice, I am about to eat rice
- Tôi sẽ ăn cơm = I will eat rice.
Even better, you can often omit these words entirely if it is obvious from the context, for example, “Tôi (đã) ăn cơm hôm qua.” = “I ate rice yesterday.” – is perfectly valid in Vietnamese.
You Don’t Have to Learn a New Alphabet
You can thank the French for this significant detail. Until about 100 years ago, Vietnamese was written (for the small percentage of the population who could read and write) using a complicated pictorial system called Chữ Nôm, similar to current Chinese characters. Today, it has been 100% replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet (i.e., the same alphabet used in English) called Quốc Ngữ. Therefore, unlike Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Thai, Cambodian, Korean, Hindi, or dozens of other Asian languages, you do not need to learn a new alphabet to read Vietnamese. All you have to do is learn the different types of accents primarily used for each tone.
Vietnamese Spelling is Highly Consistent and Unambiguous
In the Vietnamese language, the same letter is always pronounced the same way, regardless of the word or context. This applies more to Northern Vietnamese than to Central and Southern Vietnamese, which have some exceptions, but Vietnamese will always be read exactly as it is supposed to be pronounced. Once you can read the 29 letters of the Vietnamese alphabet (which, remember, are almost exactly the same as the approximately 20 in English), and understand its five tone marks, you can read any word. Job done!
Vietnamese Grammar is Practically Non-existent
We have already mentioned that Vietnamese allows you to omit the verb tense (like saying “Yesterday I ate rice.”) if what you mean is obvious from the context. In reality, this is just one example of a broader point: Vietnamese grammar is incredibly simple.
Most of the time, you only need to say the minimum number of words necessary to express your opinion, and the result is grammatically correct, regardless of how “broken” it may sound in translation.
This is why you will often hear Vietnamese people using incomplete phrases in their English translation, for example, “no have” or “Where you go?” When translating directly from Vietnamese, they forget to apply the (much more complicated) rules that exist in Spanish or English.
This is a significant disadvantage for Vietnamese people who want to learn Spanish, but it is an important advantage for those of us who strive to speak the language.
Vietnamese Vocabulary is Highly Logical
Most foreigners in Vietnam, even if they do not speak Vietnamese, know some amusing examples of Vietnamese translation. One of them is the word ‘xe ôm,’ the local name for the famous motorbike taxis. The literal translation is “hug vehicle.” A very high percentage of Vietnamese vocabulary is formed by combining words in a logical way, whereas in English, you would have to learn a completely new, entirely different-sounding third word.
For example, if I told you that “máy” means “machine” and “bay” means “to fly,” could you guess what it means? Exactly! “máy bay” means airplane.
There are more examples than we can begin to list, but to give you an idea: Skiing is “sliding snow,” a tractor is a “pulling machine,” a turkey is a “western chicken,” a zebra is a “striped horse,” and the list goes on and on. This greatly accelerates vocabulary learning! As you build a foundation of basic words, the rest become a game of association to automatically unlock hundreds of new translations.
The Vietnamese Language is Easier Than You Think!
We have convinced you, haven’t we?
Are you encouraged to study Vietnamese after reading this article? What better way than to experience it yourself with an organized trip to Vietnam.
