I learnt how to read and write from these three sheets at a Pagoda. I'm still not the best, but compared to a lot of people my age here I'm a lot better.

These are the core guidelines, you gotta study and memorized - OH NO!!!!

Practice by reading comics - my favorite way, and forums and stuff.

PLEASE REMEMBER - this document is not about how good Ha Noi people speek!!! It borrows the dialect from the north cause it's easier for us "viet kieu" dummys to learn how to write when a word is dictated.

If I had no contact with Vietnamese in my life and suddenly I was taught to say "go in and go out" in the southern dialect, I would end up spelling it:

"DDi do^ da\ ddi da" (Sai Gon)

when its supposed to be

"DDi vo^ va\ ddi ra" (phonetically correct)

where as:

"DDi vo^ va\ ddi za" (Ha Noi)

So this document only borrows Ha Noi dialect cause its closest - No flame wars on who's dialect is better please - their all good!

Can't see the pictures.

ok fixed

Wow, those three pages are so useful dude.

NO KIDDIN - I think jayson should pop over here

There not instructions but more like guidelines - that's how I learnt to read Viet in 2 days

oh and if your wondering the alphabet has CAPS and lower case to illustrate how to "draw" the letters like DD and dd, cause some people don't know how to yet.

oh AND THERE IS A TYPO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

on page 3 first colonm 4th row down

"air" with a R

supposed to be

"air" without an R

the Novice gave me the digital file so I'll update in a sec

Tks for posting VN1234, cám ơn nhé. Really useful stuff

yeah 'cuz i couldn't get the r in it 2 sound right ^_^


good stuff anh ngọng!!

Hmmm?

UPDATED FILES NOW!

I'd better tag on who made this or I might mislead some people to think I'm the brains behind these sheets.

(My brain is like Homer Simpson - size of a pea floating in liquid so if I get in a car crash, etc I'll never get a concusion!)

Hey this is useful stuff.

vn1234, let's see you write some Vietnamese, and make it a poem this time.

sure - thought i can't make poetry - I've been trying really hard to learn but i can't get the hang of it. I discussed with the Novices about Bui Giang, Thich Tue Sy, Trinh Cong Son and they can explain it but poetry - i need some help with that!

to not know viet poetry is to be a westerner without eating a hamburger - arggh! i suck

anyways i can write vietnamese, not essay level though. when i read books i usually have a viet/eng dictionary by my side or use mtd300 on the computer

here goes:
Co' mo^.t con heo d-i ngan bo+` so^ng. Con heo a^'y nhi`n le^n tro+`i va` ho?i "vi` sao nhie^`u ngu+o+`i pha?i gie^'t to^i chi? vi` d-e^? no bu.ng va` tho?a ma~n su+. the`m kha't ?".

that's my little thing for all you people who have no compassion - hah!

LOL. That's great dude. LOL.

writing vietnamese is really no problem - though i can never compare with student in VN, but i can beat alot of older people who live in canada.

oh i'm using VPSKEYS cause that and WinVNKey are the only ones that work with adobe graphics programs - ill try unikey some other day.

cause i learnt from these 3 sheets -i'm pretty good at spelling cause i make sure i pronounce phonetically (most of the time). though the understanding of ngu+~ pha.m is mysterious to me - too much to learn!

i feel sorry for though people who are viet but don't know spit about VN or vietnamese

the last one is weird.

I thought we pronounce ky? as kee? not kee with a soft h :S

then that would be "ki"

take for example

the words li' and ly' have different emphasis on them

li' is chppier in a sense that the tongue cuts off the word sooner than if you pronounced ly'

so that's why this emphasizes a little "H" on the sound that way when some teacher who is phonetically correct dictates to you

Ly' Tra^`n Le^

you won't write

Li' Tra^`n Le^

Actually there is no li and ki in Quoc Ngu

precisely - but it since VN is composed of a mix between quoc ngu and han-viet the usage of "i" still exists - this document just covers that so no one will go "Huh?"

anyways remember the page say "VERY SOFTLY H"

like the little exhale of left over air in your throat after saying qu?y

also there are many common words that still use "i"

like waste - phi'

my Thay said that there used to be no "y" in our alphabet but history did something and now we have "y"

funny how the words quoc ngu are Han-Viet

I don't know, I think quoc ngu is not that logical.

