Speak Fluent Vietnamese in one year & Why Vietnam is Great for Business!

I have only 5 months to speak Vietnamese fluently! It’s impossible, right?! It’s been almost one year since I’d come to Vietnam and I cannot complain about how I feel positive when another Vietnamese person understands me. Just imagine a world where people understands you…

By the way, it’s not for free to feel positive! (Why? Continue reading)

If you don’t like reading, check my first video with the title “How to speak fluent Vietnamese in one year | Speed learning of Vietnamese language“

Why people are afraid of Vietnamese and quit learning it soon

What most of the people do, if they see a big obstacle? They usually run away. Why? They think it’s impossible to go over it in a short time period and they rather give up. If I am wrong, please correct me.

The Vietnamese language is one of the big (not an obstacle) portions or layers which person who is going to learn, need to uncover. It doesn’t have to be seen as big as it is, it always depends on how we want to look at it (not even Vietnamese language) and which strategy we will choose.

I would compare Vietnamese to Math from the perspective of European guy. Why? If anyone says Math, there is always a big fear behind it and less confidence in learning it, right?

But there are also other people (People are always the same) which we can take an example from, let say; them with opposite approaches.

We need people to be inspired and co-operated with (It’s not bad, just let our Ego disappear)

Those people are always looking for a bigger target. For example, they finish climbing one mountain (Mount Everest) and they want to climb a higher one.

I am not saying that both types of people have bad or even good approaches, they are just facing fear in their own way, so do I. They create solutions or excuses (I am going to write you some good and bad solutions from my own experience how to face Vietnamese).

Excuses why to not learn Vietnamese:

• The Vietnamese language is totally different and difficult compared to my mother tongue.
  • It sounds strange and the alphabet is difficult to understand.
• I might seem funny in front of other people when I start talking Vietnamese.
• It takes lots of time and why I should even invest my time in it.
  • I don’t have time I am too busy to learn it.
• I am not confident in talking (practice with) to other people at all.

Motivators for learning Vietnamese easier and joyfully

I will always find what I generally like in whatever field and what makes me happy and match it, in our case with the Vietnamese language:

• Being curious about other people’s life (It can be gossip if you like, but I always aim for their interests and jobs, what kind of tasty food they eat and where, how they live and what I can learn from them).
  • Of course, it’s difficult to get answers to that information from the beginning, but we can slowly get there by being curious. Let’s say, it is our small target (Ok it’s big, but challenge pushes you further)

For example, compare to Europe, the violence in Vietnam is really on a low level or they are really kind and they think more about their family than in Europe. Many things which we can benefit from and find out through language.

Hobbies and traveling are the best friends

• Doing photography, traveling and making videos – That’s a perfect idea to combine learning Vietnamese with putting yourself in front of the camera (You don’t want to be shamed, right?). And also traveling around small cities and villages in Vietnam, and be capable of easier navigation and connection.
• Learning in the team – I knew myself well that I don’t like to start something alone, at least something from the beginning. So I’d found a flexible person who can help me with Vietnamese, especially nice ambition Teacher for a long term, who can motivate me in situations when I cannot.

Let’s go back to our childhood, you don’t want to play alone, right?

• I love music – It was always my dream to learn to play on the guitar and sing. So why not combine it with learning Vietnamese. It’s a brilliant idea because the Vietnamese alphabet has different tones compare to other alphabets in Europe. You can go high, low, rounded and so on.

• Yoga becomes number one in my life – So I mentioned in the video that I took Yoga course (How to become Teacher in Yoga) 7 months ago and all the material was in Vietnamese. Besides Yoga lessons in Vietnam, especially in Hue. They are being taught in Vietnamese. Another motivation or impulse, why to start learning their language.

Apart from that I am building my own business in Vietnam and co-operating with Vietnamese people, I think those are the main areas why I can joyfully benefit and living a life without even noticing that I am actually learning Vietnamese.

