"A-ha!" moments

The Vietnamese is coming!!!!!!!!!

No, this is not some grammatically-incorrect, culturally-inaccurate ode to Paul Revere. It is, instead, a declaration that I am, indeed, learning this crazy language! I am speaking Vietnamese. Bad Vietnamese, I must clarify, but Vietnamese nonetheless.

I am having conversations with people on the street. They are choppy, simple subject-verb-punctuation sentences ("Hey westerner, where are you going?!" "I go to eat."), but they are sentences no less!

I can order food, talk about the weather (so long as the weather remains hot or rainy, since those are the only two weather patterns I have learned to describe. Based on what I have learned about Ha Tinh and its weather, I think I will be okay!) and I am beginning to recognize questions ("Where do you live?" "What are you doing in Ha Tinh?" "How old are you?" "Do you speak Vietnamese?" "Do you want me to be your Vietnamese man?") and recognize when people are talking about the peculiar specimen of a white girl who is residing in Ha Tinh (key words include "22 years old," "America," and "very beautiful," which I have begun to pick out and understand).

I can ask how much something costs, and almost always understand the price after hearing it just once (for some reason, I am still having trouble confusing the numbers for 6, 7, and 8. Hopefully they will solidify in my mind soon). I am learning the names for foods, animals, inanimate objects, and feelings.

Again, all of what I am learning is simple, basic, and incredibly easy, so I don't want any of you readers to think that I am a language master over here. Because I'm not. I am just barely surviving and keeping my head above the water, but man, does it feel great!

I realized my newfound (or newly sunken-in) skills tonight when I went to dinner and ordered "mi bo," one of my favorite beef noodle soups (even better than pho, in my opinion!). "Mi bo" simply translates to "egg noodles and beef," so after I ordered, the woman at the restaurant asked to specify if I wanted stir-fried noodles or noodles in soup. When I realized, "I can understand that this woman is asking me if I would prefer my noodles to be in broth or to be stir-fried," I realized that the extent of my survival Vietnamese is, well, survivable!!

(A picture of the mi bo that catalyzed this whole realization! Boy, was it DELICIOUS.)

I get the sense that all of my "friends" whom I make here will want to speak English with me, since I am the one English-speaker in the entire region. People see me as a commodity and want to use me for what I bring to the region. For the most part, I am okay with this. Anyone with any degree of English background or training tries to befriend me so that they are able to practice on the one native speaker with whom they will interact all year. The happy benefit of that is that it relieves some of the pressure for me to learn Vietnamese. I am not saying this to make excuses not to try, because obviously I am trying. I am just realizing that I do not need to be perfect!

It appears that the extent of my Vietnamese that has been thusfar developed, and will continue to be necessary, is Vietnamese as it applies to ordering food and purchasing goods in a market. As soon as I narrow down my goal from "Learn Vietnamese enough to communicate with everyone in the country" to "Learn Vietnamese so that I can order a bowl of noodle soup, have some tailored clothes made, and exchange greetings with vendors on the streets," then the task becomes a lot more manageable and even exciting, instead of daunting and overwhelming.

Had my first day of teaching, and it actually went quite well. I am excited to work with my students some more and to have more first impressions, so I will refrain from writing my thoughts re: teaching until then.

More next time...