Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Becky: Hi everyone, and welcome back to VietnamesePod101.com. This is Beginner Season 1 Lesson 8 - What's Your Favorite Vietnamese Food? Becky here.
Huyen: Xin Chào. I'm Huyen.
Becky: In this lesson you’ll learn how to express likes and dislikes. The conversation takes place at a supermarket.
Huyen: It's between Nam and Mai.
Becky: The speakers are husband and wife, so they’ll be using informal Vietnamese. Okay, let's listen to the conversation.

Lesson conversation

Mai: Tối nay em nấu phở nhé.
Nam: Anh không thích ăn phở lắm. Em nấu cơm đi.
Mai: Vậy mua thịt bò về xào hành tỏi nhé.
Nam: Ừ được đấy. Anh thích ăn thịt bò.
Mai: Ăn bắp cải luộc nữa nhé. Trời nóng thế này ăn rau luộc cho mát nhỉ.
Becky: Listen to the conversation one time slowly.
Mai: Tối nay em nấu phở nhé.
Nam: Anh không thích ăn phở lắm. Em nấu cơm đi.
Mai: Vậy mua thịt bò về xào hành tỏi nhé.
Nam: Ừ được đấy. Anh thích ăn thịt bò.
Mai: Ăn bắp cải luộc nữa nhé. Trời nóng thế này ăn rau luộc cho mát nhỉ.
Becky: Listen to the conversation with the English translation.
Mai: I will cook Vietnamese rice noodles for dinner, ok?
Nam: I don't like phở much. Cook rice, honey.
Mai: So let's buy beef and make stir fried beef with onion and garlic.
Nam: Sounds good. I like beef.
Mai: Let's make boiled cabbage too. Boiled vegetables will cool us down in such hot weather.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Becky: Speaking of rice noodles and rice, I heard someone say “The wife is rice” once. What does it mean?
Huyen: Oh, it’s a Vietnamese joke about a husband and wife. In Vietnamese, it is vợ là cơm which literally means "The wife is rice."
Becky: Hmm.. why is the wife referred to as “rice”?
Huyen: Vietnamese people eat rice every day, so rice is essential. As it is, a wife is also essential and a very important person in the family, so that’s the reason for the saying.
Becky: I see. There’s actually a little more to this saying, which you can find out about in the lesson notes. Please check them out if you’re interested. Okay, now onto the vocab.
VOCAB LIST
Becky: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is..
Huyen: nấu [natural native speed]
Becky: to cook
Huyen: nấu[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: nấu [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Huyen: Phở [natural native speed]
Becky: pho, Vietnamese noodles
Huyen: Phở[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: Phở [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Huyen: cơm [natural native speed]
Becky: rice
Huyen: cơm[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: cơm [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Huyen: mua [natural native speed]
Becky: to buy
Huyen: mua[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: mua [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Huyen: thịt bò [natural native speed]
Becky: beef
Huyen: thịt bò[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: thịt bò [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Huyen: xào [natural native speed]
Becky: to stir-fry
Huyen: xào[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: xào [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Huyen: hành tỏi [natural native speed]
Becky: onion and garlic
Huyen: hành tỏi[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: hành tỏi [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Huyen: được đấy [natural native speed]
Becky: that's fine
Huyen: được đấy[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: được đấy [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Huyen: bắp cải [natural native speed]
Becky: cabbage
Huyen: bắp cải[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: bắp cải [natural native speed]
Becky: And last....
Huyen: luộc [natural native speed]
Becky: to boil
Huyen: luộc[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Huyen: luộc [natural native speed]
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Becky: Let's have a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is..
Huyen: nấu
Becky: meaning "to cook." Can we use this verb with any type of food?
Huyen: You can use this word for any cooked food, except for cake, or bánh, or sushi which is su-si in Vietnamese. With cake, you use a different verb, làm, meaning “to make” and say làm bánh.
Becky: “To make a cake.” And it seems sometimes people use the verb meaning “to eat” along with this word.
Huyen: That’s right. We put the two verbs nấu meaning “to cook” and ăn which means “to eat” together and say nấu ăn.
Becky: Then it becomes the noun meaning “cooking.”
Huyen: That’s right. For example, you can say.. Tôi thích nấu ăn.
Becky: “I love cooking.”
Huyen: Or if you use nấu as a verb, you can say.. Tôi đang học nấu súp gà.
Becky: ..which means "I'm learning how to cook chicken soup." Okay, what's the next word?
Huyen: xào
Becky: It means "to stir-fry." It’s a very common cooking activity in Vietnam. People stir-fry all kinds of things, so you can find this single word representing the activity.
Huyen: That’s right. I think our listeners will hear this word a lot in the name of foods.
Becky: Right. For example.. “stir-fried beef with potatoes” will be..
Huyen: thịt bò xào khoai tây.
Becky: The word order is literally “beef, stir-fried, potatoes” right?
Huyen: That’s right. First we have the word thịt bò meaning “beef.” You can put one of the ingredients here, usually the main one. Then we have the word xào meaning “to stir fry.” It’s followed by the other ingredient khoai tây meaning “potatoes.”
Becky: Okay, now onto the lesson focus.

Lesson focus

Becky: In this lesson you’ll learn how to discuss likes and dislikes.
Huyen: For this, you can use the verb thích which means “to like.”
Becky: I think the sentence structure is the same, right?
Huyen: That’s right. As in English, you can put this verb thích between the subject and the object.
Becky: Okay. Then how can we say.. “I like roses” in Vietnamese?
Huyen: Hoa hồng is the word meaning “roses” so you can say.. Tôi thích hoa hồng. It has the subject Tôi meaning “I,” the verb thích meaning “to like,” and the object hoa hồng meaning “roses.”
Becky: It’s simple. Use the subject, the verb meaning “to like” and the object. What if I want to say I don’t like something?
Huyen: It’s also simple. Just add không before the verb thích and say không thích.
Becky: It means “don’t like.”
Huyen: Using this verb, you can say.. Tôi không thích hoa hồng.
Becky: “I don’t like roses.” Okay, then what if I want to say “I like DOING something.”
Huyen: In that case, you can simply add the other verb after thích.
Becky: Okay, then how can we say.. “I like learning English.”?
Huyen: học is the verb meaning “to learn”, and if you add it after the verb thích and say thích học, it means “to like learning.”
Becky: So we can say “I like learning English.” In Vietnamese.
Huyen: Tôi thích học tiếng Anh. Here we have Tôi, the subject for “I,” and thích, the verb meaning “to like.” It’s followed by the other verb học, meaning “to study,” and the object tiếng Anh, meaning “English.”
Becky: I see. And sometimes this verb can be used as an adverb, right?
Huyen: That’s right. For example, we have some phrases like Trông thích quá!
Becky: Which means “looks great.”
Huyen: And you can see that Trông thích quá! uses the verb thích which means “to like.” With that, the literal translation of the entire expression Trông thích quá is “looks so like.”
Becky: But it can be used to mean “looks great.”
Huyen: That’s right. So when you hear Trông thích quá! don’t worry about the literal meaning of the word thích and understand the entire expression as “looks great.”

Outro

Becky: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye!
Huyen: Cảm ơn các bạn.

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