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Tips for your Vietnamese Translation Project

Vietnamese is the seventh-most spoken language in the United States – as many as one million people who are 5 years and older speak Vietnamese at home in the United States. In order to translate your communications to the Vietnamese community effectively, it helps to understand some history of the Vietnamese language and how the language is structured. We’ll also provide some tips on how to best use the language in your material.

The Origin and History of the Vietnamese Language

The Vietnamese language is part of the Austro-Asiatic language family and is related to Khmer (spoken in Cambodia) and Mon (spoken by the Mon people in Myanmar and Thailand). Out of all the languages in this family, Vietnamese has the longest recorded history and is spoken by the most people. Vietnamese has been influenced first by the Chinese, and then the French, as Vietnam was occupied or controlled by both countries.

The Vietnamese language emerged from the area of the Red River in what is now northern Vietnam. Much of Vietnamese vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese and was originally written using the Chinese writing system. In fact, Chinese was the official language of Vietnam for many years. The Vietnamese language was adapted to a Latin-based alphabet in the 17th century by European traders and missionaries.

In the late 19th century, when France invaded Vietnam, French gradually replaced Chinese as Vietnam’s official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as đầm (dame, from Madame) and va-li (valise). In addition, many Vietnamese terms were devised at that time for Western ideas imported through the French. Romanized script began to be used almost exclusively in Vietnam at the beginning of the 20th century. This simpler writing system was found to be easier for the general population to use.

A Tonal Language with Simple Grammar

The Vietnamese writing system today uses an adapted version of the Latin alphabet, with additional diacritical marks for its six distinct tones. These marks are essential for written Vietnamese because some words are identical but are pronounced differently and have different meanings depending only on the tone of the word. However, Vietnamese grammar is fairly simple and its sentences use “Subject-Verb-Object” order. Sometimes the subject or the verb is omitted when the context of the phrase or the paragraph implies them. Verbs are not conjugated, pronouns and adjectives are not declined, and grammatical distinctions are achieved through changes in word order.

Vietnamese vocabulary relies heavily on kinship relationships. This is often reflected in the pronouns which don’t always correspond directly to European ideas of pronouns. For example, the phrase in Vietnamese:

Anh yêu em.
Older-brother love younger-sibling.
can be translated as:
I love you. (male to female).
You love me. (female to male).
He loves her. (rare)

Vietnamese features many short words, and its grammar encourages reduplication, the repetition of a word or form of a word to increase or decrease the meaning of an adjective. All of this contributes to an expansion rate into English of about 30 to 35 percent. Because of the high word expansion rate, be sure to leave enough room for all material when you create a desktop published piece. Some of the best fonts to use when working with Vietnamese are VNI Times, and the old favorite, Arial. These fonts preserve those essential diacritical marks. When doing desktop publishing, using InDesign can prevent some of the most common problems found with accents and diacritical marks in Southeast Asian languages.

In Vietnam today, there are three mutually understandable dialects that correspond to regions of the country: the Northern (Hanoi dialect), Central (Huế dialect), and Southern (Saigon dialect) regions. These dialects differ only slightly in tone, pronunciation, and sometimes vocabulary. Also, when translating for a Vietnamese-American audience, be aware that some immigrants may react negatively to the type of language used in Communist Vietnam, so make sure that your translation team is very familiar with the Vietnamese population in the United States.

If you’d like more information about translating your project into Vietnamese, feel free to call your viaLanguage representative.


	viaLanguage Translation Articles Tips for your Vietnamese Translation Project Vietnamese is the seventh-most spoken language in the United States – as many as one million people who are 5 years and older speak Vietnamese at home in the United States. In order to translate your communications to the Vietnamese community effectively, it helps to understand some history of the Vietnamese language and how the language is structured. We’ll also provide some tips on how to best use the language in your material. The Origin and History of the Vietnamese Language The Vietnamese language is part of the Austro-Asiatic language family and is related to Khmer (spoken in Cambodia) and Mon (spoken by the Mon people in Myanmar and Thailand). Out of all the languages in this family, Vietnamese has the longest recorded history and is spoken by the most people. Vietnamese has been influenced first by the Chinese, and then the French, as Vietnam was occupied or controlled by both countries. The Vietnamese language emerged from the area of the Red River in what is now northern Vietnam. Much of Vietnamese vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese and was originally written using the Chinese writing system. In fact, Chinese was the official language of Vietnam for many years. The Vietnamese language was adapted to a Latin-based alphabet in the 17th century by European traders and missionaries. In the late 19th century, when France invaded Vietnam, French gradually replaced Chinese as Vietnam’s official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as đầm (dame, from Madame) and va-li (valise). In addition, many Vietnamese terms were devised at that time for Western ideas imported through the French. Romanized script began to be used almost exclusively in Vietnam at the beginning of the 20th century. This simpler writing system was found to be easier for the general population to use. A Tonal Language with Simple Grammar The Vietnamese writing system today uses an adapted version of the Latin alphabet, with additional diacritical marks for its six distinct tones. These marks are essential for written Vietnamese because some words are identical but are pronounced differently and have different meanings depending only on the tone of the word. However, Vietnamese grammar is fairly simple and its sentences use “Subject-Verb-Object” order. Sometimes the subject or the verb is omitted when the context of the phrase or the paragraph implies them. Verbs are not conjugated, pronouns and adjectives are not declined, and grammatical distinctions are achieved through changes in word order. Vietnamese vocabulary relies heavily on kinship relationships. This is often reflected in the pronouns which don’t always correspond directly to European ideas of pronouns. For example, the phrase in Vietnamese: Anh yêu em. Older-brother love younger-sibling. can be translated as: I love you. (male to female). You love me. (female to male). He loves her. (rare) Vietnamese features many short words, and its grammar encourages reduplication, the repetition of a word or form of a word to increase or decrease the meaning of an adjective. All of this contributes to an expansion rate into English of about 30 to 35 percent. Because of the high word expansion rate, be sure to leave enough room for all material when you create a desktop published piece. Some of the best fonts to use when working with Vietnamese are VNI Times, and the old favorite, Arial. These fonts preserve those essential diacritical marks. When doing desktop publishing, using InDesign can prevent some of the most common problems found with accents and diacritical marks in Southeast Asian languages. In Vietnam today, there are three mutually understandable dialects that correspond to regions of the country: the Northern (Hanoi dialect), Central (Huế dialect), and Southern (Saigon dialect) regions. These dialects differ only slightly in tone, pronunciation, and sometimes vocabulary. Also, when translating for a Vietnamese-American audience, be aware that some immigrants may react negatively to the type of language used in Communist Vietnam, so make sure that your translation team is very familiar with the Vietnamese population in the United States. If you’d like more information about translating your project into Vietnamese, feel free to call your viaLanguage representative.