Tieng Viet lovers club

[jackbl]

English skills remain elusive for graduates
=============================================
Talking to foreigners is a good way to improve English

Though I am a businessman, I am also concerned about education, especially the teaching of English in Vietnam.

Many international schools and universities have mushroomed in Vietnam in the last five years.

They often charge very high tuition fees. However, those who choose to study there usually have plans to study abroad, join an international company, or work overseas.
Meanwhile, though English is taught at all levels in many Vietnamese high schools and colleges, students still cannot speak the language after graduation. Why is that?

If you observe carefully, you will notice that the syllabus is repeated almost every year in schools with the same basic grammar, leaving students bored. For example, they learn passive voice in grade eight and again in grades 10 and 12. When they enter college, they have to learn English from the beginning.

How wasteful is it? Is it not better to design a syllabus that covers all grammar points and emphasizes conversational skills?

These ineffective English programs in school leave Vietnamese graduates frustrated when they have to take an English interview or talk to foreigners. As a CEO, I sometimes interview candidates and realize that not many Vietnamese can satisfy the demand for good language skills.

Despite being busy with my schedule, I decided to organize an English speaking club in a café to provide students a chance to practice with native speakers. I hope this will enable young Vietnamese to improve their English.

Richard Donarski (CEO at Nam Khoi FPE)

[FireShark]

Happy Vesak Day to all Bros here


Seem like I need to polish up vietnamese languages as there are more and more difficults words which i didn't seen before.

[AdGuy]

Gentle reminder...

President Ho Chi Minh turns 121 on 19-May (Thurs). have you bought a present yet?

For more nonsensical tweets... please follow me on @learnviet_

[lament]

Originally Posted by jackbl

I have interpreted differently:

1)You don't be too MADLY in love and not see what is true love

2)but becos I like/fond of you so I say

3)I also advise you should restrain your heart wait for some times to see how.

Bro VietnamLover, I advise you to use dictionary to find out more about words that you dun know... Since your nick is VNlover, then u must have more motivation to learn TV than us

we all learn from each other, my interpretation is based more on memory and not thru use of any dictionary so I may not always be right 100% of the time.

[jackbl]

Vietnamese language won’t become extinct
================================================== =====
I am Czech but I speak Russian as fluently as my mother tongue. Besides, I also speak German, English, French, Korean and Vietnamese. Having learned Vietnamese for 50 years, every time I open a Vietnamese book to read I still find a word I do not know in every 2-3 sentences because Vietnamese vocabulary is very large.

Like the Vietnamese, we Czechs used to worry that our mother tongue was being corrupted. We wanted to claim an important position in Europe and always compared ourselves with neighboring countries like Germany, France or England. We used to focus on preserving the purity of our language and try to eliminate the use of any words of foreign origin in our language. We even created new words in Czech, words that no one wanted to use, and removed familiar, commonly used words which have their origins in German.

Nowadays in Vietnam, foreign words like “teen” or “catwalk” are more frequently used than their Vietnamese equivalents. However, the choice of words depends on each person’s social position, whether they are young or old, students or businessmen. Hybrid words are only popular among a certain group of people in the society and we do not know whether those words are here to stay. As a result, we should not worry about changes in our mother tongue. What matters is that we should know which position we are in to select the appropriate words to use.

Losing one’s mother tongue is a great concern of people in many countries. However, just think, if there are 86 million Vietnamese in the country and a few million more living overseas, why fear the language should become extinct? This could only happen to Vietnamese communities overseas who are surrounded by stronger communities speaking different languages. Vietnamese expats can forget their mother tongue if their family do not create an environment for them to practice the language. Then, they will use two or three languages at the same time to express their ideas.

Vietnam, like other countries, is influenced by external factors. However, globalization is an exchange of economic and cultural values rather than an invasion of the mother tongue. In a country where there are still people aware of preserving their language and culture, there is no need to fear the impact of globalization at all.

