https://richmond.box.com/s/i16ch1mblwn843itrfnh8chsdwsk9mxz

In this podcast, Logan and I reflected on our progress and activities this past semester. We discussed in detail what our expectations and goals were coming into the semester and how we tried to achieve those goals. We also discussed the movies that we watched as part of our learning activities and whether it was an effective method of learning. I thought that it was a refreshing way to expose myself to less conventional learning methods. We also discussed our future plans, what I plan to do with my further knowledge of the language, as well as how I plan to continue my learning. We ended the podcast by wishing each other well and said our goodbyes.

https://richmond.box.com/s/52l4lel5ecc5j9x59rvyh6hfxclau8wz

Việt Nam’s [vîət nāːm] governmental structure is a one party system. Since the fall of Sài Gòn [sàj ɣɔ̀n] and Democratic south to the Communist North in 1975, the country has been officially unified under a unitary Marxist-Leninist socialist regime. The current ceremonial leader of Việt Nam is President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc [ŋwiəŋ˨˩˦ swəŋ˧˧ fuk˧˥]. He was recently elected earlier this month to take over from the last president, Nguyễn Phú Trọng [ŋwiəŋ˨˩˦ fu˧˥ tʂawŋ˨˩˨], in recognition of his efficient policies regarding COVID-19 handling. However, as the position of parliament president is a largely ceremonial one, the real power of the state will remain in the hands of the general-secretary of the Communist Party which has been held by former president Nguyễn Phú Trọng since 2011. 

After the war in 1975, Việt Nam suffered tremendous loss in infrastructure and manpower. The economy struggled with inefficient production, imbalanced trade, high inflation, rising debts, and poorly managed supply and goods distributions. In 1986, a decade after the seizure of Sài Gòn and unification of the North and South, Việt Nam implemented an economic reform known as Đổi Mới [ɗo᷉i mə̌ːi] which translates to Renovation or Innovation to transform the former pure command economy to a socialist-oriented market economy. Unlike a strict command economy in which the government has complete central control over production, investment, prices, and incomes, the new socialist-oriented market would allow for some private ownership and market exchange between private and state-owned enterprises.

The Đổi Mới policies prioritized the production and distribution of necessities such as rice and sugar. It also restructured the country’s bureaucracy system in effort to move away from the inefficient centralized economic system and imposed policies that allowed more leeway for independent economic decision-making on a regional and local level. The biggest change brought by the reform was the gradual expansion of economic freedom for merchants and capitalists that allowed the country to make a concerted effort to increase production. 

The result of this economic reform is telling. Việt Nam experienced a miraculous economics transformation in the 1990s with average annual GDP growth of 4.4 percent. For comparison, the United State’s average annual GDP growth rate at the time was around 2%. A practice that was unique to Việt Nam during this growth period was the government’s effort to allocate tax revenue towards developing infrastructure and increasing investment in welfare for areas with high levels of poverty. As a result there was a sharp decrease in poverty level across the country and quality of life greatly improved. 

Since then, however, due to the government’s lack of experience in running a mixed market economy, there are a number of structural challenges that prevent Việt Nam from achieving higher growth. As a result, structural problems such as income inequality, environmental pollution, and negative social effects are serious consequences of such a poorly managed institution. Additionally, despite the government’s effort to reduce the national poverty rate, the rising income inequality as well as lack of support for rural development means that absolute poverty is rampant in mountainous and central coast provinces. 

My partner and I have been wrapping up our semester by going over the extensive list of vocabulary that we have accumulated since we first began studying two whole semesters ago. I am amazed to say that over the last three semesters, we have made an Anki deck of Vietnamese vocabulary with over 430 entries.

In addition to that, we have also been talking about my future plans during the drill sessions. It was something similar to that of an interview session. 

 I am graduating in the next couple of weeks and I fully plan on continuing my study of Vietnamese. I am currently making my way through the Duolingo and Mango Languages courses as a way to supplement my learning and improve my grammar. I have also been interviewing for jobs that would put my Vietnamese language skills to use and have been successful in finding a couple positions in the community that I live in.

