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Introduction
When it comes to languages, knowing Vietnamese makes a huge difference in your dating life in Vietnam.
Not only does it help you avoid having to resort to only dating girls that speak decent English, which unfortunately is comprised of a lot of foreigner hunters but it also gives you access to a much larger pool of high-quality females.
Not only are these females much more beautiful than the girls you typically find dating foreigners, but they are also more suitable for being a girlfriend or wife.
But in order to have access to these girls, which most foreign men won’t have access to by virtue of not being able to communicate with them, you’ll need to know some Vietnamese.
Now before you start freaking out and saying how this is going to take you years of study to master the Vietnamese language, know this.
You don’t need to be fluent in Vietnamese in order to have access to all of these women, you just need to know enough so that you can communicate with them.
And you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to get to that point where you can communicate with Vietnamese girls.
Today I’m going to share with you several tips and strategies that I personally used that helped me learn Vietnamese quickly and gave me access to a much larger pool of women in a relatively short period of time.
Vocabulary Vocabulary Vocabulary
When I first started learning Vietnamese, I didn’t even bother learning how to read or write.
Instead, I focused strictly on building up my vocabulary bank immediately.
Every day I would spend about 15-20 minutes or so learning between 5-10 new words.
Now the reason why I only focused on learning 5-10 new words each day was that I did not want to suffer from information overload.
If I tried to learn too many words all at once, I would oftentimes forget 90% of the words.
Now, this may not seem like much at first, but over time you rack up quite a large vocabulary bank at your disposal.
This means that after 1 month you now know between 150-300 new words.
3 months? 450-900 new words.
6 months? 900-1800 new words.
1 year? 1800-3600 new words.
According to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), someone with an A1 level of the CEFR will be able to:
- Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type.
- Can introduce themselves and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people they know and things they have.
- Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.
Getting to this level will require having a vocabulary bank of about 500-600 words.
This means once you start hitting mid-3 figures is when you can start having a basic conversation and start understanding people.
You can get to this level within a few months of dedicated study.
Doesn’t sound too bad right?
Now, of course, if you can afford to spend more time, you’ll likely pick up Vietnamese even faster.
But at the minimum, I would recommend that you dedicate at least 15-20 minutes each day to learning Vietnamese.
Do you think you can commit to spending about 20 minutes each day learning 5-10 new Vietnamese words?
This shouldn’t be too hard for most people if you plan it out.
Personally, I dedicate 20 minutes every night right before I go to bed to study 5-10 new words.
Focus on Speaking
Focus on speaking when you’re first starting out.
Don’t spend too much time learning reading or writing in the beginning.
Your job isn’t to become fluent in Vietnamese nor to apply for jobs here in Vietnam, It’s to be able to communicate with Vietnamese girls.
Being able to speak with and communicate with someone outside is much more practical than learning how to write or read when you first start out and it gives you more motivation to continue learning Vietnamese.
Don’t worry about reading or writing at the beginning, because I can tell you through my own experience that you’ll naturally start picking up reading and writing skills as well through text exchanges with girls after you’ve gotten their numbers.
That’s how I learned to read and write over time.
I actually commit very little time to learning how to formally read and write.
Instead, I learned how to read and write by doing it through text exchanges with girls.
Over time you’ll naturally learn words through repeated exposure and learning how to compose sentences through your interactions with girls.
In addition, girls will oftentimes help correct any mistakes you make when you text them.
Lastly, you can also use google translate on your phone to help you text girls.
Your time in the beginning should be focused on speaking!
Apply What You Just Learned Immediately
If you don’t apply what you’ve learned, you will eventually forget it all, that’s why it’s imperative that you immediately start using the words that you’ve learned.
This is the difference between learning passively vs actively.
Studies have actually demonstrated that students learn more when they actively participate in their classroom as well.
When you’re listening to a podcast or video, don’t just listen to it and then move on, actually repeat the words out loud so you can practice speaking the words and imitate how native speakers pronounce words.
If you just sit there listening to new words without practicing them, I can guarantee you’ll forget most of the words.
Furthermore, look for opportunities to practice with someone, preferably a native Vietnamese speaker.
Over time as you practice using the vocabulary that you’ve learned, you’ll be better able to utilize it in a sentence and also respond back to people much quicker.
In fact, you’ll find yourself automatically replying back to questions from people soon enough after you’ve gotten enough exposure and practice with certain words and sentences.
Don’t Worry About Grammar
Don’t worry too much about grammar in the beginning.
You’re not submitting an essay to be graded by a teacher.
And in most cases, girls will be more than happy to help correct your grammar.
Furthermore, you’ll be delighted to know that, unlike English which has a whole slew of different grammar rules that are enough to even confuse a native speaker, the grammar rules in Vietnamese is much simpler.
It’s basically comprised of:
Subject + Verb + Object (or SVO for short)
Don’t worry too much about the other grammar rules because you’ll naturally pick it up through conversing with people here.
There’s really no need to memorize a tonne of different grammar rules that will only confuse you.
A lot of Vietnamese learners make this mistake when they are learning English.
