'Overseas' Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt 'hải ngoại')

[dewdrops]

anhkhi you are right thanks English cũng có cafe ..chỗ uống cà phê

dethuong_x0x dew mới google nè ..hehehe

nếu dịch từ tiếng Anh (English) thì salad= gỏi ..nhưng nếu dịch từ tiếng Pháp (French) thì salade (plant) cây sà lách hoặc là gỏi ..

còn lettuce= laitue (lá sà lách)

//dictionary.reverso.net/french-english/salade

[anhkhi]

Salad là gỏi mà đâu phải xà lách
Xà lách = lettuce

Trong tiếng Pháp thì salade = có 2 nghĩa đó : "xà lách" (lettuce, một loài rau sống) hoặc "gỏi" (nộm?), tuỳ văn cảnh thôi.


EDIT : sorry dewdrops, I didn't see your answer before I wrote mine, cos I was still on the page before.
Finally I just repeat what you said

[anhkhi]

anhkhi you are right thanks English cũng có cafe ..chỗ uống cà phê

It also seems to me that Vietnamese write "uống cà phê" but "đi café". If so, the word "café" is borrowed in 2 different forms, one vietnamised (for the drink), and one in the original form (for the place), sometimes with the accent (café) and sometimes not (cafe).

Maybe similar in English, as you say : drink coffee in a café.
But not sure that English borrowed "café" from french. It may be the opposite, or maybe both french and english borrowed from another language.

[camtieu]

...When I was interpreting some executives in Vietnam, I got a lot of raised eyebrows...it was like I spoke a foreign language. It's YOUR language, use it properly!...

I am not surprised that people raise their eyebrows when you do the interpreting ...:-)

[anhkhi]

agree 100%. I don't use mixed words when I interpret. In fact, I don't even use words that are very common in Vietnam such as "OK", "internet", "fax" ...etc. They're destroying our beautiful language little by little.

When I was interpreting some executives in Vietnam, I got a lot of raised eyebrows...it was like I spoke a foreign language. It's YOUR language, use it properly!

I understand that there are borrowed words like "chemises" and "camion" when we didn't have so* mi & xe ta?i...but if we have it, use it!

I don't think that anything can destroy vietnamese language, or even make it not as beautiful as before. Up to me a language is something that always evolve, it's living, moving, changing. That is for me the beauty of a language. But I admit that it's just a point of view, and I can understand your own.

But there is something a little unlogical to me : you admit that words can be borrowed when the concept is new, and still has no proper word to name it, like sơ-mi. But isn't it the same for most of loan words? You were giving the exemple of phone which some Vietnamese use in Vietnam. But how would you want them to say instead? If they say điện thoại or điện thoại di động it's still a loan word. Why should Vietnamese borrow from chinese and not from english? If you really think that the beauty of vietnamese language is inside the thuần Việt, so you may try to find a proper word for phone, like máy gọi or máy nói chuyện xa cách nhau...

What you observe about vietnamese language is similar to the difference of language evolution between France and Quebec. In France some academicians try to create some neologism which sound french, but they are nuts and of course people are still using "mail", "fax", "tunning", "trekking", "camping", etc... they will never replace "mail" by "courriel", the neologism that is used in Quebec. It's just not the way we like to do. And it's fine like that. That's what will always make both France's french and Canada's french different, rich, interesting.

English speakers also use a lot of loan words, from french, spanish, and probably soon from chinese... Do they feel like english is going to be distroyed? I believe not.

[dewdrops]

anhkhi...in Australia they do not bother with the accent mark..hehehe cafe is just cafe..surprise to see you fluent in 3 languages?

languages do tend to borrow from each other..it just makes it more interesting to learn them..I love finding out where words come from..in this word the English must have borrowed from the Germans..as

kindergarten = garden for children (German).. kindergarden = pre-school (English)

[anhkhi]

Not so fluent, but just ok for normal communication.

we are on the same wavelength.

In french it's also very interesting to notice how much very common words comes from arabian language, that we use everyday, thinking that it's just genuine french...

Actually, the concept "genuine" is probably not relevant when talking about languages...

[dewdrops]

anhkhi glad you think so