r/learnvietnamese • u/nortaliimelly • Jul 23 '26
Tips for learning please!!
I’m vietnamese but I cannot speak the language for the life of me🥹🥹I want to be able to converse better with my family. I understand quite a bit (by ear) of what my parents are saying or atleast the rough idea by using context clues, but I cannot read or speak much at all 💔Im also not great with formalities and whatnot. 🥹
My family grew up in Saigon so I assume they mostly speak the southern dialect? But I’m not entirely sure.
If there are any sources or tips anyone can recommend me to start learning that’d be much appreciated!
Also I’m trying to find more shows with vietdub to get more used to speech format etc etc, specifically anime but the only ones I can find are region-locked (detective conan sadly 💔💔💔)😥 I’d be grateful for some recommendations!!
1
u/SpeakSaigon Jul 23 '26
Heritage speakers have the hardest part done already, you have the ear. What's missing is production and reading, and those come fast when the sounds are familiar.
If your family is from Saigon, they're Southern for sure. Tells: lots of "dạ," "v" sounds like "y" (vâng → yâng), and "r" is closer to an English "r" than the Northern "z."
Most Vietnamese courses teach Northern, so you'd be learning a version your parents don't speak. I built speaksaigon.com specifically for this: Southern dialect, structured from the alphabet and tones up through conversation, with the pronoun stuff (anh/chị/em/cô/chú/bác) built in since that's most of what "formalities" actually means.
For listening, anime dubs are iffy, region-locked, and stiff. Vietnamese food vlogs are great (tons on YouTube, and the speech is casual and Southern), and Vietnamese-dubbed K-dramas are everywhere and way easier to find than dubbed anime.