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Elementary Vietnamese: Revised Edition

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As a non-Vietnamese speaking Vietnamese-American born at the end of the war (and ambitions to get involved in business in Vietnam in the future) this course has been a savior.

It's the best you can buy for learning the Vietnamese language. Other Vietnamese language `courses' found on Amazon aren't even in the same league with this one. Before getting this I ordered Language/30's Vietnamese and Vocabulearn's Vietnamese. In comparison these ones are jokes (the readers who gave them good reviews obviously haven't seen this course).

One caveat however. For this text to be useful the accompanying CD set also needs to be ordered. Unfortunately, I'm lead to believe this text is endangered of being put out of print because the publisher (Tuttle Publishing) doesn't even make the CD set anymore. To get the CD set (7 CD's for $135) you have to mail the author directly (Tuttle's number is given in the back of the book. Call them, they'll give you the author's address). Fortunately the author's very quick to mail the CD set- it took 3 business days to get from Cambridge, Mass. to Santa Clara, CA.

If you are interested in learning the Vietnamese language buy this text (with the intention of later buying the CD set). This course deserves to thrive and become the standard for learning the Vietnamese language. It should be the "Elementary Chinese" (a standard Chinese learning text) for the Vietnamese language.

I'm a teacher of Vietnamese and have been working for about 10 years in teaching Vietnamese as a second language. Otherwise, I'm a linguist who has several researches on Second language acquisition. The first time I had this book in my hands, I had a very good impression on the book: well designed, correct English, the author introduced as a professional in teaching Vietnamese.
It is true that the book has many positive points: instrumental words, such as final sentence particles, modal verbs, empty words have been clearly explained; the theories of Vietnamese pronunciation in the book show that the author has strong knowledges of Vietnamese phonetics, each unit has many exercises.

HOWEVER, in my opinion, it is impossible for learners to teach themselve with this book. Why?

1. The book focuses too much on Vietnamese linguistics. It's rather a Vietnamese linguitics textbook than a Vietnamese communicative language book. It's really hard for a normal learner (I mean "normal learner" is not a linguist") to understand phonetic definitions of the kind of "G is a velar voiceless fricative consonant" or "Nh is a palatal nasal consonant, which is created with the tip of the tongue being lowered toward the lower teeth and the back of the tongue rising toward the hard palate and contacting it: nha, nhờ, nhủ." And so on. So the Pronunciation session from page 17 - 42 is, in my opinion, a "headeach" part and ... useless.

2. Looking at the 15 lessons with 15 daily topics, it is easy to figure out that some topics can be used only for on-campus students: "In the dormitory"(lesson 10), "In the classroom" (lesson 9), "Getting acquaitanced in the classroom", and even in other lessons, words related to school environment are much used: student, professor, university, library, book, pen, teacher, class etc.

3. No sound distinctions of dialects. Vietnamese language is known as a language with many dialects, at least three main dialects. However, throught the whole book, I find rarely this important distinction. The language that the author uses to teach in the book is likely to be the Northern dialect. Many words, sentences, pronouns, expressions will be useless for those who go or live in the South of Vietnam.

4. The author is not conscient about language level. Especially in the part "Narrative", learners are submerged in a sea of new vocabulary and of Vietnamese expressions and structures, even in the first lessons of a beginning level book. For example, only in lesson 9, the Narrative talks about the University of Harvard with a lot, a lot of vocabulary that are NOT for beginning students at all! A waste of time and an useless resource!

For concluding, this book is recommended only for on-campus students who LEARN DIRECTLY with the author, NOT for those who teach themselves Vietnamese.

Please find my email in my profile if you want to discuss about this reviews. Thank you.

Dinh Lu Giang (Evietnam Group)

So far, this is the best book I have seen teaching the Vietnamese language. The first section deals with a highly comprehensive description of the sounds and syllable structure (based on Hanoi dialect). The description includes charts with IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet used by linguists) and linguistic terminology. Don't let this frighten you, because it explains what it means. The lessons, which are themed, are arranged in an easy-to-follow format: Dialogues, Vocabulary, Grammar Notes, Drills, and Excercises. There are also boxes which show you how to formulate sentences. This is definitely for serious students of Vietnamese. Also, since Vietnamese is a tonal language (like Mandarin and Swedish) it helps if you obtain the CD. The CD will also greatly help out in the pronunciation section of the book. Good Luck!

Although the other reviews complain of complexity, it is utterly necessary to learn the pronunciation. As far as the book focusing on the northern dialect, it is quite simple to change a few nuances to suit to a speaker of the southern dialect. I have studied Vietnamese for over four years, and owe my near-fluency to this book, and this book alone. There is simply no other learning material on the market today that is as thorough as this book, and the accompanying audio products. Keep in mind, however, that special attention needs to be paid to the pronunciation guide, and listening to the audio course and the pronunciation of the speakers. This aspect of the course is completely invaluable. The nature of the Vietnamese language is it's tonal characteristics; without them, a person trying to speak the language will not be understood. This book will definitely help you master the tones, so you may begin practicing the drills and learning the vocabulary. It is an indispensable course for those who truly want to learn the language.

As a language teacher with a Masters Degree in Applied Linguistics, I feel that this book is simply not worth the price. I haven't bought the CDs, as after purchasing the book I couldn't justify the extra $135 for the audio materials. Even barring financial considerations, I doubt very seriously whether the CDs would elevate its usefulness considerably.

The first section is devoted to Vietnamese phonology, and it does a fairly good job. If you have any background in linguistics, most of it will be quite easy to work through. However, most of this section relies entirely on the supplemental CDs to be truly effective.

