Ka Leo O Hawaii

Issue date: 12/10/07 Section: Mixed Plate

Pho (pronounced "fuh"): (n.) a traditional Vietnamese garnished noodle soup

Most college students take a language course because it's a requirement and will often take the more mainstream courses, such as Spanish, French or Japanese.

Some students, however, have chosen the route of their background, where they are able to learn about the cultures of their ancestors. Out of the many languages offered at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, one language taken primarily for cultural purposes is Vietnamese.

Vietnamese culture may be familiar because of speciality food dishes, like pho, a traditional noodle soup, but the language of this Southeast Asian country is just as appetizing.

The Vietnamese language department at UH is small, but it offers beginning and intermediate Vietnamese to students who are willing to learn. It is designed so that students can learn to speak, read and write Vietnamese efficiently.

The language itself is complex. According to Kimthu Ton, a Vietnamese professor at UH, the Vietnamese language is a very tonal language.

"We have six tones in the language, and each tone is a different word and means a different thing; so, if you don't pronounce the word correctly, people don't understand you," Ton said.

In the Vietnamese language, the dialect depends on what part of the region it is from: the northern region, the central region or the southern region. Each region has its own specific dialect. In Ton's class, the students learn the northern dialect, which, according to her, is the clearest dialect of the three.

"The difficulty of the language comes from the abundance of vocabulary and tones," she said.

Sophomore David Pham said that what makes the Vietnamese language so interesting is its significant usage of accents.

"Our language is a little unique because we have different accents and variations between northern and southern and what's modern nowadays," he said.

During her years of teaching, Ton noticed an interesting pattern in students who were taking the Vietnamese classes.

"I start teaching here 22 to 23 years ago. At that time, the majority of students were Caucasian and most of them were graduate students, and they needed to study Vietnamese to do the field work," she said.

For the last 10 years, Ton noticed that the students taking Vietnamese gradually shifted to Vietnamese-Americans who wanted to learn the language in order to learn more about their culture.

For Pham, taking the Vietnamese language class would fulfill more than just graduation requirements. It is a chance to return to cultural roots and heritage.

"I want to be able to learn more about my culture and gain a better understanding of what my family goes through in their lives," Pham said.

Pham said that reading and writing Vietnamese is a big part of cultural identity "because both qualities help shape our way of thinking."

Many of the students taking Vietnamese are Vietnamese-Americans whose parents were born in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States.

"Most of the students want to be able to talk (in Vietnamese) to their parents," Ton said. "Those who already know how to talk, they want to know a little bit more by learning how to write and to read. And even further, they want to be able to go back to Vietnam and understand the country of their parents."

The class itself involves a lot of activities that focus on spelling and vocabulary.

"(The class) is structured so that you have a daily repetition of new vocabulary words," sophomore Sonny Ton said.

There are also exercises in translating in which a sentence is given in English and the students must translate in Vietnamese, or vice versa.

Kimthu Ton feels that the Vietnamese language is important, not only for its cultural aspects, but for its commercial ones as well.

"Vietnam is a rising country," she said. "Vietnamese will play a big role in the Pacific. And we are located just after the Pacific Rim. So Vietnamese will be a very important language to know."

Register for these classes if you're interested in taking Vietnamese language courses (a placement exam may be necessary, and these are non-introductory courses, so you may have to catch up):

84067 VIET 102
Elementary Vietnamese
MTWRF, 7:30 to 8:20 a.m.

84068 VIET 202
Intermediate Vietnamese
MTWRF, 8:30 to 9:20 a.m.

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