We also talked about Logan’s future plans. He is currently towards a degree in Economics with a concentration in Accounting. As a graduating Economics major, I gave him some pointers, although I had a lot of trouble with economics-related vocabulary so most of our conversations regarding this topic was done in Viet-Lish. The drills for these past sessions were very interview-like and I greatly enjoyed it despite being quite bad at articulating the words. However, thanks to that, I was able to pick up another couple of vocabulary words for the Anki Deck:

• Kinh tế học [kɨn˧˧ te˧˥ hawk˨˩˨] : Economics
• Chính sách tài khóa [ʨɨn˧˥ ʂat˧˥ taːj˨˩ kʰwaː˧˥] : Fiscal Policies
• Kế toán [ke˧˥ twaːŋ˧˥] : Accouting
• Tổng sản phẩm trong nước [təwŋ˨˩˦ ʂaːŋ˨˩˦ fəm˨˩˦ tʂawŋ˧˧ nɨək˧˥] : Gross Domestic Products
• Chính phủ [ʨɨn˧˥ fu˨˩˦] : Government

It was during one of the sessions that we found there are different Vietnamese words for the various meanings of the word “Economy”

• Economy as in sparing or careful usage is Dành Dụm [jan˨˩ jum˨˩˨]
• Economy as in the wealth and resources of a country or region is Nền Kinh Tế [nəːŋ˨˩ kɨn˧˧ te˧˥]
• Economy as in cheap is Hà Tiện [haː˨˩ tiəŋ˨˩˨]
  • Apparently this word has a heavy negative connotation and should only be used in extremely informal occasions and not to refer to someone of a higher status as it can be seen as disrespectful.

Something else that we also talked extensively about is how I will continue my learning from now on. I plan to continue consuming Vietnamese media to keep up with my exposure to the language. Logan also recommended that I try to keep in touch with him or someone else my age to keep the conversations going since it might be difficult or awkward to practice with my parents. I have also considered the possibility of even teaching or helping someone else learn Vietnamese as a means of practice. Afterall, teaching is a form of learning and I believe it can help me further internalize the language on a level higher beyond memorization and repetition. 

An interesting piece of Vietnamese culture that I have recently been looking at is the country’s response to the world’s current biggest threat: COVID-19. As of April 3rd, the country has a cumulative number of confirmed cases of 2,626 for a country of a population that has roughly 96.5 millions people (2019 data) with a population density of around 291 people per square kilometer. The country is amongst one of the many countries with the highest population density rate in the Asia Pacific region as well as the world; it was ranked at place 11th in 2018 in the region and 15th worldwide. The country is roughly the size of California (about 83%) with roughly one third of the US entire population. However, while the United States is recording a steady increase in cases on top of the 40 thousand new COVID cases each day, Vietnam’s highest recorded number of cases per day was 66 on February 3rd. The country has reported a total COVID-19 related death count of 35 in comparison to the United States’s staggering half a million. In fact, according to a statement released by the CDC at the end of last month, COVID was the third leading cause of death among Americans in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer. So what makes Vietnam such a successful COVID story compared to other more developed countries? 

A lot of lies in the reality that Vietnam doesn’t have a well established welfare safety net like the majority of developed nations. As a developing country, Vietnam cannot compare to countries like the US in terms of economics; the United States has a GDP per capita of $59,800 as of 2017, while in Vietnam, the GDP per capita is $6,900 as of 2017. An average person in Vietnam is likely to make 88.7% less money than an average person in the US. The country is not able to take a financial crisis on top of a health crisis.

However, Vietnam has had a history of successfully managing pandemics; during the SARS pandemic of the early 2000s, the country only recorded 63 cases and five deaths before it was cleared by the CDC. Many interventions pioneered by Vietnam during the SARS epidemic are currently being used to respond to the current COVID-19 outbreak. Similarly, its experience with epidemic preparedness and response measures may have led to greater willingness among people in the country to comply with a central public health response. Additionally, After the SARS epidemic, Vietnam continued to invest in its public health infrastructure, developing a national public health emergency operations center as well as a national public health surveillance system in preparation for future breakouts. 

Another startling comparison in COVID-19 response between the US and Vietnam is their lockdown procedures and restrictions. While the US government largely left lockdown procedures and restrictions up to the state or implemented only soft measures, Vietnam implemented mass quarantines in suspected hotspots. The country entered a nationwide lockdown on April 1st, 2020 which was initiated for 15 days but was extended to 21 days in 28 out of 63 provinces. Additionally, Vietnam took early steps to implement closures, require masks, and limit mobility for citizens and international travelers. Most other countries waited to make these types of decisions until numbers were much higher. 

It is clear that Vietnam took serious precautions even before the COVID-19 outbreak knowing that it is not capable of handling the consequences of being ill prepared, and the country’s effort greatly paid off.

Due to their close proximity, Vietnamese culture and values have been heavily influenced by Chinese culture for centuries. However, that does not mean their cultures and values are at all identical. Growing up, I was exposed to both cultures and values due to the differences in my parents’ heritage. I want to share some similarities that are present in both cultures as well as highlight the differences that exist between them. I just want to place a disclaimer that China and Vietnam are independent countries and their cultures and values are likely to be much deeper and more complex than I know. Also China’s large geographical area most definitely means that not everyone living in the country will uphold the same values.

