A Vietnamese Retrospective

Now that I've got all that travel writing out of the way, I can talk about my main reason for going anywhere - speaking new languages.

I started learning Vietnamese around October or November, once the trip started to take shape. I found the language to be very difficult, and now that I'm at peak Vietnamese for some time (it will surely fade over the next few months) I still rate it as one of the hardest I've studied.

It just takes a long time, really. The expats I met who had been in the country for two months all were less confident in using the language than I was. Even though I couldn't carry on any kind of complex conversation, I had been practicing the sounds and the rhythm for a while and could pronounce it clearly. That surely came from a combination of my linguistics knowledge and the sheer amount of time I had to practice. With such a long background of study, new vocabulary and usage fell into place rapidly once I got there.

When I came to Vietnam, I knew a few words and phrases, mostly food-related. (Just because I studied for a long time doesn't mean I studied constantly. I spent most of my time on Russian.) When I left, I could easily carry out tourist tasks like asking the price of things, giving addresses, and asking simple directions. I also learned the words for many more foods and could read some signs and advertisements. My language use was very much of the pidgin point-and-say variety, which I had never expected to work so well. And the locals were always surprised to hear a Westerner say anything in Vietnamese. I was once literally applauded by the staff of a fast-food restaurant after asking for the bathroom.

More emphatic pointing without any Vietnamese might also work well, but outside of tourist areas it's hard to count on anyone knowing more than a greeting in English. If you're going to Vietnam, knowing at the very least the numbers and some names of foods will get you far. The language isn't that hard to pronounce either, especially for single words at a time. Knowing what the different marks on the letters mean in terms of pronunciation will also do wonders for your communication. In fact, while you're at it, just learn the whole thing...