Most Common Loanwords in Vietnamese

Learn about common loanwords

Lesson Transcript

Wanna speak real Vietnamese from your first lesson?

Hey guys, it's Linh. Welcome back to VietnamesePod101.com

The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Vietnamese.

Xin chào các bạn, mình là Linh.

Rất vui được gặp lại các bạn.

In this video today I want to say that you're very lucky since you speak English because people say if you speak English you already know 40% of the words among languages.

So that's the reason why today I want to talk about the loan words in Vietnamese and now let's get started.

In Vietnamese, there are many words that we learn from Chinese, English, French and even Italian.

Like spa-ghét-ti, you know spaghetti, right? So today, let's talk about some words like that

The first one I want to share is video

Vi-đi-ô

Can you guess what it is?

That is this one, this is “the video”.

So I think we used to speak that slowly

like Vi-đi-ô

but nowadays because of the development of the social network

so we tend to speak it faster

like video, video, like that.

The next one is

phông chữ

This one actually you can say phông only

phông

Can you guess what it is?

This is “the font”

the letter font

So in sentence

Bạn có thể thay đổi phông chữ được không?

Next one is

In-tơ-net

So this one is “internet”

but actually for writing we still write the same thing

we still write “internet”

but we don't really translate that word

into Vietnamese

but when we speak

for a lot of people they tend to speak In-tơ-net

instead of internet

correctly in English

In-tơ-net

Next one is

Láp-tốp

Láp-tốp means “laptop’

So in sentence

Tôi cần phải đổi Laptop mới.

Pi-a

Very easy right?

So you will see that the P sound here

we will pronounce very strongly

Pờ, pờ

not like P in English. Public relations is becoming a very common and

popular job and a lot of young students wants to work in this major after

graduation. So in sentence you can say

Tôi rất muốn làm PR.

Do you like music? If so you must know Rock.

In Vietnamese we say

Rốc

Ok?

The “R” sound we wil not pronounce it too strongly but instead we pronounce it similar to English: rờ, rờ, Rốc.

In sentence you can say:

Tôi rất thích nhạc rốc/ rock.

It means “I really like rock music.”, but I really don’t.

San-uých

Does it sound similar? Yea, it's right. It means “sandwich".

So this is also very common in Vietnam, especially when you order a sandwich.

So you can just say

Cho tôi một san-uých/ sandwich.

Or we have sandwich bò, sandwich gà.

That's it for breakfast.

Quần soóc

Ok?

Quần here means “pants”, pants in general. You can use for any kinds of pants.

Quần soóc means “shorts”

In sentence:

Tôi rất thích chiếc quần soóc mới này.

This one is a new word that we borrow and usually celebrities use it a lot.

Xô

Xô is a “show”. It could be a TV show, it could be a music show or it could be any

kinds of show. But in sentence

Ca sĩ thường hay chạy xô.

Usually you will hear chạy xô a lot for celebrities.

chạy xô

Next one is two words that I want to introduce together which are

Ra-đa

and tivi

Can you guess what they are? It's very easy, right? Because it sounds exactly the same.

The radar and the TV.

So in sentence, let me see:

Chúng ta cần phải mua một cái tivi mới thôi.

Means “We have to buy a new TV.”

This one is very common in Vietnam.

I have to say that a lot of people usually say

Xêm xêm

Do you know what it means?

Xêm xêm means “the same.”

So a lot of Vietnamese people when learning English, they tend to say

Oh, Xêm xêm

No, but actually it's just one “same”.

So every time someone tells me that Xêm xêm, I would say: one “same “only.

So that means the same.

Okay, but in Vietnamese we say

Xêm

In sentence

Cái này cũng xêm xêm cái kia thôi.

That means “This one is the same with that one.”

This one I really like which is

Bia

Do you know what it is?

That is “beer”.

In sentence you can say

Tôi rất thích uống bia.

That means “I really like drinking beer.”

Also we have another drink which is

Cà phê

This one is very common already.

Today it's “coffee”.

In sentence:

Cà phê Việt Nam rất nổi tiếng.

That means “Vietnamese coffee is very popular.”

Also we have another one

Sâm panh

Sâm panh means “champagne”.

That's it. That's all for today.

And I hope you liked it.

I really like this topic.

So please let me know what you want to talk about in the future.

Also, please don't forget to like this video.

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VietnamesePod101.com to learn more Vietnamese with Ling.

Thank you so much and see you in the next video. Bye bye.

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