8 Tips For Learning Vietnamese

Related Video: How To Learn Vietnamese (My Journey)

When Huy and I met, I couldn’t even tell you the capital of Vietnam, so it’s obvious that I also knew nothing about the language. The first time I had ever seen Vietnamese in written form was when Huy posted happy birthday (chúc mừng sinh nhật) on my Facebook wall and even at that point I have never heard it spoken out loud before.

Since I knew I wanted to be with Huy forever, I was very open to learning the language. I have studied French in high school which was great since some words in Vietnamese were actually borrowed from French. Unfortunately, that didn’t give me much to work with in the beginning. I was still starting from scratch, and with a tonal language at that!

Today I’m going to share with you the main techniques I used to learn Vietnamese. I’m not fluent yet, but at this point I’m able to at least hold a conversation with his parents, who don’t speak English and even vlog in Vietnamese.

1. Learn the correct Vietnamese pronouns

   Why I started on this very difficult task is beyond me, but I think in the long run it was a great place to start. In Vietnamese, there is no simple “I” and “you”. Instead, each person has a different pronoun depending on who they are talking to. For example, when I say “I love you” to Huy in Vietnamese, it’s “em yêu anh”, but if Huy says it to me it’s going to be the opposite, so, “anh yêu em”.

   The male pronoun for “I” in this situation is “anh” and the female pronoun in this situation is “em”. This is not an extensive lesson on this subject but if you want to know more about it, leave a comment and I can make another post about this topic in detail. Just know, it’s very complicated.

   The reason I said that learning this first was better in the long run is because Vietnamese culture is still very traditional. It’s important to know the correct pronouns for everyone in your family in order to show respect. Since Huy’s family is from the north of Vietnam, they are very traditional when it comes to using the correct pronouns. Being able to use these pronouns on my first encounter with his parents definitely gave me some brownie points!

2. Listen to Vietnamese Music

   When I first started learning the language in 2011 I wanted to be able to hear the language often so I could get used to the sounds. Listening to Vietnamese music was a great way to do that since I’m a huge music fan already and I enjoy music sung in all languages (huge kpop fan alert!). Coupling listening to music with learning basic vocabulary was great because I would notice that a song I didn’t understand before would start to make sense.

   The first time I understood a song I was so excited. I was at the gym on the treadmill and just listening to my usual playlist and then the song said, “nước Việt Nam là quê hương của tôi” [Vietnam is my motherland] and I was like, “OMG I KNOW WHAT THEY SAID!!” That was a huge motivation for me to keep learning because I finally felt like I was actually making progress. You can check out the song here.

3. Vocabulary Spreadsheets

   When I’m learning vocabulary, I find it much easier to learn in groups and to learn words that are related to each other (ex: food). In order to stay organized I actually made spreadsheets which organized the new vocabulary words into categories. This made it easier for me to associate related words with one another and I could also add new words to each category anytime I learned a new word.

4. Flash Cards

   Spreadsheets are a good way to stay organized but in order to learn the words and learn them well, I used flashcards. I’m pretty sure these are self explanatory since most people use flashcards to study or memorize something. For me, I just wrote the Vietnamese on one side and the English on the other and would cycle through them until I knew the words.

   I personally learned how to read and write first and that is mainly due to the fact that I also spent time writing the words out when I was studying them. Since Vietnamese is a tonal language with accent marks and a slightly different alphabet, it’s going to take some time and practice to be able to read and write. Writing new words in the beginning is a big help.

5. Language Apps

   As I progressed with my language learning, apps started to become more popular. Some apps that I used to learn Vietnamese are Duolingo, Memrise, HelloTalk, and HiNative. In the beginning, Duolingo didn’t have a Vietnamese course but it soon adopted one. Memrise was probably the best one for me since I was not a beginner so I was able to pick-up vocabulary quickly. When I was at the peak of my studying I think I was reviewing 900 Vietnamese words in the app. When I went to Vietnam I was surprised to find that I knew a lot more words than I expected, just from cycling the words provided in the vocab stacks within Memrise!

   HelloTalk and HiNative are similar and both very useful since they actually let you connect with native speakers of the language you’re learning. I was able to meet Vietnamese people through the app, ask grammar questions and practice speaking through voice messages. Duolingo and Memrise don’t have this social function so while they are good for cramming in new information, HelloTalk and HiNative give a special experience. Plus, you can also help others to learn English!

6. Books and Notebooks

   Apps were probably more useful for me but I did use some books and notebooks to help me study. The main book I used is called “Vietnamese for Foreigners” and was actually from Vietnam. Huy bought it for me when he went back to Vietnam in 2012 because he knew I was getting more serious about learning the language. It came with an audio CD too which was helpful but I didn’t use the CD that much. I also had a phrasebook and another book for intermediate learners. While the book from Vietnam is not available online, you can check out my suggested book list for two others that I have used over the years.

   As for notebooks, I mainly used them just for writing practice and also for writing down example sentences with new words that I learned.

7. Taking a Vietnamese Class

   I did enroll in a Vietnamese class in New York but unfortunately I didn’t stick to it. I didn’t really get along with my teacher so I quit after a few weeks. If you want to know why, you can check out my video here. It’s a shame because I have successfully learned French and Chinese through classes so I know if I stuck with it I would have been great! Oh well.

8. Talking with Native Speakers

   This last one is by far the best way that I learned Vietnamese! If you want to know how to learn Vietnamese fast, then GO TO VIETNAM. Or at least don’t be afraid to SPEAK. I went to Vietnam for the first time in 2013. I had just finished my semester in China so I was really shy to speak Vietnamese because I kept mixing in Chinese by accident. My pronunciation was also wayyyyyy off. On this trip I accidentally called Huy’s dad the word for “beef”. That was embarrassing! I did learn a lot of new words while I was there for 40 days that summer but it would have been better if I wasn’t afraid of making a mistake and if I had spoken more.

   I know this for sure because on my second trip to Vietnam in 2017, I improved in a matter of 3 weeks! At that point I realized that if I didn’t make a bigger effort to speak then I was never going to learn. Of course I made many mistakes but I was able to learn from them so in the end it was worth it. Huy’s mom also stayed with us in 2017 for 7 weeks and then we went back to Vietnam for another 2 weeks in 2018. Each time I have to spend extended periods of time speaking only Vietnamese my skills improve so much! I can’t wait to see how much more I improve when we take out trip in May 2019!

I hope this post motivates you and shows you that it doesn’t matter where you’re from, that you too can learn Vietnamese like I did. I love sharing my experiences and would love to post more about learning Vietnamese. If you have a topic you want to hear more about, please leave a comment and I’ll make a post on it very soon. Thanks for reading and happy studying!