*Russian-Czech Professor Ivo Vasiljev was a translator of many Vietnamese literary works into Czech, including President Ho Chi Minh’s poem collection, Prison Diary, in 1985. He is a member of the European Language Association and Czech-Vietnam Friendship Association.

[jackbl]

Strange news..............

An Giang: Disintegrated body in 43 years
===============================================
VietNamNet Bridge – The body of Mr. Dinh Cong Hao, who died in 1968, doesn’t disintegrate. His family put the body into a coffin with a glass cover and placed the coffin in their house for 43 years.

Mr. Hao was born in 1951. He died in 1968, at the age of 17. After he died, his body got dry and did not disintegrate. His family therefore; put the body into a coffin with a glass cover and placed the coffin in their house since then.

The body is now maintained in an ancient house of over 100 years old of Mr. Dinh Huu Tri, Hao’s younger brother, in Phu Loc hamlet, Phu Thanh commune, Phu Tan district in the southern province of An Giang.

According to An Giang Online Newspaper, Hao was handsome and could write poems. At the age of 10, he caught a mysterious disease, which made him to be unable to sleep or eat. Since then, he got skinny. His family invited many doctors but all of them refused to cure.

Hao died in December 1968. He was buried in his family’s field. However, four days after his death, a doctor came to his house. He regretted not quickly visit Hao’s home to save the boy. He confirmed that Hao’s body was not “dead” and urged the family to dig up the tomb to see.

Hao’s father did not sleep for one night, to think about the doctor’s advice and he decided to dig up the tomb. It was true that Hao looked fresh like a sleeping boy. The family took the body home.

Mr. Dinh Huu Tri, Hao’s younger brother, said: “At that time, I was 13. When my father took brother Hao’s body home, many people came to see. The local authorities also sent five doctors to my house, including a foreign expert, to see the body. They only said that my brother was dead, but they did not know why his body did not disintegrate and smell.”

“It was very strange that after three weeks, his body was still soft. My father dripped several drops of coffee into his mouth and the coffee went into his stomach. My cousin even poured nearly 3 liters of water into his mouth and the water also went to his stomach, and it did not run out of his body”.

Tri said that the family did not do anything with the body and it has been kept untouched for 43 years.

This is a special case that needs scientific research.


Thu Hoa

[deptrai4u]

Originally Posted by jackbl

Strange news..............

An Giang: Disintegrated body in 43 years
===============================================
VietNamNet Bridge –
Tri said that the family did not do anything with the body and it has been kept untouched for 43 years.

This is a special case that needs scientific research.


Thu Hoa

This is NO MYSTERY....

That boy ate too much pho bo since he was young. As u know, Pho Bo in Vietnam contains too much perservatives.. they use the same cheapskate preservative they bought from China, exactly what people used to perserve a DEAD human body from decomposing too fast at the funeral. So this boy at so much that it has a permanent effect on him.

When u die and if u want to be like him, eat pho bo 3 times a day.. for 10 years.. and u will be another "special case that needs scientific research"!

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by deptrai4u

When u die and if u want to be like him, eat pho bo 3 times a day.. for 10 years.. and u will be another "special case that needs scientific research"!

Sorry i dun like vn food Since u been to vn so many times and shd hv eat a load vn food, then you will be next up for research in sgp Chao anh

[deptrai4u]

Originally Posted by jackbl

Sorry i dun like vn food Since u been to vn so many times and shd hv eat a load vn food, then you will be next up for research in sgp Chao anh

no no, its not VN food that is the culprit.. just the Pho and the Bun only... they used a lot of perservatives so that they can mass produce a lot at a go and keep long long to sell over many days! The rest of the VN food has other issues... long story...

Anyway, i usually eat at home but if have to eat outside, i will eat at KFC. At most twice a week i eat at vietnamese restaurants outside.