The most obvious difference between the two cultures is their writing system. The Chinese language uses a logographic writing system that is arguably one of the world’s largest writing systems today. Unlike most languages, the Chinese language does not utilize a fixed alphabet system, instead they use unique characters or a combination of characters to describe concepts and objects. Vietnamese used to have a system of writing that consisted entirely of Chinese characters alongside its reading and meaning. This writing system was later replaced by Chữ Nôm which is a combination of Chinese characters infused with Vietnamese readings and meanings as well as a number of uniquely Vietnamese characters. However, due to the French colonization of Vietnam, it quickly fell out of practice in favor of the Latin alphabet. 

A startling similarity between the cultures is that they are both highly collectivist cultures where people often act in the interests of the entire group and not of themselves. Both Chinese and Vietnamese are heavily family oriented and nationalistic. Loyalty to the state and filial piety are central and desirable natures of both cultures. Additionally, both countries have very high levels of power distance – that is, society for both are plagued by inequalities but it is deemed acceptable. High levels of power distance also implies that power struggles are not typical because subordinate-superior relationships are polarized without any defense against corruption or abuse. 

Another difference between the cultures is their ‘masculinity’. The Chinese have a highly masculine culture while the Vietnamese’s culture is much more feminine. Higher masculinity scores in a culture is an indication that it’s society is driven by competition, achievement, and success measured by accomplishments and recognition. This system of value is deeply rooted in the culture and its people from a young age, and people are highly encouraged to continuously compete against one another while leisure remains heavily frowned upon; in other words, the people in this culture tend to live to work. On the other hand, a feminine culture is more centric on the idea success is measured by quality of life rather than hard work, although that is not discouraged. These people prefer flexibility and inclusivity, and while accomplishments are celebrated, standing out from the crowd is often frowned upon. To sum up, feminine cultures emphasize the importance of working to live instead of viceversa. 

In the past weeks, I started to invest more time delving into vietnamese media beyond the typical Vietnamese musical videos, reality tv shows, and games shows. Over the past week, my partner and I have been watching and discussing said Vietnamese filmography. We’ve watched a total of 2 movies, all of which starred Vietnamese actors as well as actresses and produced in Vietnam. We watched each movie twice. Both times the movies are played using their Vietnamese audio track, but the first time we had Vietnamese subtitles (I’m a visual learner, and I typically watch movies with subtitles to aid my understanding), and the second time we watched with English subtitles. So the first watch was supposed to be an immersive Vietnamese experience, whereas the second was to see how much of the dialogue I understood and retained from the first time watch. Afterward, we would discuss the movie in detail (i.e. Logan would ask me specific questions pertaining to the movie and I would have to give a satisfactory answer before we move on). 

The first one we watched was Hai Phượng [haːj˧˧ fɨəŋ˨˩˨]; the film is named after the main character’s name, but the film’s English title is known as Furie. We found the movie off of Netflix and both of us decided to give the movie watch since it is extremely rare that we find any Vietnamese content directly on a mainstream streaming site. The movie was an action and martial arts film that centered around the kidnapping and trafficking of a child (Mai)  from a village in the Mekong. Mai’s mother was a former gang member who decided to settle down in an obscure village by the Mekong region to protect her family. Mai was abducted by an organ trafficking gang and was brought to Hồ Chí Minh city. After we watched the film, we decided to look it up and found that this movie broke the record for highest-grossing Vietnamese film in history and was highly regarded for its martial arts sequence.

Next we watched ‎Mắt Biếc [mak˧˥ ɓiək˧˥], known internationally by its English title, Dreamy Eyes. This was a slice of life, drama, and romance film. It told the story of a young man, Ngân, one sided love for his childhood companion, Hà Lân. It dealt with a lot of heavy and hard to understand topics like longing and loss that comes with unrequited love. The ending was bittersweet when the main character was forced to move on from his decade long crush. This movie was hard to follow mostly because of its poetic language. 

The biggest obstacle I had to deal with while watching these films was verbal comprehension. The moving pictures and plot for both movies were nothing extraordinary or complicated, but some of the actresses and actors use a central dialect or have a northern accent that is almost incomprehensible to me. Luckily, the subtitles were somewhat helpful with my understanding. Whatever I absolutely could not comprehend, my partner was able to step in and help fill in until I completely understood. 

In order to familiarize myself with Vietnamese, my favorite pastime activity has shifted from watching mostly meaningless compilations of vine videos on Youtube to watching Vietnamese reality television and listening to Vietnamese music videos. 

