Learn the meaning of Vietlish
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Intro |
|---|
| Michael: What is Vietlish? |
| Nguyet: And in what other ways is Vietnamese evolving? |
| Michael: At VietnamesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. Consider the following situation: Ben Lee got a message from his Vietnamese friend but is a bit confused. He asks his friend, Nguyet Ngo, |
| "Is this English?" |
| Ben Lee: Đó là tiếng Anh à? |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee: Đó là tiếng Anh à? |
| Nguyệt Ngô: Đó là tiếng Anh kiểu Việt hoá! |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee: Đó là tiếng Anh à? |
| Michael: "Is this English?" |
| Nguyệt Ngô: Đó là tiếng Anh kiểu Việt hoá! |
| Michael: "It's Vietlish!" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: There is no question that English has become a global lingua franca. In the past, being able to speak English as a second language was considered special. Today, it has clearly become a requirement. It may not always be the case, but the ability to speak English may be one of the most important skills to possess when applying for a job. As a universal language, English makes it possible for anyone to communicate with people from different cultures. This is the reason English has come to influence most of the other languages in the world, including Vietnamese. A proof of this is the development of |
| Nguyet: Vietlish |
| Michael: an informal term describing the mixture of elements from Vietnamese, |
| Nguyet: Tiếng Việt |
| Michael: and English |
| Nguyet: Tiếng Anh |
| Michael: This code-switching between Vietnamese and English was first recorded in the late 1960s. And while English is used in Vietnam in schools and workplaces, frequent switching between and mixing of the two languages are not favored, particularly by English professors. Despite this, it's still not uncommon to hear Vietnamese people say something like, |
| Nguyet: Hãy uống một tách cà phê. |
| Michael: "Let's have a cup of coffee," or something like |
| Nguyet: Tôi muốn chơi một video game. |
| Michael: Or "I want to play a video game." The Vietnamese term for "game" is |
| Nguyet: trò chơi |
| Michael: But, since that term refers more to traditional games like marble games or board games, the term "video game" is used instead since it's more familiar, especially among the youth. When it comes to borrowed words, or |
| Nguyet: từ mượn |
| Michael: you will seldom see words spelled exactly the same as their English equivalent, although there are many that are similar in terms of sound. The word "stress," for example, is |
| Nguyet: xì trét |
| Michael: in Vietnamese. And "beef steak" is |
| Nguyet: bít tết |
| Michael: The use of English in media had also greatly influenced the Vietnamese language, and it has given birth to terms like |
| Nguyet: ti vi |
| Michael: or "television," and |
| Nguyet: xê-ri |
| Michael: or "series" as in "TV series." |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Ben Lee says "Is this English?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Nguyet as Ben Lee: Đó là tiếng Anh à? |
| Michael: Ben Lee was asking his friend if the message she sent was English because, even though some of the words were familiar to him, he's not quite sure what the language is since it's a mixture of Vietnames and English. This is called code-switching as I have mentioned earlier. It is the basis for the mixing or switching between two different languages, such as in the case of Vietlish. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned that Vietnamese speakers sometimes incorporate English words into their sentences and even have words directly borrowed from English. This is also referred to as "Vietlish." Vietnamese people in the academic world discourage this kind of practice. Others see this development as necessary, especially as a way to facilitate Vietnamese who are learning English. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: One of the reasons for the rise of Vietlish in Vietnam are the youth. The younger generation of the Vietnamese people use code-switching and code-mixing to show that they can also be trendy, or |
| Nguyet: thời trang |
| Michael: For instance, instead of saying, |
| Nguyet: Số điện thoại |
| Michael: they'll say |
| Nguyet: Số mobile phone |
| Michael: to refer to "mobile phone number." It's also not uncommon to hear teenagers inserting a lot of "wow" and "oh yeah" into their conversations. Another reason Vietlish has developed is that many Vietnamese need to learn English at school or in the workplace. At home, they use Vietnamese when conversing with family members who do not understand English. Soon, a hybrid between Vietnamese and English is formed. It's interesting to note that the most common words used in code-switching are nouns. For instance, a Vietnamese person would say |
| Nguyet: Tôi cần mua một vài decal dán tường cho phòng của tôi. . |
| Michael: "I need to buy some decals for the walls in my room." The speaker has used the word |
| Nguyet: decal |
| Michael: which is a loanword directly taken from English. Aside from nouns, full phrases are also commonly used in Vietlish. Here's an example: |
| Nguyet: Người đàn ông talks too much. |
| Michael: This means, "The man is talkative." Instead of using |
| Nguyet: nói chuyện nhiều lắm |
| Michael: for "talkative," the English phrase "talks too much" is used. This is commonly used by Vietnamese when speaking with relatives who did not grow up in Vietnam and have a limited knowledge of Vietnamese. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: In 2017, renowned Vietnamese professor Dr. Bui Hien proposed an innovation in the Vietnamese language. The aim of his proposal was to simplify the language, making it easier and faster to write. However, many Vietnamese didn't approve of the idea because of the new language's resemblance to a phenomenon called, |
| Nguyet: Teencode |
| Michael: a code used by Vietnamese teens to hide certain information from their parents whilst using the internet, particularly when playing online games. The issue was brought to the media and caused some controversy. In the end, experts agreed that improving the language wouldn't be as simple as what the proposal suggested. Dr. Bui Hien's project to improve the Vietnamese language is still in development, but whatever the outcome may be, his proposal is just one way to show that the Vietnamese language is continuing to evolve. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Nguyet: Tạm biệt! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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