[Hurricane88]

Originally Posted by deptrai4u

no no, its not VN food that is the culprit.. just the Pho and the Bun only... they used a lot of perservatives so that they can mass produce a lot at a go and keep long long to sell over many days! The rest of the VN food has other issues... long story...

bloody hell...me eat alot of pho but not bo...

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by deptrai4u

no no, its not VN food that is the culprit.. just the Pho and the Bun only... they used a lot of perservatives so that they can mass produce a lot at a go and keep long long to sell over many days! The rest of the VN food has other issues... long story...

Anyway, i usually eat at home but if have to eat outside, i will eat at KFC. At most twice a week i eat at vietnamese restaurants outside.

Originally Posted by Hurricane88

bloody hell...me eat alot of pho but not bo...

Since we are taking abt VN food, i have a news article to contribute ......


Love at first bite
=====================


I don’t look like it, but my stomach is very Vietnamese. I’ve been eating the cuisine all my adult life. Everyone talks about how healthy Vietnamese food is. I recently had some medical tests on my insides – always a good idea as you become older – which all turned out negative. My doctor says I will live to at least 80 years old! I’ve been eating very well.

They say food is the way to a man’s heart. I can still remember the exact dish my future wife prepared at her Mekong Delta home many years ago when I came to ask her father’s permission to marry. Crispy-fried chicken wings on a watercress salad surrounded by sliced tomato and onion with a dressing of oil, vinegar and ground pepper and a dipping sauce of soya & freshly-chopped chilli. Delicious!

That did the trick. After refusing me for over a year, her father finally agreed. And when we married a few months later, we even brought four fat chickens we raised in our tiny house off today’s Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street for the home-made wedding banquet. My mother-in-law was a very good cook – and teacher.

This was during the war and I had already been in Vietnam for several years before meeting the lovely Kim-Dung. From the moment I arrived as a student from Hong Kong by ship up the Saigon River in early 1964, I was drawn to Vietnamese food. I stayed with university students and even today the memory of my very first “pho” – and the wonderful smell of coriander – returns every time I drive past that street corner. When a young medical student named Miss Hoa invited me for dinner, I watched in fascination as she deep-fried northern-style “cha gio” or “nem” and then delicately cut them into pieces with giant scissors. Then came the wrappings of lettuce, mint and other fresh vegetables dipped in a special “nuoc mam” sauce. I was well and truly “properly introduced” to Vietnamese food.

And then as a young American aid worker working in the Mekong Delta, I always ate Vietnamese-style meals at home and frequented local eating houses, noodle stands and food stalls. For breakfast, omelettes of “cha lua,” a finely-minced pork sausage or “xiu mai,” those wonderful meat dumplings in tomato sauce and at mid-morning a “pho” or “hu tieu.” Sadly, most Americans, especially the military, shied away from Vietnamese food and I would get upset at their constant jokes about “nuoc mam,” or fish sauce. My stomach became so Vietnamese that I only became sick eating the heavy and often greasy food the Americans preferred.

With only a couple exceptions, there was nothing I would not eat – or try once. One was “sau rieng,” or durian. Like many foreigners, probably Vietnamese too, the strong smell put me off for years – until we married and someone said the fruit was an aphrodisiac. I am not sure about that but I was quickly hooked onto its wonderful texture and flavour. (Now, I get upset about durian jokes too!)

The other exception was – and still is - dog meat because I love dogs too much as pets. Snake, eel, turtle, frog, rat, pigeon & quail. No problems. Even today, I am often asked by Vietnamese if I eat “mam,” or heavily-salted and pungent fermented fish and shrimp. Why, of course, I do! Is that unusual? (But I also know that too much mam is bad for your high blood pressure.)

