Vietnam Travel Tips

4. Language

Language and Culture

Why can’t they understand me?
One of the most irritating hurdles on the rocky road to learning Vietnamese is the seeming inability of Vietnamese to understand what we perceive as rather good renditions of Vietnamese words and sentences.
DO know that Vietnamese will not easily understand foreigners’ accents.
DO understand that tones are as important as consonants and syllables and Vietnamese have a hard time guessing tones or even making the link between two words with the same spelling, but with different tones.
DON’T get shy…, get out there and talk. Expect a few laughs, a few blind stares, but also a lot of encouragement.
DO remember, if you’re serious about learning the language, there are classes… available whenever you are.

Learning Vietnamese
One of the most difficult situations to master is to control one’s rising tone tendencies. In most Western languages, rising tones are used profusely in a variety of contexts: to indicate questions, disbelief, and insistence, to ask for confirmation or simply as part of a normal sentence pattern.
In Vietnamese, as the tone alters the meaning of the word, a Western-style rising tone question will – unless the final Vietnamese syllable happens to have a rising tone – baffle your interlocutor.

Body Language

Gestures to avoid
DON’T employ the Western way of signaling someone to come, by wiggling an upward-pointing index finger.
DON’T use the Western sign for good luck, with the second finger curled over the index.
DO relax… apart from the previous gestures, unless you’re obviously and desperately trying to insult people, you won’t get into any serious trouble.

Handshake not wai
Unlike the Thai with wai-ing, the Vietnamese often use handshake for greeting. Normally, it’s either a handshake or a simple nod of the head. The rule is quite straightforward:
- With Vietnamese men, you always use a handshake, be you male or female.
- With Vietnamese women, you wait for them to initiate either a handshake.
However formal or cold a handshake might seem, you’ll find the Vietnamese to be quite physical in their contacts even among strangers or with foreigners. But remember: this is between men or between women… not between the sexes. A warm greeting can start with an interminable handshake, followed by a hug of the shoulders and a bout of hand holding that can last the whole discussion. Hands on thighs when men sit discussing, or arms over shoulders for women are also common.