Sunday, May 26, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Tones
Tones
Vietnamese vowels are all pronounced with an inherent tone. Tones differ in:
- length (duration)
- pitch contour (i.e. pitch melody)
- pitch height
- phonation
Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel; however, the nặng tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel). The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi), with their self-referential Vietnamese names, are:
| Name | Description | Diacritic | Example | Sample vowel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ngang 'level' | mid level | (no mark) | ma 'ghost' |  a (help·info) |
| huyền 'hanging' | low falling (often breathy) | ` (grave accent) | mà 'but' | à (help·info) |
| sắc 'sharp' | high rising | ´ (acute accent) | má 'cheek, mother (southern)' | á (help·info) |
| hỏi 'asking' | mid dipping-rising | ̉ (hook) | mả 'tomb, grave' | ả (help·info) |
| ngã 'tumbling' | high breaking-rising | ˜ (tilde) | mã 'horse (Sino-Vietnamese), code' | ã (help·info) |
| nặng 'heavy' | low falling constricted (short length) | ̣ (dot below) | mạ 'rice seedling' | ạ (help·info) |
Other dialects of Vietnamese have fewer tones (typically only five).
In Vietnamese poetry, tones are classed into two groups:
| Tone group | Tones within tone group |
|---|---|
| bằng "level, flat" | ngang and huyền |
| trắc "oblique, sharp" | sắc, hỏi, ngã, and nặng |
Words with tones belonging to particular tone group must occur in certain positions with the poetic verse.
~Info courtesy of Wikipedia~
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Foreigners learn to cope with scams in Hanoi
Foreigners learn to cope with scams in Vietnam capital
Visitors to Hanoi have become familiar with the scams, rip-offs, and persistent vendors that many of them now manage to deal with them.
Tuoi Tre newspaper reported some foreigners as saying that many first-time visitors might choose to ignore them, not knowing who to complain to or how a conflict might end up, but those who have been here for a while do not.
Some newcomers are, however, well prepared after reading travel forums and media reports about things to expect like taxi drivers lying about not having change, taking circuitous routes, and having dodgy meters.
Kevin, 32, an Australian living in Hanoi, says he keeps a diary with the names and phone numbers of reputed taxi firms and never uses others.
A woman tourist from Papua New Guinea says when a taxi driver claims not to have change, the passengers just needs to be patient to see who blinks first.
“Once a driver showed me his wallet to prove he has no change. So I told him I will wait in the car for him to go around and find some change.
"He thought for a moment and took out some change from his trouser pocket."
Some foreigners who have stayed long enough have even set up travel agencies to make sure foreigners have a better experience in Vietnam, especially the capital.
Guim Valls Teruel, owner of The Hanoi Bicycle Collective, says he encourages his friends to protect themselves from scams.
Taxi drivers, for instance, are well aware that they are breaking the law, and so when tourists question or threaten to report them, they back off, he says.
But he admits a confrontation is only a temporary solution, and says the authorities need to be tougher, or the bad news will spread by word of mouth and foreigners will hesitate to come to Vietnam.
Jean - Jacques Barre, who has been in Vietnam since 1994, says the country is never a top option for tourists and all these scams persuade people not to come back a second time.
Barre and his friends have set up the Hanoi-based Freewheelin’ Tours, but any time his customers catch a taxi on their own they get ripped off, he laments.
Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, vice chairwoman of Hanoi, admits that the “persistent scams” are causing trouble for tourism promotion.
Hanoi police recently arrested a taxi driver from Trung Viet Company who allegedly forced an Australian couple to pay VND980,000 (US$46.6) though the meter only showed VND98,000.
The couple took photos of the meter, the driver, and the cab’s license plate before paying the fare and went straight to the police.
French tourist Caballero Mathias got a compensation of VND10 million from a hotel following police intervention after he was threatened by staff at a hotel.
A taxi had taken him and his friends to another hotel and not the one they had booked, but when they asked to leave, the hotel staff threatened to assault or even kill them.
The visitors had demanded compensation of VND17 million for the mental agony and loss of money and time he and his friends incurred.