Brain strategies for Learning Vietnamese Vocabulary

Now it’s becoming a harder part of Vietnamese language which is memorizing vocabulary. Because when you look at a word ”
Doanh nhân” which means “Businessman,” how would you remember it?

Difficult, right? I am not even talking about how it sounds, which is another magical part. So I’d been looking for a solution, I found a book called Unlimited Memory from Kevin Horsley. The author talks about how to use as many senses as possible while you’re studying.

Omg, I wish that I had found this book when I was in school

Use all your senses to remember vocabularies

For example, he describes; Imagine a car where you as a driver carries in some stuff, but not really stuff, you imagine stuff as things (you give them life) which you want to remember.

So we are continuing with our “Doanh nhân” who will be sitting next to us in the car (We are using imagination). We will give him a real name “Don” or “Daniel” (If you have a friend called Don, even better) and the second part of the word “nhân,” we can interpret it into a word “nun” and combine those meanings like “Don likes nuns.”

We should use funny and consequential imagination

We will add one more word “Nước chấm” which means ” dipping sauce.” So you can give the dipping sauce into Don’s hands while you are in the car (Nước you can remember as “nook” and chấm as “arm” – and say that Don has a bad nook around his mouth and all the dipping sauce is spilled on his arm).

Apart from learning a new language, you are training your brain (short and long-term memory) and story-telling. You can remember the limitless vocabulary.

I believe there are more strategies but this works fine for me. I even write it all on the paper in Vietnamese and try to memorize. By the way, don’t be limited by (your imagination) car, you can use your house, restaurant or office which you are very well familiar with.

Will it be useful to learn the Vietnamese language?

Oh f..k, yes! I will tell you some important numbers why I think is Vietnam good country to start something new (business or whatever you like):

• The population is 95 540 395 million inhabitants – As you can see from the graph picture 1, the population has dramatically increased since 2000. Mostly uneducated children or people who need to be looked after by educated labor from Europe. So that’s why many foreigners are welcomed to teach English or work in any other private or public sectors.

From 95 million people are 9.8%, poor people who live below the national poverty ratio. Just for the imagination, Czech republic has 10,58 million inhabitants.

Vietnamese’s economy has rapidly increased

• GDP (Current US$) is 244.948 billion in total – There you can see how Vietnamese’s economy has also rapidly increased since 2000. The strong Vietnamese’s demand for products and services. People have money and they’re willing to pay for good products. So If there is an idea from skillful people, he/she might meet the Vietnamese demand very well. If you are curious about GNI per capita, GNI PPP Country profile.

Gastronomy is a potential sector to set up your own idea (Hotel, Restaurant, Travel agency)

Tourism in Vietnam increases every year – As might, everyone knows who have been to Vietnam or live here, Vietnam is a popular country to see enormous beauties of nature and culture. But travelers from Europe are only 5.4% behind Japan 13.9%, America 13.4, Taiwan 30.9%, South Korea 27.4%, China and other countries. On the graph below, you can see a recent number of 1.32 million visitors to the date of July 2019.

source: tradingeconomics.com

So if you have a chance or you are seeking an adventure or business opportunity. Vietnam will welcome you with open doors. But be careful, there are different rules which you might need to learn and not complain.

Conclusion of the beginning of my new Vietnamese chapter

Of course, I could have continued writing about Vietnam for hours. I’ve been living here already 1 year. But I need to stop talking “sometimes” and start doing, right?!

The reason why I’ve written this article is to encourage people to try something else with their lives and maybe help other people. Why help other people? I know that we should help the first ourselves, but if there is someone, who is already there and has a great idea of how to create humanity products or “just” becoming a teacher here. It will be win-win for both sides, in beautiful Vietnamese’s paradise.

We are all teachers and students

By the way, a state of positive mind is for free of course, but we need to know how to get there. That’s a task for you and for me. I hope that you enjoy reading my article and see you, in another one. Namaste.