Due to the recent rise in the global popularity of Korean Pop (dubbed Kpop), other Asian countries have jumped on the bandwagon. Vietnam is no different. 

Unlike before when most, if not all, professional Vietnamese singers are seen sporting traditional costumes or formal wear while performing minimal gestures, rising Vietnamese stars like to imitate the eye catching, colorful costumes and energetic street style dances that are common in a typical Kpop music video. 

Additionally, with the introduction of western pop culture, musical genres like rap and hip hop are gaining popularity in the previously ballads and folk songs dominated music industry. This gave rise to a new generation of Vietnamese artists such as Sơn Tùng - MTP, ERIK, SOOBIN, JACK97, MIN, and many others. 

As I previously mentioned, musical genres such as pop, hip hop, and rap are relatively new to the Vietnamese musical industry. Before Kpop became a global phenomenon, the Vietnamese musical scene was heavily dominated by love ballads, songs depicting nationalism, and soulful folk songs. This lack of diversity is largely due to the Vietnamese government’s banning of what they labeled as kích động nhạc (literally “exciting music”) in the later 1970s period. Nhạc trẻ Sài Gòn (literally “youthful music of Saigon”) is a term that was used to refer to the vibrant, fun folk songs that were forced underground during this time period due government censorship. It wasn’t until the late 2000s that ‘Vpop’ - based off of Kpop, Cpop, and Jpop - became a recognized genre of music in the industry. Even then, Vpop only encompasses the previously driven underground folk songs that bore little resemblance to what we would be referring to as modern pop music. 

Looking at the recently released contents of the music industry, it is evident that modern Vpop is heavily influenced by Kpop with its colorful concepts, energetic dance sequences, and catchy melodies. Vpop has also recently started to borrow heavily from western music as well. New artists have started to incorporate rap and hip hop into their songs, a combination that was practically unheard of in the Vietnamese musical industry before the 2010s. During this period, the pop / hip hop artist Sơn Tùng was among the first Vietnamese artists to make the international chart with a musical sequence almost identical to the internationally recognized Kpop. 

However, unlike the Korean music industry where boy bands and girl groups tend to dominate the industry, the Vietnamese musical industry tends to favor solo artists, partnerships, and collaborations. The rise in popularity of pop and hip hop music in Vietnam has paved the way for musical reality television such as Vietnam Idol, Rap Viet, Giọng Ca Bất Bại (literally “the unbeatable voice”), and Giọng Ải Giọng Ai (literally “who’s voice is that?”). 

My personal favorite genre that resulted from this musical revolution is the cross between traditional and EDM that created artists and producers like JACK97 and K-ICM. This genre utilizes a unique combination of traditional musical instruments and modern EDM mix that give a modern twist to the upbeat folk music that previously gave way to the Vietnamese imitation of Kpop.

Over break, other than verbally communicating with my family as well as coworkers, some (albeit light) reading, and the occasional YouTube video binge, I had very few use of Vietnamese. As a result, the past two weeks were spent reviewing basic grammar as well as conducting Vietnamese drills as a means to review vocabulary. My language partner and I are also drawing up a rough learning plan and goals for this semester.

We reviewed basic grammar such as basic sentence structure, measured words (classifiers), conjunction, and tenses. Vietnamese and English share similar sentence structure in that they both utilize the SVO structure; that is, subject + verb + object. Vietnamese conjunctions uses và (“and”), nhưng (“but”), hay (“or”), hoặc (“either … or”) similarly to the way conjunctions are used in English.

Vietnamese also utilizes adjectives much like English, however, unlike English, Vietnamese adjectives are always placed after the nouns they modify. Another dissimilarity between the two languages lies in that there are also no word forms (i.e inflection) in Vietnamese. Additional words are used to indicate additional or altered meanings as well as tenses. For Vietnamese, the only major verb tenses are:

• present simple -> uses only the verb, just like in English
• present continuous -> indicated using đang - the equivalent of the verb -ing form in English - before the verb
• past simple -> indicated using đã (“already”) before the verb or rồi (“already”) at the end of the sentence.
• future simple -> indicated using sẽ (“will”) before the verb

In comparison, English utilizes twelve verb tenses: 

• simple present 
  • E.g. They run home.
• simple past
  • E.g. They ran home.
• simple future
  • E.g. They will run home.
• Present Continuous
  • E.g. They are running home.
• Past Continuous
  • E.g. They were running home when they came across the cat.
• Future continuous
  • E.g. They will be running home.
• Present perfect 
  • E.g. They have lived here since last year.
• Past perfect
  • E.g. They had been here before.
• Future perfect
  • E.g. They will have been here by now.
• Present perfect continuous
  • E.g. They are running.
• Past perfect continuous 
  • E.g. They were running.
• Future perfect continuous 
  • E.g. They will be running.

