In past weeks, my partner and I have been quickly going through the elementary stuff like going over the alphabets and basic everyday words. On top of it, we have also been talking primarily in Vietnamese rather than English. I have found that while I have very little trouble comprehending having things spoken to me, I cannot fluently reply. This did not come off as much of a surprise since it seems to be a general pattern for me in other languages as well. As a result, for a chunk of our future meeting time, I want to focus more on honing my speaking ability. I have started taking the initiative with calling my mother and cousins more often in order to use my Vietnamese more than 2-3 hours a week. So far, I have found it difficult to accurately express myself and I would often revert back to English every other word or so. I hope to eventually get rid of this habit and communicate more effectively.
Additionally, my partner and I have started to write some basic words down, and as I have expected, my ability to write is horrendous. I have trouble with the distinction between the S’s and X’s as well as the D’s and the Gi’s as they have very similar pronunciations and intonations (for example, phòng vệ sinh is the correct word for bathroom, but while phòng vệ xinh produce almost the same sound, it is incorrect). In my own time, I have started to label various things in my room in Vietnamese that are a little harder to write like: Giường (bed), sàn nhà (floor), vòi sen (shower), kệ sách (bookshelf), and et cetera.
In my own time, I have started to watch various Vietnamese vlog with Vietnamese subtitles. This allows me to learn to match the words spoken with its written form and allows me to comprehend it more. Plus, it allows me to refresh some of the words in terms of reading. I am currently at a level of reading where I don’t have much comprehension over the words while reading alone, making it difficult for me to read things like magazines and newspapers. That’s why I am hoping to relearn some of my reading comprehension on my own before my partner and I move on to reading.
This weekend, I went home to celebrate Lunar New Years (Tết) and I was able to hold a conversation entirely in Vietnamese with my mother. It was a small accomplishment, but I can’t help but feeling that I am a bit closer to my goal. My words are still awkwardly strung together, making it unclear and much harder to understand, but I now have more confident that I will soon be able to speak more fluently. I am lacking in some areas especially with vocabulary, so I started to write down words that were foreign to me and look them up or have them explained to me. It’s so nice to see that everything is finally coming together.
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