Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Hello and welcome to Southern Vietnamese Survival Phrases brought to you by VietnamesePod101.com. This course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Southern Vietnam. You’ll be surprised at how far a little Vietnamese will go. Now, before we jump in, remember to stop by VietnamesePod101.com. There, you’ll find the accompanying PDF lesson notes and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment.

Lesson focus

Southern Vietnamese Survival Phrases lesson 24 - Riding the Rails in Southern Vietnam.
In Vietnam, riding the rails is one of the best ways to get around. Not only locally, but also for long distance destinations! In fact, traveling by train is one of the best ways to see everything in Vietnam.
In Vietnam, you can buy a train ticket at a ticket gate window, on the train, and at E-ticket agents. Local people can even book tickets on the Internet. Let's work on getting a ticket.
To ask for one ticket to Saigon in Vietnamese is Một vé đi Sài Gòn.
Một vé đi Sài Gòn
The first word, một, means “one.”
Let’s say it again, một.
một
This is followed by vé, vé, which means "ticket" in Vietnamese.
Một vé
Một vé
The next word is đi which means "to" or "to go."
So to recap here, we have Một vé đi…
Một vé đi…
Literally, this means "A ticket to...."
The next word is simply the name of the destination, in this case, Sài Gòn.
Sài Gòn
So all together, Một vé đi Sài Gòn.
Một vé đi Sài Gòn.
Literally, this means "One ticket to Saigon, please."
Now, if you want to buy more than one ticket, for example, if you wanted to buy two tickets, you can accomplish this by saying hai instead of một. Hai means “two.” Hai vé đi Sài Gòn.
Hai vé đi Sài Gòn
Let’s break it down by syllable: Hai vé đi Sài Gòn.
Hai vé đi Sài Gòn.
Notice that we simply substitute hai with một. However, just the destination may not be enough, as there are several types of seats on trains in Vietnam. There are hard seats, soft seats, hard beds, and soft beds.
Once we have established the destination, it is time to select the seat you want. In Vietnamese "hard seat" is ghế cứng.
ghế cứng
Let’s break that down: ghế cứng.
ghế cứng
The first word ghế means "seat" or "chair." This is followed by cứng, cứng which means "hard."
So to recap here, we have ghế cứng.
ghế cứng
Literally, this means "hard seat." This is the cheapest and least comfortable seat.
The next type of seat is the “soft seat” ghế mềm.
ghế mềm
We already know ghế is “seat,” so mềm is "soft."
mềm
mềm
ghế mềm
ghế mềm
This is more expensive and comfortable than hard seats, but you might want to get to sleep and in that case, beds are better choices. Typically, there are two types of beds; “hard beds” giường cứng and “soft beds” giường mềm.
Giường means "bed."
Let’s say this word again, giường.
Giường
So to say "hard bed," we would say giường cứng.
giường cứng
And for “soft bed,” giường mềm.
giường mềm
Hard seats are made of wood and really uncomfortable at times. You probably can’t stand it for more than 2 hours. So if you travel long distances, try a soft seat. If you spend the night on the train, try a hard bed or a soft bed. Soft seats or beds have more cusion than hard ones, so they’re more comfortable.

Outro

Okay, to close out today’s lesson, we'd like for you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for shouting it out loud. You’ll have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so, chúc may mắn, this means “good luck” in Vietnamese.
Okay, here we go!
“One ticket to Saigon please.” - Một vé đi Sài Gòn.
Một vé đi Sài Gòn.
Một vé đi Sài Gòn.
“hard seat” - ghế cứng
ghế cứng
ghế cứng
“soft seat” - ghế mềm
ghế mềm
ghế mềm
“hard bed” - giường cứng
giường cứng
giường cứng
“soft bed” - giường mềm
giường mềm
giường mềm
All right, that's going to do it for this lesson. Remember to stop by VietnamesePod101.com and pick up the accompanying PDF lesson notes. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. Bye!

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