For the drill, my partner and I decided to talk about our activities over the break. I talked about how I’ve  been working for the Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) as well as helping at my family’s friend’s Vietnamese restaurant. Since it’s a family owned business, most of the people who work there are also Vietnamese. Many of them are Vietnam war immigrants or first generation Vietnamese Americans (which we all often jokingly refers to as Việt kiều which means “overseas Vietnamese” or “Vietnamese diasapora”). It was surprisingly easy to communicate with them despite my barely intermediate level of Vietnamese, but since  most of them are Vietnam War refugees, we speak a common accent from the south so that could have also aided in my comprehension. However, I was told that I don’t carry the typical Vietnamese-American accent that their children or themselves carry when they speak in Vietnamese or English. 

Final.pptx

Since coming home two weeks ago, I had ample opportunities to use Vietnamese to communicate with my family and friends. I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and sister and we talked a lot about the food we made, about school and work in Vietnamese. Afterward, we conversed remotely with my extended family, and, as expected, I was bombarded with a bunch of questions from my relatives. We talked a lot about how school is going and how my education was affected by COVID-19 as well as graduation plans. I do not remember the last time I spoke using just Vietnamese for such a long period of time in one day. It was unexpectedly exhausting. When I restarted my meeting with my language partner afterward, we discussed what we did over break in Vietnamese and we went over words that I didn’t understand. 

• Phân tâm [fəŋ˧˧ təm˧˧] -- distraction or distract
• Thảo luận [tʰaːw˨˩˦ lwəŋ˨˩˨] -- discussion or discuss
• Tham khảo [tʰaːm˧˧ kʰaːw˨˩] -- consult, refer, or reference
• Bạc phận [ɓaːk˨˩˨ fəŋ˨˩˨] -- misfortune

In order to keep up with these words and future new words, my partner and I created an Anki deck that I can access for learning or to expand at any time. 

Additionally, we also talked about my future plans. Since next semester is my final semester, we talked a lot about what I want to do after graduation. The first thing I want to do is find a job, but I am also considering graduate school. However, if I do decide to go to graduate school, I want to take a gap year and do some travelling to gain some experience, so we ended up talking about that extensively. 

For my first destination, I want to visit my mom’s hometown -- quê hương [we˧˧ hɨəŋ˧˧], a village --  quê [we˧˧], near the city of Phan Thiết [fan.tʰíət]. Phan Thiết is a coastal city in southern Vietnam known for its fishing industry and seafood manufacturing, especially the production of fish sauce -- nước mắm [nɨək˧˥ mam˧˥]. Vietnamese nước mắm are usually made from a combination of fermented fishes such as anchovies, mackerel, scabbard fish and salt, and it usually has a pungent smell. My partner and I talked about how my family used to be one of the many residents in the region that produced nước mắm. My grandfather was a fisherman and my grandmother would used to use his catches to make nước mắm for personal use as well as to sell. However, when big manufacturers began moving into the area, most families were forced out of the business and my family was no exception.

We got really interested in how nước mắm is made so my partner and I watched a how it’s made video. Apparently, each region in Vietnam has its own nước mắm recipe and flavor, and Phan Thiết’s nước mắm is unique in that it has a slightly sweet aftertaste. After the video, we talked about the various ways nước mắm is a staple ingredient in Vietnamese cuisine. I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion, and I think that talking about topics I'm interested in is a great way to learn a language.

For the past weeks, I’ve tried to focus on my writing and reading comprehension skills and I’ve came across a useful and free textbook for learning grammar “Elementary Vietnamese” by Binh Nhu Ngo. Each chapter in the book includes grammar points, vocabulary and vocabulary usage notes, essays / text excerpts, practice drills, and writing exercises. Since the book is meant for an introduction to Vietnamese, I am not having a lot of difficulties going through it. The lessons are easy to grasp and most of the vocabularies are familiar to me. Whatever lesson or grammar point I do not understand, my language partner has been helpful in explaining.

For example, the book does not do a very good job of explaining the past tense indicator đã and rồi. According to my language partner, they have similar functions and are usually interchangeable, but đã is a simple formal past tense indicator while rồi is a past tense indication that emphasizes an action that is already done. It is typically paired with đã to mean “already”. For an informal past tense indication, just rồi is used.

                Ex:          Anh ấy đã học xong.                                       He has finished studying. (formal)

                               Anh ấy học xong rồi.                                        He has finished studying. (informal)

                                Anh ấy đã học xong rồi.                                 He has already finished studying.