The chapters follow a pattern. First, they introduce a conversation. Next, they give pertinent vocabulary. Following that are a series of grammar/usage notes. The chapters end with a series of rather repetitive exercises.

This book is almost certainly designed with an introductory Vietnamese course in mind. In a University setting with a language lab that offers the CDs for the students, and with a professor that uses the book as a jumping-off point, it would probably be a useful text.

However, as a self study book, it simply doesn't cut it. The book offers no answers to the exercise questions, and it doesn't provide nearly enough examples to answer the learner's questions. For one example, after scouring the book for the answer, I'm still not sure whether one uses a classifier with two nouns that have been joined with "va".

If you're interested in finding a far cheaper and more useful program, I would suggest Dana Healy's Teach Yourself Vietnamese. It is equally if not more comprehensive, it includes two CDs that help facilitate pronunciation and provide audio representations of the text's conversations, and it can be purchased for almost half the price of this textbook. For the motivated learner who is content to create their own written exercies, it is a far better choice.

If we assume that the price of this book is not merely $35 for the book, but $170 for the book and CDs, I would suggest an alternative. For just a little more money, one could purchase Teach Yourself Vietnamese for $25 and the GD305V talking Vietnamese translator for $234. (I purchased mine from http://www.aimhi.com) With these two tools, and given the amount of Vietnamese reading material on the internet, you will be far better prepared than by spending the required money on this book and CDs.

I am reviewing this book from the perspective of someone who used it for self-study rather than as part of a classroom course. I was very impressed with this book when I saw it in the bookstore, but after delving into it and buying the accompanying CDs, I found that I had made a mistake in choosing this book. While it may (or may not) be suitable for classroom use, I strongly advise against the use of this book for independent study for the following reasons: 1. The book is full of linguistic jargon which is unnecessarily complex and confusing. Terminology in plain English would have been quite sufficient and made the book much eaiser to understand and follow. It seems at times that Dr. Ngo is addressing his fellow Ph.D.s in linguistics rather than the interested student of Vietnamese, and the text borders on the pedantic at times.2. Entire chapters of the book are full of vocabulary and dialogues which are of no use to anyone but a college student, such as "In the Classroom" and "In the Dormitory." Topics the average person would need to talk about, such as shopping, eating out, and talking about the weather, are saved for the end of the book. 3. Vocabulary items are introduced in large quantities and often used only once or twice in the entire book, making it virtually impossible to retain them. A smaller amount of useful vocabulary, repeatedly reinforced, would have been much more effective. 4. The CDs which accompany the book (available for an additional $108) are, in my opinion, next to useless and could have been made drastically better with a minimum of effort and foresight. Two and a half of the 8 CDs are devoted entirely to sound practice, which is undoubtedly important in itself but certainly too much of a good thing in this case. The dialoges are read only once with no time to repeat the sentences, and the vocabulary items are likewise read only once with no time to repeat them. Most ridiculous of all, every page of the grammar sections of the book is read for the student on the CDs, word for word, in English (no, I'm not kidding!) as if the users of the book are presumed to be illiterate! Finally, the Vietnamese sentences on the Audio-lingual course on the CDs are often nearly impossible to understand simply because the rest of the CD does such a poor job of showing the student how Vietnamese is to be prouounced, so the student is hardly prepared to recognize a given Vietnamese word when hearing it. Quite honestly, after buying these CDs, I feel cheated. If you want to learn Vietnamese on your own, this book is definitely not the way to go. Don't make the same mistake I made.

I have been studying Vietnamese for seven years, and this is far and away the best text I have seen (and I have purchased every text I have found, in the U.S. as well as VN). It progresses very quickly yet not too quickly, and covers the basic elements as well as more intermediate level constructions. The accompanying tapes are essential. It is the northern dialect which, as in the U.S., the northerners believe is the "correct" pronounciation. But it is easier to learn the northern dialect and then learn the southern than vice versa. If I had to buy one book to learn from, this would be it.

I just bought this book after seeing the great reviews here. I think it's better than the other books I've seen but I'm still not satisfied. This is what I don't like: 1. There's too much time spent on pronounciation for me. Why? Because I don't want to learn the northern accent anyway. The CDs are said to spend almost half of the 5+ hours on just pronounciation alone. 2. There is a vocabulary section in each lesson but withing every lesson there are many new words presented for the first time in the middle of an exercise and not explained again. This is very frustrating when trying to find the meaning of a word. You have to keep searching the past lessons or the glossary in to translate in you've forgotten what something means. 3. Very few of the sentences are translated for you which may be good by making you think more as you work your way through the lessons but I think it's too much.
4. Although the grammer and word usage is explained very well I think it's too brief. Most of the lesson is concentrated on drills.

I really do think it's the best book but not nearly complete enough to forget the others.

Dr. Ngo's Elementary Vietnamese is quite simply the finest Vietnamese text book on the market. Period. As a Vietnamese Studies major I am familiar with a number of text books and am convinced that Dr. Ngo's text is superior to all others. Believe it or not, many Vietnamese texts date back to the 1960s. Dr. Ngo's text teaches the modern Hanoi dialect. If you intend to learn Vietnamese for business or study, this is the dialect to learn, and Elementary Vietnamese is the book to use.

Ok, the book is outstanding. But it's not very useful without the CD's which are only available directly from the author for $137 in the US. The same CD's are available to any Harvard student enrolled in his class through the Media Production Center at Harvard for $35. That's right: $35. If Professor Ngo really wants his book more widely used then he needs to take a reality check on the current pricing policy.