As preparation for my stay in Vietnam I switched my Duolingo to Vietnamese and was eager to learn. I practiced quite a bit everyday and felt like I made some reasonable progress over time. As soon as I arrived though, I realized that the locals could not even understand me saying basic words. I pronounced them so harsh with my German speaking background that for them it sounded like I would speak a different language.

Once I understood how important pronunciation is in Vietnamese and especially South Vietnamese pronunciation I decided to switch my strategy. I still did my daily Duolingo lessons but focused more on listening to locals, especially on how they pronounce the words I want to use on a daily basis. I realized that once the locals understand that you are trying to speak Vietnamese, they are helpful and even willing to repeat a word ten times until you can pronounce it correctly. If you smile when trying your best with your Vietnamese, you will get as much help as needed.

Every new word I pronounced correctly after a few tries I add to my phone’s notes and include the phonetic spelling based on how I just heard it. This proved to be the most effective way as now all the basic words I use are instantly understood by the person I’m talking to.

Besides the difficulties with pronunciation, it is surprisingly easy to order food no matter where you are. In such a setting the person you are talking to is kind of already expecting you to say certain things, therefore you can mostly even order in English, and it works like a charm. There I realized what kind of difference the setting you are in makes when trying to communicate.

Though it is not only the setting that makes a big difference but also the expectation people have of you. Mostly in Vietnam people expect you as a foreigner to speak only English as most people don’t bother learning basic Vietnamese for a vacation especially as it’s such a difficult tonal language. I therefore discovered that you must start the conversation with some basic Vietnamese and stick to it if you really want to learn something from the conversations. Once the locals realize that you know more than just one word, they are happy to teach you more, and even to challenge you with some tricky pronunciation.

Concerning overcoming communication differences, the easiest way is to just use google translate. If you download the language needed, you can even use it while you are offline, and it works good enough for everything. Though I have up to now not really used it often during my stay here as I love the challenge of finding a way to understand each other even if it is not through verbal communication. Nonverbal communication is such a powerful tool as you find a way to communicate what you want, without even saying one word to the other person almost every time. The picture I added here is a perfect illustration of it, I had a great and funny time communicating with this local man, even if it was not verbally.