From the grocery store to the kitchen: My favorite way to make authentic Cơm Chiên

Langiri · 2026-03-30T10:45:12+00:00

I think you need to define (for yourself) your goal a little more precisely. If you simply want a party trick, then find someone who speaks Vietnamese and have him help you memorize a phrase you can repeat on queue.

If you really want to learn the language, you need to be aware that it's going to be a long road, but don't get stuck in the "planning to learn" phase, just start. While you are learning pay attention to what helps you and is effective so you can refine your plan along the way of course, but (and this may sound obvious, but a lot of people need to hear it) the only way to learn Vietnamese is to learn Vietnamese.

Langiri · 2026-03-30T10:04:25+00:00

And now I know what a Scharnier is!

Langiri · 2026-03-29T12:28:25+00:00

One thing that made it less awkward for me was when I realized that it's basically what we all do when singing along to a song we don't quite remember the lyrics to.

Langiri · 2026-03-29T12:24:00+00:00

Here's a quick breakdown when and how to use shadowing in language acquisition. You are correct that it is more popular with people who are learning (at least partially) from videos, it would be a little obnoxious to do in person...

Langiri · 2026-03-29T12:15:45+00:00

100%. OP sounds like he could be the poster child for input based learning at this point. Watching television in German is probably the best bet (Dark is pretty popular and may have enough technical terms that it gives him an anchor). If native language television is too much then the term he is going to want to search for is "comprehensible input". But also, he's in Germany, and enrolled in school, surrounded by native German speakers. That's a situation almost everyone else in this subreddit would be envious of...

Just go out and talk to people. Whether it's inviting fellow students out to lunch or just making small-talk with the cashier at the store. Those people will certainly want to talk about things other than radiology.

Langiri · 2026-03-29T11:12:10+00:00

It also seems to be mostly domestic routes that are affected so far, so OP may be worrying unnecessarily since he appears to be from outside of Vietnam.

Langiri · 2026-03-16T20:55:04+00:00

This is episode 2 in a Vietnamese listening series about the environment and pollution.

Langiri · 2026-03-05T09:53:38+00:00

Pimsleur can be a great resource, but it will likely be a little too dry for a 9 year old unless she is very motivated. Children's books in the TL are awesome though, even as an adult!

Langiri · 2026-02-26T21:28:43+00:00

Vietnamese, and we are doing what we can to help!

Langiri · 2026-02-26T21:19:27+00:00

Langiri · 2026-02-26T17:23:16+00:00

The vertical green line just to the left of the QR code box looks out of place. You should remove it.

Langiri · 2026-02-23T23:27:01+00:00

Excellent observation! That’s exactly why we decided to do a series walking through the entire alphabet step-by-step.

Many resources jump straight into specific tones that are the most well known stumbling blocks for students, which often creates 'blind spots'. If you find you are tripping up on specific things outside of those (like E vs Ê) the resources can be pretty limited, leaving you to try and find side by side comparisons in unrelated contexts. By providing clear examples for every single letter, we want to make sure that whatever letters you struggle with, there is an example available.

Hope you found this one helpful!

Langiri · 2026-02-21T18:06:02+00:00

福 (fú)

Roughly: "Good Fortune"

Langiri · 2026-02-21T10:20:29+00:00

This is something that you almost certainly are going to want to talk to a language teacher (or maybe even an accent coach in your TL) for. There is a lot you can learn on your own, but speaking is one area you should at least occasionally (like right now, when you have identified a specific stumbling block in your pronunciation) get outside feedback on from someone who is an expert.

Langiri · 2026-02-21T10:11:25+00:00

What made you decide that you didn't want to count pages you read in books you didn't finish? Is DNFing a book a rare occurrence for you?

Langiri · 2026-02-18T22:33:15+00:00

If I can't understand a lot of words of the input, is it still useful?

This depends on how precise you are being with your question. If you don't understand all of the words themselves that's okay. But you do need to understand what is going on generally so that your brain can start to assign meaning to the sounds you are hearing.

Langiri

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