Language Lessons

One of the reasons why I chose my current apartment is for the potential improvement in my learning Vietnamese. The (I think they are nannies to the families in the building) have decided to come and get English help while helping me with Vietnamese. So far, I think it's working. I know more than some of the people who have been here for a year. They also take the time to help with me pronounce things well. I can't even tell you how difficult it is to say things. My ears are also not attuned to the tones yet. Am getting better at parroting, but not quite deciphering the relationship of the sounds to the spellings.

I feel a bit bad for the ladies because English is so arbitrary in writing and pronunciation. Just at Vietnamese has all these tones I have no hopes of really pronouncing correctly, English has lots of consonant sounds they have difficulty with. One of the ladies is from the north of the country and one from the south. I can pick up the regional differences a bit. It seems that the north doesn't have an "f" sound and she has such a hard time. She can seems to only produce a "p".

Unlike in English, where you can puzzle out a wonky pronunciation, the Vietnamese tones aren't so forgiving. Miss (as in girl) and no are spelled the same but with an accent over the vowel to denote radically different pronunciation. Slow and steady . . .