Vietnamese lesson

Despite what you might have learned from the Vietnam War, this country can be divided into three regions, especially linguistically: northern, central, and southern (hence the three stripes on the old South flag). Although, if we really wanted to complicate things, there are many other dialects that I'm unfamiliar with, plus indigenous and foreign languages. But it's understandable that the northern (Bac) and southern (Nam) dialects dominate. The dialect of northerners is the usual form of communication among bureaucrats and politicians, based out of the capital Hanoi. I think Tieng Bac is also seen as the most formal/educated, as it's taught in Vietnamese-language courses.

In addition to being spoken in the south, Tieng Nam is the most popular tongue of Viet Kieu, which makes sense since most of them fled because of the fall of South Vietnam. I don't know too much about how the dialects work, but for some reason Tieng Nam is closer to what I speak, the central version. That's why I chose to intern in Saigon (though, ironically, most of the people I work with are from the north). People from the north and south understand each other just fine, but they don't really understand those from the central region. On the one hand I find that frustrating because if I improve my Vietnamese it will be somewhat useless, since I'll only be able to speak with people from Hue. On the other, I'll have an advantage if I improve enough to understand all three dialects, while most understand two. I think it's easier for me to learn their dialects than vice versa.

I don't know if the Vietnamese I already know is an advantage or a handicap. I once wrote an article about the hair salon Great Clips (yes, seriously) and a stylist told me that it was harder to train older employees because they'd picked up bad habits that didn't conform to the official Great Clips technique. I might have that problem. When I find new words, my experience makes me somewhat resistant to learning how northerners or southerners pronounce them; I'd rather first learn how my mom would pronounce them. But the experience also means I instinctively know a lot of the connotations of words and phrases, the kind of thing I can't really learn from a class.