After almost two weeks in Vietnam my grasp of the language is still non-existent.\u00a0 Vietnamese is a very difficult (in my mind impossible) language to master, partly because it is tonal.\u00a0 A good example of this is the word “ba” which can mean three, grandmother, poisoned food, waste, aunt or any all depending on the pronounciation.\u00a0 It’s a language that makes you look extremely stupid when you try to pronounce something in, what you think is every possible way, the locals finally understand what you are attempting to evict from your throat and then repeat the word in a completely different way.<\/p>\n
One thing I love here is the translations to English.\u00a0 Some of the signs are excellent, so\u00a0much so that I have taken pictures of some of them….yes I know!\u00a0 I was sat in a Cafe in Hanoi yesterday and the menu was most appetising as follows:<\/p>\n
Chao Suon Heo:\u00a0 Pig’s rib gruel<\/p>\n
Chao Bau Duc Heo:\u00a0 Pig’s kidneys gruel<\/p>\n
Chao Trung Muoi:\u00a0 Salted Duck Egg gruel<\/p>\n
and my personal favourite……..<\/p>\n
Chao Tim Trang Ga:\u00a0 Chicken’s internal Organs Gruel.<\/p>\n
I ordered a bottle of Coke!<\/p>\n
One of the tourist places in Nha Trang had tours which were advertised as “Funny, differently” which sounded somewhat intriguing to me!\u00a0 All of the shops also seemed to have signs which said, “Sale Off” and then listed a percentage which didn’t really convey what I’m sure they meant!\u00a0 One of my favourite signs in Nha Trang was in a restaurant and read, “Squid and only squid!”.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most worrying English I have seen since I got here was when a slightly fuzzy-headed Zelma got on the back of a motorbike to head to the waterfall from Nha Trang.\u00a0 As I climbed on I noticed that the rider’s helmet read, “Enjoy your life” across the back which, I must say, didn’t fill me with hope!<\/p>\n
One saying that all the locals seem to have mastered is “Same, same but different”.\u00a0 This led to an interesting discussion about Communism on one of our tours.\u00a0 I don’t think the guide was very impressed\u00a0by the woman’s take on their saying!<\/p>\n
Vietnam is about the first country that I have been to where I don’t think that each child is a genius.\u00a0 I have this thing normally when I go abroad where I hear a child speak and think, “Oh my God, that child must be a genius, he’s only about 4 and he speaks French!”.\u00a0 I then realise that this is not -quite- as impressive as I first thought as the child is infact French, German etc.\u00a0 However in Vietnam it just sounds like all the children are talking jibberish; somewhat akin to their adult counterparts.\u00a0 Okay, I have just realised how amazingly un-pc this is sounding.\u00a0 Actually that should be in-pc, no actually p in-c.\u00a0 Hmmm, on that note I think I’ve said enough about the Vietnamese language.\u00a0 In all fairness if I could pick any language to be fluent in I think it might be this one as I haven’t got a cow’s chance in hell of learning it.\u00a0 Is that a saying or another one I’ve made up?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After almost two weeks in Vietnam my grasp of the language is still non-existent.\u00a0 Vietnamese is a very difficult (in my mind impossible) language to master, partly because it is tonal.\u00a0 A good example of this is the word “ba” which can mean three, grandmother, poisoned food, waste, aunt or any all depending on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}