Dialogue

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Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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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 8 - Can You Speak English? in Southern Vietnamese
In today's lesson, we’ll cover another extremely important phrase, "Can you speak English?" Using this phrase as opposed to speaking English at someone is important for many reasons. For one, if the party you’re speaking to doesn’t understand English, at least they’ll be able to understand what you are asking. Furthermore, it will show that you made the effort to learn even a little bit of the language. And for these reasons and many more, we’re going to cover this phrase.
In Vietnamese "Can you Speak English" is Có nói được tiếng Anh không.
Let’s break it down by syllable: Có nói được tiếng Anh không.
Now, let’s hear it once again, Có nói được tiếng Anh không.
The first three words, có nói được, is the start of a question and means "can you speak." Có and nói are both said in the rising tone, có nói.
có nói
This is followed by được, which is the falling tone.
So let’s say it again, được.
được
Let’s say all three words together, có nói được.
Có nói được.
This is followed by tiếng Anh.
tiếng Anh
Tiếng Anh literally translates to “language English.”
Tiếng is the rising tone and Anh has no tone.
So again, tiếng Anh.
tiếng Anh
This entire phrase is followed by không, a word that we should be familiar with by now.
Let’s say it again, không.
không
So let’s practice this entire phrase in two separate parts. The first part, có nói được.
có nói được
có nói được
Followed by the second part, tiếng Anh không.
tiếng Anh không
tiếng Anh không
Let’s practice the entire phrase altogether, Có nói được tiếng Anh không.
Có nói được tiếng Anh không.
Now, let’s try a different language. How about Japanese? The Vietnamese word for Japanese is tiếng Nhật.
tiếng Nhật
Let’s break this word down and hear it again, tiếng Nhật.
tiếng Nhật
So, to ask , “Can you speak Japanese?” in Vietnamese, you will say - Có nói được tiếng Nhật không?
Có nói được tiếng Nhật không?
As you can see, the word for the language changes, but the rest remains the same. So one more time, Có nói được tiếng Nhật không?
To simplify the phrase, you do not have to say không. So, if you just say “Có nói được tiếng Anh?” this means “Can you speak English?” but since Vietnamese is difficult for some, adding không emphasizes that you’re asking a question.
Nowadays in Vietnam, English is studied at school, so the number of English speakers is increasing; however, there are still many who don’t speak English. As you know, Modern Vietnamese is written in Roman letters, so it’s quite easy to look up words in a dictionary as well as read signs and menus.

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!
“Can you speak English?” - Có nói được tiếng Anh không?
Có nói được tiếng Anh không?
Có nói được tiếng Anh không?
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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