In the study of speech, level structures such as phonetics, phonology, semantics, and grammar are the most widely used models.
Vietnamese is a tonal language. That means the meaning of a word can vary depending on how high or low of a voice is used when spoken. Additionally, due to it being a tonal language, many words in Vietnamese, although written differently can sound extremely similar depending on how one stresses the vowel (e.g xã and xả or dả and giã, these are similar to the English equivalent of kernel and colonel). This structure makes Vietnamese a difficult language to speak and write as people don’t have to necessarily stress their vowels in the correct way but can still get their point across. On top of that, regional dialects also make communication difficult due to different pronunciations of words; for example, my southern accent utilizes the d and gi sounds to be similar to a soft j or to that of the y in yes. However, the northern dialect makes a harder z sound from zoo. Even for a native speaker like myself and my parents, being able to match the written words with their spoken equivalents.
Grammar wise, Vietnamese is much easier than most other languages. Nouns don’t have genders like in French or German and verbs aren’t conjugated like Japanese or English. Unlike most languages, Vietnamese doesn’t have a very practical equivalent of you; the closest thing we have is mày which is similar to that of the Japanese おまえ which is considered to be rude to use. Instead, Vietnamese pronounce are often tied to the speaker’s own age and sex as well as the target’s age and sex. However, this usage doesn’t necessarily reflect their true age. For example, chị (older sister) and anh (older brother) are popular senior pronouns. One would use them when referring to someone that is superior. On the other hand, em is used to refer to anyone that is younger or inferior regardless of sex. However, one can flip their pronouns regardless of actual age to demonstrate respect. Other status related pronouns can also be used to show respect. Personally, I just use people’s name with their status if they are similar to my age or not use their status at all; for example, I call my language partner by his name and refer to myself in third person, but with my older cousins, I would refer to myself as em and them as anh or chị and their name. Vietnamese basic syntax is, thankfully, very similar to that of the English’s: quantifiers+subject+verb+direct object. This makes forming sentences and translating from Vietnamese to English somewhat of an easy feat for me.
As for myself, I have found that I have a lot of trouble distinguishing the tonation of words between the ngã (broken) and hỏi (low falling) as well as d and gi. I have gotten so used to the way I usually talk that when I write it out, I write it how I say it instead of the way it is supposed to be written. This is not a problem in term of spoken language as my family can understand me perfectly, but if I were to write out a sentence, my placement of the tonation would either change the meaning or make it ineligible. This breaks down the structure that I am so familiar with. I used to think that as long as I can speak Vietnamese, I can write it too. But that is no longer the case, I realized that I will now have to learn most words on an individual basis in order to be able to write and understand them properly.
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