Are you working with a business partner in Vietnam? Do you have a relationship with someone in or from Vietnam? Would you like to travel to Vietnam or study there? Are you interested in learning more about contemporary Vietnam? Understanding and speaking the Vietnamese language and knowing something about Vietnamese culture can help you reach your personal and professional goals.
You are not the first foreigner to learn Vietnamese. In 1617, the Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina was the first European to learn the Vietnamese language and speak it fluently. He is credited with creating the first Latinised script of the Vietnamese language on which the modern Vietnamese alphabet is based. Since then, nearly a million Europeans and other foreigners have learned Vietnamese for a variety of reasons.
The Vietnamese language follows a system of rules unlike those of European languages. Some compare the language to birdsong because of its tonal variations. Learning Vietnamese is not as difficult as you may think. In Vietnamese grammar, there are no genders, no articles, no plurals, no verb conjugation and no tenses. The Vietnamese alphabet is written like the Latin alphabet in Western languages, which makes learning Vietnamese easier (for Westerners) than learning Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Arabic. The pronunciation of Vietnamese follows specific rules, and some sounds are similar to those found in the Danish language.
The instructor of the course is a native speaker of Vietnamese and can compare Vietnamese with English, French, and Danish to make it easier for you to understand. This course will help you practise speaking Vietnamese in typical social situations with a basis in cultural understanding. We will use Vietnamese humour to have some fun and help you understand how critical and witty the Vietnamese people are. We will also listen to Vietnamese songs and sing along.
Our courses are divided in different levels – read more about level description here: Level Description.