The part that really messed with me was that rồi can also be used to indicate sequential actions.

                Ex:          Anh ấy học xong rồi đi chơi.                         He finished studying and then went out to play.

My language partner explained that đã will always appear after the subject and before the verb. Rồi always will appear at the end of the sentence if it used to indicate past tense. Rồi will appears in the middle of the sentence if it is joining sequential clauses.

One grammar point that I am having a lot of difficulty with are comparisons of adjectives.

• Như and bằng are equal comparison indications that can be paired with cũng for emphasis of the equal comparison. Như and bằng are completely interchangeable and are more of a regional preference. For the southern accent, như is more common but bằng is also used.

                Ex:          Cái túi nầy to bằng cái túi đó.                     This bag is as big as that bag.

                                Cái túi nầy to như cái túi đó.                       This bag is as big as that bag.

                                Cái túi nầy cũng to bằng cái túi đó.           This bag just as big as that bag.

                               Cái túi nầy cũng to như cái túi đó.             This bag just as big as that bag. 

• Hơn is used to indicate an unequal comparison where the preceding object or subject display more of some adjectival feature than the following object or subject. Hơn can also be pair with Cũng, but Cũng will indicate a similarity comparison to a previously established notion and will take on the meaning of “also”.

                Ex:          Cái túi nầy to hơn cái túi đó.                       This bag bigger than that bag.

                                Cái túi nầy cũng to hơn cái túi đó.             This bag is also bigger than that bag.

For the past weeks, I have continued to work on two things: reading comprehension and verbal communication. With the holidays quickly approaching and given my family’s tendency to get together during festive times, I thought that it would be a good idea to focus on practice conversations about my school work and future plans for the inevitable awkward interrogation that I will soon be subjected to. My partner would ask me a series of questions in Vietnamese such as:

• How are your studies going?                                         Học hành của con sao rồi?
• What are you learning right now?                                  Con đang học cái gì?
• What are you studying?                                                Con học về ngành gì?
• What are you going to do after graduation?                    Tốt nghiệp xong con làm gì?
• Have you thought about graduate school?                      Con có đi học cao học không?

And I would try to answer as many questions as fluently as I can. As expected, even with a peer, answering these personal questions are somewhat difficult to answer since I’ve never really articulated them in Vietnamese. Like before, I would switch to English to make myself more comfortable when it gets too difficult, but we would go over my answers together to make them more coherence and consistent. We found that I have a bad habit of translating English to Vietnamese while answering, and as a result, the answers can sometimes get lost in translation. I also translate questions from Vietnamese to English, which can sometimes dilute the meaning of the question if I mistranslate and I would end up answering a completely different question. I believe that the main reason I am having so much trouble with answering these simple questions is because I lack the vocabulary knowledge to not only answer but also to just comprehend the question. So, in order to fix that, my partner and I are working together to create flashcards of relevant vocabularies such as:

• Cao học – postgraduate
• Ngành – branch/department
• Tốt nghiệp – graduation

We are going to continue to conduct these interview-style conversations to make myself more comfortable with answering questions and make sure I comprehend the Vietnamese language rather than translating it to English and back. We will also add onto the list of relevant vocabularies as they come up.

At the same time, in my own time, I have been working on improving my reading skills. The book I have decided to read was Tây Du Ký (Monkey King: Journey to the West) by Ngô Thừa Ân (Wu Cheng'en). It is a tiểu thuyết Trung Quốc (Chinese novel), so it contains a lot of Hán Việt ngữ or Chữ Nôm (Sino-Vietnamese) vocabularies, which I am definitely not familiar with. As a result, my reading progress has been excruciatingly slow as I have to continuous stop and look up words and phrases every other sentences. I think the most pages I have gotten through in one day was 4 pages after hours of constant back and forth. However, I have found some success in remembering some Chữ Nôm through mnemonics, similar to what I use to memorize Japanese Kanji and Chinese logographic characters. It takes a while as I have to convert the Latin-scripted words into Chữ Nôm logographic characters, but I quite enjoy being able to apply my learning style from one language to another.

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For the past weeks, I have been focusing on learning Vietnamese grammar, especially classifiers. I found that similar other languages like English, Japanese, and Chinese most of the classifiers indicate the shape of objects e.g. "strand" as a classifier usually indicates an object that is thin and flexible such as hair or fur. According to Giang Pham and Kathryn Kohnert from the University of Minnesota, “Vietnamese has been reported to have as few as three words that arguably could be considered ['classifiers' to as many as 200].” For the sakes of learning one thing at a time, I have decided to focus on “unit classifiers” which are words or affixes that accompanies a noun to indicate the unit of said noun.

