Tag: vietnamese

I’m following a vietnamese class for absolute beginners in Hanoi, from L’Espace, which is the french institute in the Hoan Kiem district. As I need to practice it, I thought that writing it down on this blog will help me, and it might also be nice for anyone else passing by.

The first lesson, introduced us some basics on how to address other people, this will mostly depend on the age difference between the 2 people, but it’s not just about age, it’s also about the rank in the family. For example a cousin who’s father is the little brother of my father, I will address him differently if his father had been the elder brother. If someone is older than you, probably the age of your own parents, then it’s different again. And if the person is more in the age range of a grand parent, then it’s different again, and if you are not sure exactly, it’s better to play it on the safe side, as you don’t want to be rude :)

As I’ve been living with my fiancee’s family in Hanoi for 2 months already, I’m a bit familiar with this, and it’s still very difficult to remember all the forms, and then you need to remember their position in the family. The list given in the course is incomplete as it’s probably the hardest thing for a foreigner to learn, but here is a mix from the class, and the ones I know:

Masculin	Feminin
cháu	–	very young children
em	–	someone younger than you
bạn	–	someone the same age as you
anh	chị	someone older than you
thầy	cô	a teacher
bố	mẹ	your parents
chú	thím	younger brother of father (and his wife)
cậu	mợ	younger brother of mother (and his wife)
chú	cô	younger sister of father (and her husband)
chú	dì	younger sister of mother (and her husband)
bác	–	older brother and sister of father and mother
ông	bà	someone your grand parents age

Next step was to say what your name is, and how to ask people their own names:

• Em tên là gì ?

em	the way you would address someone, I will always write this in italic to indicate it will vary
tên	name
là	to be (verb)
gì	what

• Em tên là Anthony

If you want to call someone (and I mean anyone, friend, parent, taxi driver …), you can use the following:

• Em ơi !

The next thing you will want to ask, is where is someone from:

Then you could ask how the person is doing:

Finally, you can ask what does someone do:

If you want to talk about someone else (he/she):

That’s almost it for the first lesson about introduction yourself, here are some extra words picked up during the class:

There was also a part about the 6 tones used in the vietnamese language, but I’m not sure how I’m going to put this here :)

If you want to know how to write these vietnamese letters and tones on a computer, check this other post of mine.

Thế thôi !