How many of us are faced with this? Being born in a host country and coming from Vietnamese descent isn’t always easy. We are children who are stuck in both worlds: one foot in the Westernised cultures of being individualistic and “go-getters” while our parents nag us to maintain our cultures by “Học tiếng Việt!”. My stance is it takes more than this. Much more to reconnect and language is only an avenue. Personally, my level of Vietnamese is atrocious. If there was any Vietnamese language competition I would be denied an application form. If there was “Who wants to be a Millionnaire – Viet Version” I should be on the black list, calling me will be like shooting yourself in the foot.
A couple of websites and links I’d recommend that would help you give the illusion that you know your ABCs Viet One Two Three are below:
Vietnamese Dictionary Translation http://vdict.com/
People I’d recommend include my colleague Joseph Hieu Dinh (Oz-Viet 2009 of the Year). His obsession with the Viet language during his childhood has definitely paid off in his young adult years. He can now “pick up” English speaking, Vietnamese Speaking and Arabic speaking girls.
But I’d like to do a shout out to the commentators from my facebook account on their support on how I could improve my VietSkills.
So yesterday I posted:
Maria Tran Maria đang cố gắng tìm hiểu làm thế nào để đọc tiếng Việt.
And these are some of the responses I got below:
Martin Landauer
Martin đang cố gắng tìm hiểu người Việt
Two thumbs up!
Two thumbs up!
Peter Ly
Wow.. I can't believe I was actually able to read that :D
The Vietnamesey in you Peter!
The Vietnamesey in you Peter!
Michael Huynh
u'lll get it sooner or later
I prefer sooner....
I prefer sooner....
Michael Angelo Nguyen
sing viet karaoke! that is the fastest way to learn vietnamese.
Unfortunately when I sing, the cops come around.
Michael Matthew Tran
Have another Vietnamese improvisation skit with me!!
Game on!
Game on!
Anthony Tran
go to vietnam for 3 months and you'll pick it up really easily.. that's what i did
I hope you went to Vietnam doing "legal" things....
By the way, if case you all are wondering if Joseph Hieu Dinh did any of the translations for my blogspot, he definitely did not.
I hope you went to Vietnam doing "legal" things....
Gentle Storm
kiem hiep! thats how i did it! lol
Công chúa....
Công chúa....
Anh Phan
Huh? That la dzui nhon, Maria :)
Quinn Le
Quinn suggest Maria to read 'Em Hoc Tieng Viet'!
đã học vẫn không good at it
By the way, if case you all are wondering if Joseph Hieu Dinh did any of the translations for my blogspot, he definitely did not.
I can sympathise. There are times where I feel displaced about where I belong due to two things: how I grew up and how I was raised. And I feel this not only living here in Australia, but also when I visit my relatives overseas. It's that communication barrier that stops me from progressing. Even though my cousins, aunts, and uncles understand, I still feel slightly regretful that I can't keep up with the language or reply to them. In fact, I used to speak quite fluently as a child. But as soon as I was put into school, those ESL classes and those specialised classes on the side wiped my knowledge while I grew up.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you feel ostracised, whether it is in your home country or your lineage. I know I feel like I'm in a world of my own - a part of two worlds, but not belonging to any of them at the same time. What it comes down to is how you can keep up with both worlds and merge them together. I'm constantly doing that all the time.