A few words I have picked up in the past week that can be considered “unit classifiers” are:

• cái                                                                   used for inanimate objects                                            
• chiếc                                                               used similar to cái                                                             
• con                                                                  used for animals and children
• người                                                              used for people
• bài                                                                   used for compositions
• câu                                                                  used for sentential constructs
• cây                                                                  used for stick-like objects
• chuyện                                                            used for a general topic
• lá                                                                     used for smaller sheets of paper
• tòa                                                                   used for buildings
• quả/trái                                                             used for round objects
• quyển/cuốn                                                       used for books
• tờ / trang                                                           used for objects made of paper
• việc                                                                   used for an event or a process

I have used most these words before in countless conversations but there are some that I know but do not ever use such as: lá, tòa, quả, quyển, tờ, and việc. An explanation for this is likely regional dialect and education. I was taught to use the southern dialect, so I suspect certain classifiers are simply more common in the southern dialect and therefore more comfortable for me to use. For things like books, I have always used cuốn rather than quyển, and for papers, I have always used trang rather than tờ, et cetera. The Vietnamese classifier system is said to closely resemble the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese classifier system in that the noun can often be omitted if the subject had previously been established.

Additionally, something that I found extremely interesting is cái – often used as a universal classifier similar to the Japaneseつand the Chinese 个 – is almost never translated when used because there is not really an English equivalent. I think that cái can be roughly translated to “it” which is not a classifier, but the word is general enough to carry the same weight as cái in terms of a definition. For example:

Con cần mua bút                                I (child) need to buy pens

Máy cái                                                 how many (of it)

2 cái                                                       2 (of it)

But of course, this excessive usage of “it” or “of it” would make any conversations or sentences sound unnatural and since there is no other English equivalent (unless one wants to continuously uses the noun) cái is usually dropped when translated.

 Another thing that I’ve learned in the past week is that there is a difference between “classifiers” and “measure nouns”. On the surface, they are very similar but they have different characteristics.

Vietnam is already world-renowned for its cuisine, particularly street food, so it is not surprising that Vietnamese drinks are also very popular and have a culture of their own, albeit not as globally recognized as other cultural aspects. In addition to street food stands, Vietnamese markets and roadsides are also home to a variety of street side drinks carts, roadside bars, and makeshift cafes.

One cannot talk about Vietnamese's food and drink culture without mentioning Cà Phê Sữa Đá [Vietnamese Iced Milk Coffee]. Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer. Initially brought into the country in the 19th century, coffee not only quickly became a daily staple but also a cash crop. Today, Vietnam produces more than 1.73 million tons of coffee a year. While Vietnam is the world's second largest exporter of coffee, bit primarily invests in the production of Robusta coffee.  Robusta coffee beans has about twice the amount of caffeine of regular coffee beans and strong taste as well as higher acidity. Authentic Vietnamese coffee is almost always drip coffee and is brewed using a Phin, which is a small cup with a filter chamber and lid to catch dripping coffee. It is then mixed with ice and condensed milk to counter the bitter and acidic taste of the brewed coffee. The drink is enjoyed throughout the day, despite its high caffeinated and sugar content, and can be found all over the country.

Another way to enjoy the bitter Robusta coffee is Cà Phê Trứng [Vietnamese Egg Coffee]. Cà Phê Trứng is made using sugar, milk, coffee, and of course, an egg. Milk and sugar are whipped with egg yolks and heated. Then coffee is poured onto the egg mixture to create a coating layer of foam. This type of coffee is primarily found in Hà Nội as it is not very popular among the southern Vietnamese population.

In addition to being one of the top producers of coffee beans, Vietnam also a producer of fresh fruits, primarily tropical fruits such as coconuts and oranges. As a result, fresh fruit juice is a staple in the Vietnamese daily life. Unlike the packaged juice in the west, however, the fruit juice sold on the roadside are made to order in that the fruit is cut and juice as needed rather than being prepackaged. A traditionally popular fresh drink, however, is nước mía (sugar cane juice) – a type of reed/grass. The stem of the reed is put through a compressor to extract the ‘sugary nectar’. The nectar is then mixed with the juice of a calamansi to make a sweet and tangy drink.