Like why don't we use Ci? Niem instead Ky niem?
C and K in quoc ngu sounds the same... both are unaspirated k.
Han-viet is a language or vocabulary not a writing system.
Chu Nom, Chu Nho, Chu Latinh are writing systems

In Vietnam, y's are being replaced with i's in most words. For example:

Ly' --> Li'

Nhat ky' --> nhat ki'

I was very surprised

It take times - a lot of time to filter a language. The chinese took over us for a 1000 with violent force, so for us to change it to quoc will take more than 1000 years of peaceful transformation (I hope not - too long!)

Ci niem - ky niem

I don't know?

maybe its to help us write more properly because other than those possible consonant combinations on page 2 "Ci" will never pop up so you can't go wrong on the spelling

that Han-Viet thing - thanks I usually "lie^.t" everything Han into one, but yeah Chu Nom , Chu Nho is more correct

like I said it'll take a very long time to re-route everything - but I'm just glad that Vietnamese can be sophisticated as it is today and not e-commerce oreiented quicky language like english.

On that Ci niem thing - I think its cause of the french - they have that "sh" sound with some of their words like champagne - so it transfered to modern day Vietnamese

English is easy to learn. Oh Please

English spelling is very illogical compared to other romance languages like Spanish, and compare their grammar to Chinese or Viet, it's much harder. Actually we change into quoc ngu as soon as French invaded (although Quoc Ngu is invented by a Portugese monk)

yeah - i never like english class in school

my techer was an old widow and she was literally in love with hamlet

the student said she was like having an orgasm everytime she taught hamlet - i think shaekspeare stinks

i like Viet stuff better - though i can barely read complex stuff

I did trudge through the story "Ta('t d-e`n" by Ngo^ Ta('t To^'


groovin stuff

Living in VN is the best way to learn Vietnamese

Your English is written very well. Have you been living in VN all your life?

How do you pronounce "Tr" in Vietnamese?

Is it pronounce like the "Tr" in Truck?

can someone please tell me? I don't want to pronounce vietnamese incorrectly.

Yes, the same.

I heard that at some point after the North/South re-unification, the board of education had proposed a plan to change all occurrences of "y" with "i" but that didn't go very well so they reverted back to the way it was (thank you for that). To be grammatically correct, no word should spell in such a way. Unless people are spelling incorrectly.
Can you imagine...."Thúy" is not a popular name in Vietnam but it is a common name and if the rule applied: "Thúy" will be "Thúi" (*stink*)

On another note, I know someone try to learn Vietnamese (at least reading) through Karoake. I think it might works. Here's why (IMHO)

Kids grew up with their parents and listened to Vietnamese music (some thru second hand) and the lyrics unconsciously stuck in their head. They can memorize each words. So if they applied that to a song during singing/reading then it could works. From my experience, I have had learned quite alot of words in the process. Still it didn't help my singing at all

DragonMP, Thanks.

Yeah good point - the removal of either an I or a Y would pose problems. So yeah, any changes that we want for Vietnamese is going to take a while. Right now I not really picky about this situation because once you get the basic rules down and familiarize yourself a bit with the tongue - spelling is quite easy.

Karaoke - yeah I know a lot of friends/people learning Vietnamese this way and I too think it's a quick way to improve. Just make sure you understand the realtionship between proper dictation and regional dialects. Heh - try learning how to spell from a set of karaoke discs full entirely with only singers from Tay Nguyen or Quang Nam - I know I'd be in trouble if that was my only source to study!

Yes, I've never been outside Viet Nam. But I hope I'll be able to travel around the world someday. hic, My English is very bad.

WTF , who said Quoc Ngu is invented by a Portugese monk ?? There are many inventors for Quoc Ngu, and if Vietnamese are not some of them, how can some foreigners make Quoc Ngu :O Think first. Don't let some stupid information cheat on you.

Haha, sorry but you need to learn some Vietnamese history

What he says is true but he didn't state it clearly. Though the Portugese Monk may have the large contribution to Quoc Ngu, there was no way he could have done it by himself without interaction from other people whether the contribution was big or small.