Rather than focusing on the critical and practical stuff, they spend all their time focused on grammar rules and as a result of this, can’t even speak English after spending years studying English.
Tones
The bane of a foreigner’s existence.
The hardest part of learning Vietnamese for most foreigners is the tones and pronunciation.
There are 6 different tones if you’re studying the Northern accent and 5 if you’re studying the Southern accent.
Don’t bother with the central accent, it’s a waste of time as most people use either the northern or southern accent in Vietnam and a lot of people from the central regions actually know how to speak either one of these two accents as well.
Again don’t spend too much time trying to master tones at the beginning as you’ll naturally pick up how to pronounce certain words after repeated exposure to them from your interactions with people here.
Immerse Yourself in Vietnamese Media
If you want to learn quickly and also see how locals speak then make sure you try to immerse yourself in Vietnamese media.
This is especially important if you don’t live in Vietnam and aren’t in a Vietnamese-speaking environment.
This is how I’m able to continue maintaining and even improving my Vietnamese when I’m outside of Vietnam.
To start off, I recommend going on YouTube and checking out several Vietnamese-speaking channels that have subtitles in their programming.
As an added bonus, you’ll also learn more about Vietnamese culture by immersing yourself in Vietnamese programming.
This will give you an extra edge when you’re courting women that most other foreign men won’t have at their disposal.
Watch YouTube Channels Teaching Vietnamese
To help you improve your Vietnamese I recommend regularly watching YouTube videos teaching Vietnamese such as the following channels. You can learn a tonne of Vietnamese by simply watching these free YouTube tutorials.
(Southern Accent)
(Northern Accent)
Not only will you increase your vocabulary, but you’ll improve your pronunciation, grammar, and listening skills as well.
Get a Vietnamese Tutor
If you can afford it then I highly recommend getting yourself a Vietnamese tutor.
This will help greatly speed up your learning process.
And the thing is, Vietnamese tutors are not cost-prohibitive at all.
In fact, back when I was first starting out learning Vietnamese, I paid around $12 per hour with a private tutor and only took lessons once per week, which allowed me to get to a lower intermediate level within 4-6 months of study.
This meant that I was able to date and communicate with most Vietnamese girls on basic things like:
- introductions
- asking for directions
- ordering food
- conversing with them in basic situations
That’s like $48 bucks a month!
Most people spend way more than that on a weekend out.
Why not spend that money instead on developing yourself?
If you’re interested in studying 1-on-1 with a private Vietnamese teacher then I recommend you use italki which is a language learning company that provides 1-1 tutoring services.
Unlike some of the other companies out there where you can’t really pick your teacher, at italki, you can view introduction videos of each teacher, as well as scheduling and studying with multiple teachers at once before deciding on one that you like as you only pay per a lesson.
At the time of writing this post, there are over 150 Vietnamese teachers for you to choose from, which is quite a lot!
Also if you’re price sensitive, I’ve seen tutors charging as low as $5-7 per a lesson on italki which is like nothing.
If you’re on a budget then I recommend in the beginning to take tutoring lessons for the first 4-6 months and then scale back the tutoring once you’ve built up a decent vocabulary bank and speaking skills.
This should be more than enough time to learn all of the basics and then if you decide you want to continue improving your Vietnamese you can continue taking more lessons.
If you’re interested in studying with a tutor then I have a discount code below that you can use that will get you an additional $10 italki credit after you’ve spent at least $20 in italki credits.
Books & Podcasts
You may also want to use additional resources such as books and podcasts to aid in your learning at the beginning.
Back when I was first getting started, I used a few books to help me build up that vocabulary and was subscribed to a monthly podcast from the same school where I was studying Vietnamese.
Both of these helped quite a bit, and I do recommend incorporating them into your learning at the beginning.
However, once you’ve gotten to a certain level eg. intermediate/upper intermediate, I found them less effective vs the other methods that I mentioned here.
If you prefer to study using books then here is a list of books that I recommend:
If you’re a beginner just starting out then I highly recommend this book, especially if you want to learn the Southern accent. The book teaches you all of the fundamentals and is very easy to follow. They also sell an audio cd as well that accompanies the book.
This is a phrasebook and dictionary that will come in handy on your travels to Vietnam. It’s perfect for when you want to quickly reference something.
Now if you’re more of the type that prefers to learn through podcasts and listening to someone as opposed to reading about it then Pimsleur is a good choice. There are 5 units in this first module and they teach with the Northern accent.
Conclusion
While learning a new language might seem intimidating for a lot of people, and they worry that they won’t get good enough at a language despite pouring time and resources into learning it.
It doesn’t have to be.
When it comes to mastering a language, it’s more a matter of how effectively you study it rather than how long you’ve been learning it that matters.
If you incorporate and follow these tips & strategies that I’ve shared with you today, not only will you greatly speed up how quickly you’ll be able to communicate in Vietnamese but you’ll also have access to a much larger pool of women that most foreign guys won’t have access to.
Learning Vietnamese is a commitment but the rewards more than makeup for it.
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