Finally, trà sữa trân châu or just trà sữa (boba tea) is a personal favorite. Although it did not originate from Vietnam, trà sữa is gaining popularity in the recent years among the younger population. The drink is a mixture of tea and fruit or milk, topped with tapioca balls (boba) or a variety of flavored jellies. The drink can be found all over the country, but most chains are primarily found in southern cities like Hồ Chí Minh cities near active night life areas and schools.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a festival celebrated notably by Eastern Asian countries. This festival is known by several different names: 추석 (Autumn eve) in Korean, お月見 (Moon view) in Japanese, 中秋節 (Mid-Autumn Festival) in Chinese, and Tết Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn Festival) in Vietnamese. The festival is held on the 15th day of August according to the lunar calendar which coincides with mid-September or early October of the Gregorian calendar.

The festival is often celebrated with lanterns – traditionally only red paper lanterns were used, but colorful lanterns that depict pop culture have been gaining popularity in the past decades or so. Traditionally, the lanterns are made of paper as a way to allow people to write riddles to be solved by other people. However, the majority of people have moved away from writing riddles in favor of writing their wishes and goals.

In Viet Nam, the festival is primarily celebrated by children. At night, they would carry brightly lit and colorful lanterns and participate in a group parade while donning masks. While traditional lanterns were handmade from paper, the rise of the manufacturing sector in Viet Nam created an abundance supply of plastic lanterns that utilize the images of internationally recognized characters and mascots such as Peppa Pig, Pikachu, Disney characters, Doraemon, Hello Kitty, et cetera. These modern lanterns are often equipped with popular musical tunes.

One popular aspect of the festival involves Mooncakes, which can only be found around the time of the festival. Typical mooncakes are round and bulky. They always contain some sort of sweet filling and salted duck egg yolks. Popular fillings include – the most common found – lotus seed paste, red bean paste, mung bean paste, mixed nuts, and – the least commonly found – black bean paste and date paste. Some regions of Viet Nam have also incorporated the infamous durian fruit as a filling into the popular snack. While they serve as a popular snack food, a single mooncake can contain up to 1,000 calories and, although small, is meant to be shared among family or friends. This is to symbolize the notion of reunion among people.

Another traditionally common activity during the festival is matchmaking and courtship. This tradition is believed to have originated in China with prayers to the moon goddess Chang'e. In Viet Nam, the tradition is more festive in that a carefully selected group of people are gathered to showcase their ability to sing or recite poetry. In each round, a girl and a boy will be eliminated until there is only one couple remains, which is quite similar to the concept of musical chairs. The couple remaining is given a prize and sometimes even matrimonial prospects. This practice is now less common in modern society and urban areas like Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi as people move away from the concept of matchmaking and courtship. However, this practice is still popular among the rural areas and indigenous people of Viet Nam where marriage is often arranged.

For our first meeting of the semester, my language study partner and I decided to just do a review of my language ability and create a new learning plan. We both agreed that I have definitely shown improvement in my comprehension of the Vietnamese language. This is likely due to the fact that over the summer, I had the opportunity to be able to work alongside many Vietnamese exchange students as well as the older Vietnamese population in my community. My hometown in Falls Church, Northern Virginia has a dense Vietnamese population that was the result of mass immigration during the Vietnam War era.

As many of the older people in my community generally do not have good grasp of the English language, I suddenly found myself forced into a situation where I must use Vietnamese to communicate with other people. Initially, I found the interactions to be extremely awkward, mostly because of the fact that I normally do not use Vietnamese to interact outside of my home (or in a classroom setting) and I was mixing up or just straight up forget a lot of words – or, more often than not, mix English and Vietnamese. However, the people were genuinely nice about my terrible awkwardness and some even offered to help me practice once they realized that I was trying to relearn the language. Due to the fact that the community is made of Vietnam War refugees, my community is comprised of mostly Southern Vietnamese accent speakers. As time went on, I was more comfortable with my speaking skill and I found most conversations I hold with people tend to flow quite smoothly.

My language partner pointed out that while I will probably need some more practice with speaking, I should not make it a high priority like I did last semester. Instead, he suggested that I focus on other things like critical reading and writing, which I wholeheartedly agreed. While my speaking and listening, skill have greatly improved in the last couple months, my reading skills are still elementary at best (considering that is where I left off anyway) and my writings is full of grammatical and spelling mistakes. So, we agreed that I should focus on improving my reading and writing skills this semester. To do that, I will start by reading middle school level literature and then write short summaries on the readings, which will then be checked for mistakes by my partner. This will help improve not only my basic reading and writing skills, but it will also allow me to articulate meanings in Vietnamese and help improve my critical reading skills.

Finally, we also compiled a list of activities that we could explore to help further develop my skills:

• Listening to music then write summaries & questions --> listening comprehension & writing
• Reading news articles then write summaries & questions --> reading comprehension & writing
• Dictation tests (weekly or monthly) --> listening & writing (spelling & grammar)
• Watching television programs then answer questions --> listening comprehension