Unlike today’s Ho Chi Minh City, former Saigon had almost no Vietnamese restaurants before 1975, but mostly French and Chinese. And so when I moved there as a journalist, many of my foreigner colleagues’ first experience with Vietnamese food was at our home. Typically, we served southern-style “cha gio” and a second entrée like “bo cuon,” or skewered beef, and a large pot of “cari ga,” or red chicken curry, with fried rice or bread rolls. After all Kim-Dung’s hard work, the food disappeared in minutes. Other times, we shared typical southern meals with smaller groups of friends. But watching how much these outsiders enjoyed the cuisine I was eating normally every day, I began to fantasize about one day opening my own Vietnamese restaurant.

(To be continued)

[leecs]

Police smash rings trafficking girls to Singapore, China

Ministry of Public Security police yesterday said they had busted many rings trafficking women abroad, including one that sent 50 women to Singapore. They have arrested 15 people and rescued 17 girls.

The most notable in these rings was one led by Tran Van Tam, 37, and Nguyen Loan Thach, 27, who were seized at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City while carrying out procedures to send 6 girls to Singapore.

This was just one of the many trafficking cases committed by the ring, which had sent a total of 50 women to Singapore with an aim of forcing them to work as prostitutes.

Tam and Thach confessed to the police that they lured those girls to Singapore to seek jobs but in fact they wanted to sell them to brothels.

The ministry said it had coordinated with the Vietnam Interpol Office and police departments of 13 provinces and cities to uncover the large-scale ring.

The ring had have trafficked about 50 girls from Tay Ninh and some other southern provinces to Singapore, police said.

Another leading trafficking ring was led by Pham Thi Thu Huyen and Nguyen Thi Chin, who lured young and beautiful girls to the northern border province of Quang Ninh and then took them to China to sell them to whorehouses.

Those girls are from Quang Ninh, Nam Dinh, Hai Phong, and Lam Dong provinces, police said.

The police have prosecuted 15 people involved in the trafficking rings and saved 17 girls.

http://tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitre...sEnabled=false

[jackbl]

Bro Deptrai this is for u .........

Vietnam’s famous wine brands
===============================================
VietNamNet Bridge – Van village, Sapa’s tao meo (apple), Bau Da, Go Den wine have been famous throughout the country for their special tastes and characteristics.


Let’s discover four famous wine brands in Vietnam with VietNamNet Bridge.

Tao meo wine – Sapa’s essence

Coming to Sapa, a famous tourist town in Lao Cai province, visitors will not only be attracted by its fanciful beauty, but go into ectasy by its tao meo wine.

In Sapa, tao meo trees grow up on the Hoang Lien Son mountain range as a gift from the mother nature.

This is the kind of popular wine and the taste is very delicious. “Tao Meo” has enough sweet, bitter and acrid. It is a drug to lower blood pressure, lower blood fat, blood vessels, coronary vasodilation, improves heart muscle operation.

Because of the good effects, “Tao Meo” is soaked very carefully and stored for processing into pure alcohol. At first, visitors seemingly enjoy a carbonated beverage, but they can passionate when eating more and more.

The drink is made from fresh “Tao Meo”. The tree matures flowering white in late spring (May 3, 4) and gives fruit in the fall. In August, September, November, Sapa market will sell fresh fruit. The fruit will be peeled, washed to avoid bitterness and cut to pick corn. Finally, the fruit will be put into glass bottle with sugar.

The drink has “flavor mountains,” very nice brown color. Since it is good and an effective treatment, visitors who come here also try to buy a bottle of wine.

Tao meo is also used as herbal medicine to lower blood pressure, cholesterol and it is good for cardiovascular operations. It is called “fruit of love” or “bitter fruit”, because it contains fragrances of life.



Van village’s wine

The "Lang Van" wine made at Van Village, of Van Ha Commune in Bac Giang Province’s Viet Yen District. 60km from Hanoi and is renowned as Vietnam’s outstanding home-made brew.

The local people regard it as an indispensable beverage for festivals and New Year celebrations or as an offering. The wine is produced from high-quality fragrant glutinous rice grown in the fields of Van Xa Village, Van Ha Commune, Viet Yen District, combined with traditional brewer’s yeast made of rare Chinese medicinal herbs, and the wine cooking art handed down for generations.

