14. Yes or No?
We did mention that Vietnamese liked to say “yes” way more than “no”. There is one word for no and that’s “không” but for yes… the nuances are nearly infinite.
There are the “dạ” and “ừ” used mostly at the end of the other interlocutors sentences and having more than meaning of “I’ve heard you” or “keep going” than a solid “yes”. “vâng” is a more general-but sometimes very vague-yes; literally, it means “you are right”.
Most of the times, the Vietnamese will use the verb contained in the question to the express a “yes-approval”. Something like:
Q. Did you see the football match yesterday?
A. I saw
Q. Do you have a motorbike?
A. I have
Watch out for negative questions! Vietnamese say yes to approve the negation.
Q. This isn’t your house, is it?
A. Yes
Double negative questions? Forget those, you’d be lucky if any Vietnamese would understand such a convoluted sentence and even luckier to guess correctly what a yes would mean.
Unfortunately, knowing how to say yes is the easy part. Understanding what a Vietnamese really means when he answers yes takes a few years of practice and experience.
Beware of the Vietnamese yes
- Ask all questions several times over and in different ways.
- Never give the answer in a question. Ask open questions, not leading questions.
- DON’T ask negative questions.
- Avoid “either or” questions.
Ten tips to learning the lingo
- You have to learn to hear your own voice! Tape your self…listen-not to the words-but to your intonations and inflexions. Ask someone who has good imitation skills or who knows a bit of Vietnamese to help you decode your own voice.
- DON’T keep the basics: pronouicitaion. Vietnamese phonemes are quite different and learning the alphabet is a worthwhile endeavour.
- Make your own list of phenomenon equivalents.
- Revisit the basics often. Pronunciation and tones are two different but equally difficult challenges of the language.
- At first, exaggerate the tones and even use hands to mine them
- Speak loudly and listen to yourself. After having said a sentence, try and rehera to see where you have placed the tones and inflexions.
- Learning a few introductory sentences and use them over and over again, slowly building from thee to enlarge your repertoire.
- When a Vietnamese is correcting you on a word, make sure you know if he is correcting your pronunciation or tone. Again, use your hands for tones.
- Look at the shop signs and advertisements. The Vietnamese phonetic alphabet makes it easy to practice saying the words even if you DON’T understand their meaning. These signs are like an open air dictionary, albeit with limited vocabulary.
- There are no short cuts. If you really want tolerant, you will have to make e the effort. Get books, but tapes and practice.