fsck.vmap

The word chứ has various applications. In general, it is used to affirm or negate something with emphasis. Following are the various cases: 1. In conjunction with không or chẳng, chứ is used to express "X is the case, certainly not Y" Anh ấy là giám đốc, chứ không phải là nhân viên bình thường. He is the CEO, certainly not just a regular employee. 2. Chứ can appear at the end of a sentence, either as a question or in a statement. If the sentence is a question, chứ is similar to "..., right?" or "..., isn't it?" in English Phim này hay chứ? This movie is good, isn't it? If chứ appears at the end of a statement, it may either affirm or deny that something is the case. Consider... A: Em thấy phim này có hay không? ( Do you think this movie is good? ) B: Hay chứ! ( Definitely! ) ...versus... A: Phim này dở quá, chị không thích. ( This movie is really bad, I don't like it. ) B: Hay chứ! ( No, it's good! ) 3. Another...

1. ạ (NV) Politeness marker very prevalent in Northern Vietnamese. Used extensively by kids talking to adults A: Con thích món này không? B: Con thích lắm ạ! 2. cơ A particle to show affection - Con thương mẹ lắm cơ! Similar to the   spatial particles đó/đấy/ấy, for additional emphasis - Cái này là gì cơ?  - Bạn nói gì cơ? 3. chứ, chớ, chớ bộ (SV) The first usage of chứ and its variants is to ask for confirmation. It's similar to the question particle không in this case - Bạn thích món này chứ? The second case is to confirm that something is the case, and sometimes, to show disagreement - A: Bạn thấy ca sĩ hát hay không? B: Hay chứ! (confirmation) - A: Ca sĩ này hát không hay đâu. B: Hay chứ! (disagreement) 4. đã To express that something needs to be done before something else - Khoan đã! - A: Đi về đi! B: Phải tính tiền đã. 5. đâu A strong negation, like "not at all" in English. There are three forms: "không...đâu", "có...

Southern Vietnamese has various differences compared to the spelling. The list below gives a list of the major changes between spelling and the actual pronunciation in SV. Some of the changes may be limited to giọng miền tây. However, most of the differences also appear in the Saigon dialect.

 

1. Indicating singular and plural in general A noun by itself usually indicates plural Tôi thích chó (I like dogs ) To express the singular, a classifier like cái, con or chiếc should be added (and optionally, một) Tôi thấy [một] con chó (I see  a dog ) To make a general plural, add one of mấy, [một] vài or một số Tôi thấy  mấy con chó  (I see  some dogs ) 2. Những The word những is used to indicate a subset of some group, especially in contrast to another subset of that group. If this word is used, the noun always has to be made more specific by some adjective or subclause. ❌ Có những chó ở nhà hàng xóm ✔️  Có một vài/mấy chó ở nhà hàng xóm (There are some dogs in the neighbor's house) ✔️  Có những chó nguy hiểm ở nhà hàng xóm, nhưng chó của tôi không như vậy (There are some dangerous dogs in the neighbor's house, but my dog isn't like that) In addition to that, những can also be used in combin...

In general, đi means "to go" and đến means "to arrive". But there are some more nuances. First, Vietnamese doesn't distinguish movement toward the speaker ("come here") and away from the speaker ("go there"). In either case, đi is used. That can be quite confusing for speakers of Western languages. For example, "I'm coming!" is "Tôi đang đi!". The word đi has the following applications: 1. It denotes movement.   There is no object after đi in this case. Đừng đi nhanh quá! (Don't go so fast!) Thôi, trễ rồi. Em đi. (It's late already. I'm leaving.) 2. It is equivalent to the expression "to go + [verb]-ing" in English (go swimming, go hiking, go dining). A verb follows after the đi. Tối qua anh đi chơi với bạn bè. (Last night I went out to have fun with friends.) Cô ấy thường đi leo núi. (She often goes hiking). 3. In certain expressions in combination with a noun, like "đi chợ...

This is a list of channels and series on Youtube to learn Southern Vietnamese. Most of of these have Vietnamese subtitles and some even have both Vietnamese and English subtitles. If they are missing, you can turn on the Youtube auto-generated subtitles (if enabled by the channel owner). The quality isn't always superb. That said, if the speaker talks in a very clear voice and there isn't any background noise, these subtitles are surprisingly accurate. If you would like to find more channels with subtitles, there is a search filter called "Subtitles/CC". Unfortunately, this will sometimes also return clips with empty subtitles or a single caption like "Subscribe to our channel!". So, it does take a bit of time to search. 1. MCVMedia productions The single best resource for clips with Vietnamese subtitles is MCV. This channel consistently provides captions on almost every show - sometimes even bilingual English/Vietnamese. Many of the formats are related to l...

I often run out of good topics to talk about when on a date. That's why I decided to create a list with questions to keep the conversation going. This list doesn't contain basic phrases like "How old are you?", "What's your hometown?" or "Do you like pizza?". Rather, I tried to concentrate on meaningful questions that can stimulate further discussion. Index by topic Miscellaneous Food Travel Sports Love & RS Questions Misc If you were an animal, what would you be? Nếu như mà em là con thú thì em sẽ là con gì? What past-time gives you joy? Sở thích gì hay làm cho em vui? How come we have never met before? Sao mình chưa gặp nhau trước đậy ta? What is something that you always wanted to try, but didn't get a chance to explore yet? Có gì em luôn mong làm thử, mà chưa kịp làm? What point do you like best about yourself? Em thích điểm nào nhất ở ba...

