Crank Those Tunes, Eat That Phở and Master A New Language OK, so you’ve got Vietnamese buddies, a significant other or just a burning desire to experience a new culture.  Something about this Southeast Asian culture intrigues you, and you think you might like to learn the language.  But there are no classes in it near you, and even if there were – you have the creepy feeling that if high school French was hard… So, what’s a motivated adult language learner to do?  How can you assure success in such a hard language? Well, first things first: contrary to what you may have been led to believe, Vietnamese is not a hard language!  Yes, yes: it has very few words in common with English (like next to none).  True, it’s the tongue of a third world Southeast Asian people.  It’s tempting to think that Vietnamese might be too strange for a Westerner to learn.  Tempting, but wrong. You see, though Vietnamese is indeed very different from English, these differences need not pose any greater challenge than those of, say French or Spanish.  For while those languages look like they’ve got lots of words in common with us, false cognates (words like embarrasada, the Spanish word for pregnant) cancel out much of the supposed lead learners of these languages expect in the informal race they seem to think they’re running against learners of “harder” tongues.  Even the State Department makes the mistake of saying it’ll take longer to learn a “difficult” language like Vietnamese.  The truth is: while you may start out learning another language more easily, mastering it will take about the same time Vietnamese will, and will end up being just as hard. Vietnamese word and sentence structure are much easier than those of English, and their words are shorter than ours, are written exactly as they’re pronounced and come from far fewer source languages.  And while Vietnamese culture and society might seem alien to us at first, you will learn them in time – if you really want to. Perhaps that’s what it’s all about: wanting to learn badly enough to do what it takes.  Wanting it badly enough to take your language studies out of the classroom and onto the streets.  At that level, you can’t avoid learning the language!  Sure, it will take time.  No, it won’t be a cake walk.  But nothing worth doing is easy, right??  Like any other performance skill, speaking and understanding Vietnamese are things you must practice until you get good at them. So, how can you find the time to get enough practice into your busy life?  Well, you have to stop “studying” Vietnamese and start living it.  What does “living” a foreign language mean?  It means doing as much of your life in Vietnamese as you can, even though at first you won’t understand very many of the actual words.  In the beginning, all you may recognize is your name and the warm feelings people will shower you with for even trying to learn their language.  As your vocabulary grows, you’ll develop and stay firmly rooted in authentic speech habits (that is, talk the way the people around you do and not like a textbook) because you cut your teeth on the same words and phrases Vietnamese babies and children hear around them.  More importantly, you will know how the people who speak your second language think and behave, and will thus be able to keep the words and sentences you learn grounded in their proper contexts.  There simply is no better way of learning a language than using it in as much of your day to day life as you can. Just think about all your daily activities as opportunities to flex your newfound Vietnamese muscles.  Even if you live in an area with a small Vietnamese population, you can still get them to role play various real life situations with you.  If you’re near a Vietnamese business district of any size, it’s even easier.  Then you don’t even have to be limited to your personal contacts.  Instead you can:   Go to a Vietnamese video store instead of blockbuster Get change from a Vietnamese bank teller in your local bank branch Buy a Vietnamese newspaper and take note of the headlines of the day Get quality clothes custom made at a fraction of the cost your neighbors pay, and conduct the whole transaction bằng tiếng Việt Hit on your next hot date in Vietnamese Get your taxes done by an Asian wiz kid, and so, so much more. Grab a bowl of piping hot Vietnamese noodle soup (phở) at a Vietnamese restaurant near you Become a fan of one or more Vietnamese bands or singers -- then CRANK those tunes There’s really no limit to the ways in which you can start using Vietnamese in your daily life.  Still, expect to work hard for a couple years before you can carry on most normal daily business in Vietnamese, and another two or three to become truly fluent and literate.  Best of all is to make a trip to Việt Nam and arrange a homestay with a non-English speaking family.  That’s what I did, and I learned more in three short weeks than I had the previous twelve months!  There’s nothing like having a sudden need to “go” to get you up and running, both literally and figuratively – in any language on Earth. In the end, what must always remain front and center is your sincere desire to communicate with the people who speak the language you’re learning.  That’s what language learning is really about.  Try to remember that when your teacher puts you to sleep with neverending tone practice drills and the book seems to be written in a variety of English you’ve never seen before, with all its strange sounding linguistic terms to describe words which are already in a foreign language.  Never forget that learning a language is not really a school subject.  It’s more like learning to play the violin than learning math or history.  Acquiring a foreign language (learning it really well) is done outside the classroom, or not at all.  Take your time, put in your best effort and eventually, you WILL get there!!