The city police recently also fined a cyclo driver for charging an Australian tourist and her two children VND1.3 million for a five-kilometer ride, more than ten times the normal price, despite earlier agreeing on a fare of VND70,000.
~News courtesy of Thanh Nien News~
Visitors to Hanoi have become familiar with the scams, rip-offs, and persistent vendors that many of them now manage to deal with them.
Tuoi Tre newspaper reported some foreigners as saying that many first-time visitors might choose to ignore them, not knowing who to complain to or how a conflict might end up, but those who have been here for a while do not.
Some newcomers are, however, well prepared after reading travel forums and media reports about things to expect like taxi drivers lying about not having change, taking circuitous routes, and having dodgy meters.
Kevin, 32, an Australian living in Hanoi, says he keeps a diary with the names and phone numbers of reputed taxi firms and never uses others.
A woman tourist from Papua New Guinea says when a taxi driver claims not to have change, the passengers just needs to be patient to see who blinks first.
“Once a driver showed me his wallet to prove he has no change. So I told him I will wait in the car for him to go around and find some change.
"He thought for a moment and took out some change from his trouser pocket."
Some foreigners who have stayed long enough have even set up travel agencies to make sure foreigners have a better experience in Vietnam, especially the capital.
Guim Valls Teruel, owner of The Hanoi Bicycle Collective, says he encourages his friends to protect themselves from scams.
Taxi drivers, for instance, are well aware that they are breaking the law, and so when tourists question or threaten to report them, they back off, he says.
But he admits a confrontation is only a temporary solution, and says the authorities need to be tougher, or the bad news will spread by word of mouth and foreigners will hesitate to come to Vietnam.
Jean - Jacques Barre, who has been in Vietnam since 1994, says the country is never a top option for tourists and all these scams persuade people not to come back a second time.
Barre and his friends have set up the Hanoi-based Freewheelin’ Tours, but any time his customers catch a taxi on their own they get ripped off, he laments.
Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, vice chairwoman of Hanoi, admits that the “persistent scams” are causing trouble for tourism promotion.
Hanoi police recently arrested a taxi driver from Trung Viet Company who allegedly forced an Australian couple to pay VND980,000 (US$46.6) though the meter only showed VND98,000.
The couple took photos of the meter, the driver, and the cab’s license plate before paying the fare and went straight to the police.
French tourist Caballero Mathias got a compensation of VND10 million from a hotel following police intervention after he was threatened by staff at a hotel.
A taxi had taken him and his friends to another hotel and not the one they had booked, but when they asked to leave, the hotel staff threatened to assault or even kill them.
The visitors had demanded compensation of VND17 million for the mental agony and loss of money and time he and his friends incurred.
The city police recently also fined a cyclo driver for charging an Australian tourist and her two children VND1.3 million for a five-kilometer ride, more than ten times the normal price, despite earlier agreeing on a fare of VND70,000.
~News courtesy of Thanh Nien News~
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Consonants
Consonants
The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right.
~Info courtesy of Wikipedia~
The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right.
Labial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal Stop voiceless p [p] t [t] tr [ʈʂ~ʈ] ch [c~tɕ] c/k/q [k] aspirated th [tʰ] voiced b [ɓ] đ [ɗ] Fricative voiceless ph [f] x [s] s [ʂ] kh [x~kʰ] h [h] voiced v [v] d [z~j] r [ʐ~ɹ] gi [z~j] g/gh [ɣ] Nasal m [m] n [n] nh [ɲ] ng/ngh [ŋ] Approximant u/o [w] l [l] y/i [j]
Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a two-letter digraph (like "ph"), and others are written with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as "c", "k", or "q").
Not all dialects of Vietnamese have the same consonant in a given word (although all dialects use the same spelling in the written language).
The analysis of syllable-final orthographic ch and nh in Hanoi Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis has final ch, nh as being phonemes /c/, /ɲ/ contrasting with syllable-final t, c /t/, /k/ and n, ng /n/, /ŋ/ and identifies final ch with the syllable-initialch /c/. The other analysis has final ch and nh as predictable allophonic variants of the velar phonemes /k/ and /ŋ/ that occur before upper front vowels i /i/ and ê /e/.
~Info courtesy of Wikipedia~
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