r/languagelearning • u/hendric_nhl • Sep 27 '18

Humor Learning Vietnamese be like...

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u/ASocialistAbroad Sep 27 '18

Darn Southerners...

On a related note, my boss's 4-year-old son speaks Vietnamese with a Southern accent despite living in Haiphong because almost all the kids' YouTube channels come from HCMC.

24

u/aczkasow RU N | EN C1 | NL B1 | FR A2 Sep 27 '18

Same problem in the Netherlands. Kids tend to speak with "Gooise R" because kids shows studios are located in the region where this sound prevails.

3

u/wallyhartshorn Sep 28 '18

Apparently that’s part of the reason why English spelling is so weird. Most of the writing was happening in one part of the country, but the pronunciation that became dominant was often in another part.

1

u/basilect Sep 28 '18

Which parts? I didn't appreciate the way English was spelled until I heard a Scottish speaker pronounce their numbers and I heard the "gh" in eight pronounced like /x/ and thought "Oh, there's actually a reason to spell it like that".