English for the Vietnamese

My wife and I have just been to Vietnam in Nha Trang city where we were taking our holiday in Tropicana hotel, a very comfortable one with very friendly and nice personnel. The only problem for us was their insufficient knowledge neither of Russian, nor English. Their English was probably better than Russian but I’d rather prefer the other way round because the major part of their guests including us are from Russia. I cannot say that there was a complete communication gap between Russian tourists and the personnel of Vietnam because any lack of information could be compensated by gestures, intonation and evident situations but it would be better for all of us if the Russian people could speak either a little Vietnamese or English and the Vietnamese knew a little Russian or English.

I think that the Russian language is difficult for the Vietnamese but I am dead sure that the Vietnamese language with its six tones will be a real stumbling block for Russians if they try to learn a little Vietnamese. And not only the tones, the spelling is also very difficult.

As a compromise we both (both the Russians and the Vietnamese) should choose English as an international language.

I know perfectly well from my own experience that there are some objective and subjective problems on the road to better English because I have been teaching Aviation English to pilots and cabin attendants for more than 12 years and I have often heard them complaining that English is alien to them, English is strange to their ears and they cannot accept it pragmatically as a very useful common means of communication and so on.

I have to admit that we perceive things not only pragmatically but also emotionally. We have seen a lot of films about the Second World War and very often associated the German speech as something very unpleasant and even threatening, like a real scarecrow. The language itself has nothing to do with that but emotions are emotions, you cannot help it.

As for the Vietnamese people who could have also had their prejudice against English – I do not know. At any rate I have met only tolerant, calm, polite people in Vietnam who aspire towards better education which can help their economics.

There are also many people in Russia who aspire towards the same values.

So if we cast away any prejudices against any language and accept them only pragmatically as a very useful means of communication then we should improve our knowledge.

If we take such a decision that we definitely should learn at least one foreign language then we forget about any emotions and start looking for some useful methods and techniques which can help us to acquire a language.

There are many objective difficulties in this respect because languages have different structures and even different physiological features. One Vietnamese youngster at the reception desk in Tropicana was trying to master Russian sounds and asked me some questions how to pronounce this or that word but it was difficult because these Russian sounds were missing in the Vietnamese language. Sounds like hard SH or soft SH or Z and some other sounds were not perceived by him neither acoustically nor physiologically, so it demands training.

I asked very often my pilot students such questions – well, you are great patriots and you maintain that you love only your native mother tongue and you do not accept any other language, that’s all right, but imagine such a situation when a student either from India or from Vietnam will ask you to teach him or her your own native Russian language which you so sincerely adore then what will you do and how will you help them? Instead of a reply they only shrugged their shoulders because it is really a very difficult matter. Even if you know your mother tongue perfectly it does not mean you can teach a foreign student.

This is a matter of methods and techniques. I tried to explain to some Vietnamese girl at the reception desk how to master and improve her English using some typological features of the Vietnamese language and the English language but I will try to explain everything in detail in my next article.

To be continued Teacher/trainer Alexander Khodovets