 The word "mà" is one of the most frequently encountered words in Vietnamese. Below is a list of the different meanings. 1. Equivalent to English "which/that". It can usually be omitted Một câu chuyện mà rất quen thuộc với nhiều người. A story that is very familiary to many people. 2. Equivalent to "but", short for "nhưng mà" Mặc dù không thích mà vẫn phải làm. Even though you don't like it, but you still have to do it. 3. Similar to #2 to indicate something that contrasts with the previous clause. Often can be translated as "without" or "even though".  Sometimes it is challenging to translate directly into English due to the hidden implication Sống mà không có nước không đươc. One can't live without water. Có gì đâu mà giận. Get angry even though there is nothing (to get angry about). 4. Equivalent to "in order to", short for để mà Tôi đi làm mỗi ngày mà kiếm tiền. I go to work every day in order to...

One of the most distinguishing features of the Northern accent is the sounds that speakers make when pronouncing dấu nặng and dấu ngã. These "charring" sounds are generated by constricting the vocal folds - the same organs in your throat that you use every day to talk. For example, when you say a vowel like "a" in a regular voice, your vocal folds vibrate. If you whisper that "a", on the other hand, the vocal folds don't exhibit this vibration (You can feel the difference if you put your hand on your throat while making these sounds). Finally, if you have those vocal folds vibrate at a really low frequency, that's when you get a creaky voice. All these various types of producing voice are known as phonation. Although I think in reality it's a bit more complicated, but in the simplest form, phonation can be thought of as a range from whispering to glottal stop. This range is usually divided into three sub-sections, called breathy, modal and crea...

 In Northern Vietnamese, most ending consonants are pronounced the same as at the beginning of the word. One of the few exceptions is "-ch", which usually becomes a "c" sound. However, in Southern Vietnamese, many endings change compared to the spelling. Following is a list of these changes. 1. -t -> -c This change only applies to words where the syllable nucleus is not either an i or an ê. For example, nhất becomes nhấc, but con nít stays con nít. 2. -n -> -ng Same as above. Example: bạn -> bạng, but tên stays tên 3. -ch -> -t Applies to all words. Example: thích -> thít 4. -nh -> -n Applies to all words. Example: hình -> hìn One issue with the above is whether or not rules compound. For example, if mạnh changes to mạn according to rule number 4, shouldn't then rule number 2 be applied, so that the final result is mạng? But this is generally not the case according to my experience. But if the -t changes to -c and the preceding ...

I have been studying Southern Vietnamese for over one year. What has been bugging me since the very beginning is that there is no definite resource on this dialect. There are quite a few blogs that teach what I guess is an "official" or "formal" version, but which leaves out many deviations from the Northern accent.  Thanks to Wikipedia and research papers, I have been able to finally figure out many of these differences (some, I still don't get). On the surface, SV is just NV with different tones and rolled r's instead of z's. But that's not true. There are more differences. But as a non-native speaker, I was unable to pin down what exactly those other differences were. Today, I want to introduce one of those features of SV that I'm sure everyone is familiar with - just maybe not on a conscious level. What I'm talking about is formally known as "diphthongization". Less formally, it can probably be called a drawl. With words ending ...

 I often find myself wanting to say "not sure [yet]". Up to now, I assumed the "chưa chắc" was a perfectly fine way to say this. However, it turns out that this expression is more equivalent to "far from certain". Example A : Đọi tụi mình sẽ thắng trận này! (Our team will win this match!) B : Chưa chắc. (That's far from certain.) On the other hand, "not sure" in a more neutral way would be better translated as "có thể" or "có lẽ". Example A : Đọi tụi mình sẽ thắng trận này! (Our team will win this match!) B : Có thể. (Maybe./It's possible.)

These are the major "gotchas" of the Vietnamese alphabet I have come across. 1. An ơ is not an o is not an ô The o and ô are both rounded vowels (lips pursed). The ơ, on the other hand, is unrounded. It's position is more front than the other two. That is, the tongue is placed further toward the front of the mouth. The difference between the o and the ô is that the o is pronounced with the tongue further down. As tongue and mouth usually move in unison, that means the mouth is also more open when pronouncing the o vs. the ô. Similarly, a, ă and â are quite deceiving. The rule that appears to be most commonly taught is that ă is a short a and â is a short ơ. But this may not be entirely accurate. Certainly in the Southern dialect, the â sounds different from an ơ, at least to my ears. However, I have only found contradicting claims during my online research so far. Perhaps, it depends on the dialect. 2. Implosives Đ/b at the beginning of a word as well as c/ch/p/t at the e...

Both thì and là can be used in similar ways to mean "if...then". According to my understanding, the difference is that thì can be understood as an abbreviated form of nếu...thì. On the other hand, là is a short form of cứ...là. The former is the standard way to say "if...then", while the latter means something more along the lines of "every time (something happens) (something else also happens)". So, thì is more likely to be a specific case, while là is more general. These short forms often appear in short sentences, sometimes just connecting two verbs. If I'm not mistaken, là can also mean "as soon as" (see the last example). Examples Thích thì ăn đi! If you like it, eat it! Hứng lên là xách xe đi luôn Every time I feel like it, I hop on my bike and go (traveling) Thích là lấy If I like (someone), I will get married straight away