Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Vietnamese Dictionary Phrasebook 3 (Rough Guide Phrasebooks)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is good for learning basic Vietnamese vocabulary for the price and size.

However, I found a few grammatical mistakes.

And the pronunciation instructions are horrible. For example, I don't understand why all the beginning c is instructed to pronounce as g. In fact the c sounds k. The pronunciation of "cam on", thanks in English, is shown [gam urn]. If you say like this, Vietnamese people never understand you. I have tried it already. My husband is a Vietnamese who speaks tieng Viet.

This phrase and dictionary for Viet Nam has been invaluable to me during my 11 trips to Viet Nam. I lost it once and truly I was lost without it. The Lonely Planet version is more popular, but for me far less useful. It gave me the courage to try to conversion with the people when I first went and has helped me develop a fair size vocabulary. The cultural information is also unbelievable helpful especially for first trips to Viet Nam.

The only down side is that most of the pronouciation guide is based on Vietnamese from the southern part of Viet Nam, but it does mention how to adapt. I would not go to Viet Nam without it.

I didn't get too deep into this book . . . after a few days of trying, I couldn't get anybody to understand me with even simple things such as "thank you". Most of that is undoubtedly on me, I was not good at the pronunciation. But of course, that's why I got the book, and it didn't help.

After looking at the pages that are available, I'd say you'd be better off showing your intended audience the pages rather trying to say them as the instructions are terrible.
I give the book 3 stars instead of 1 because its size is convenient for traveling, and it does have what you need in case you're lost somewhere.

I compared this Vietnamese phrasebook to others. It has accurate pronunciations and is my first choice.

You can easily get by in Vietnam using Enlish and a few Vietnamese phrases. If you're planning an extended stay, it's probably better to properly learn Vietnamese.

I usually don't bother to review things unless they are an outlier to my expectations, which this book was. I'm actually in Vietnam now, and I have not cracked this thing once. Of the 250 pages in the book, the only phrasebook part of it was pp 13-27. The rest of it is a dictionary with a menu reader at the end. Not recommended unless you are looking for a dictionary.

I bought this book along with The Oxford Picture Dictionary: English-Vietnamese Editon by Norma Shapiro and Jayme Adelson-Goldstein to brush up on my Viet. From that perspective, I would recommend this book. I do not think that this book alone would be adequate though. But it would make a good companion to a lengthier reference.