In the past, Lang Van’s wine was served at royal banquets.



Bau Da wine

Bau Da wine is a famous specialty of Bau Da village in the central province of Binh Dinh.

The name of Bau Da originated from Cu Lam village’s Bau Da in An Nhon district’s Nhon Loc commune, 22km from Quy Nhon city.

This wine is entirely made by hand.

It is said that Bau Da wine makes drinkers have sensations of fire and ice. As a matter of fact, get a drop of wine on your skin, and you will get a chilly feeling.

Pour this wine from a height, to hear the marvelous sound of wine splashing. Then let the glass of wine spread its fragrance through the atmosphere for a moment before sipping it and feeling it foam around in the mouth.

Locals say that northern and southern tourists treated to Bau Da wine have said it is better than Johnny Walker brandy.

It is made of newly-harvested rice grains and special water, which make it transparent, and then distilled with straw and husk-fired heat.

However, the most attractive aspect of Bau Da wine is that intimate friends prefer to sit cross-legged on the floor on a moonlit night to both enjoy wine and recitals.



Go Den wine

This kind of wine appeared in the French-rule period in the southern province of Long An.

At that time French colonists banned Vietnamese from processing wine, to hold the exclusive right to supply wine to the local market. However, the wine they provided was unsuitable to the Vietnamese taste, so people illegally processed their own wine, including Go Den wine.

Go Den wine is processed by glutinous rice and herbal ferment. This wine is famous for its limpidness.



PV

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by AdGuy

Gentle reminder...

President Ho Chi Minh turns 121 on 19-May (Thurs). have you bought a present yet?

For more nonsensical tweets... please follow me on @learnviet_

Photo exhibitions of President Ho Chi Minh’s life

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/en/viet...nh-s-life.html

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by jackbl

English skills remain elusive for graduates
=============================================
Talking to foreigners is a good way to improve English

Students say “no” to foreign language study branches
================================================== =======
VietNamNet Bridge – Foreign language faculties of many universities have been fallen into the “living death” because they do not get enough students.

Most universities and junior colleges have released reports about the numbers of students registering to take entrance exams to the schools, which show that very few students have registered to study foreign languages, especially French, Chinese and Russian.

The low competition ratio of 1/0.2

The HCM City University of Education plans to enroll 40 students for every foreign language major. However, it has received 24 registrations for the Russian-English bilingual major, 37 registrations for French and 45 applications for Chinese teaching majors.

Non-pedagogical study branches have also received very few applications. French language department, for example, has received 54 applications while it plans to enroll 50 students, Chinese language has received 93 applications while it plans to enroll 110 students, while the figures for Chinese language are 108 and 100, respectively. Especially, only eight students have registered to study Russia-English languages, while the study branch offers 50 seats.

As such, the competition ratios of the majors are very low, between 1/0.2 and 1/1.1 (one student has to compete with 0.2 or 1.1 other students to obtain a seat at the university).

The HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanity has also reported that the lowest competition ratios belong to foreign language majors. Spanish and philology, for example, have got 66 applications, while it plans to enroll 50, German philology has got 79, while it plans to enroll 40. The figures are 149 and 90, respectively, for French philology

Local and regional schools are facing the same situation. The Can Tho University, for example, has got 29 applications only, while it needs 35 for the French language major. It has got 86 applications, while it needs 60 for English language. At the Foreign Language University under the Da Nang University, French teaching major has got 11 applications, Chinese teaching 26, Russian language 37, while Thai language 15, while the school plans to enroll 35 students for each major.

Why do students turn their back on foreign language studies?

Trinh Minh Huyen, Deputy President of the Ton Duc Thang University, said that there are only several schools training bachelors in Chinese, but the schools still do not receive many applications from students. Ton Duc Thang, for example, has got 96 applications, while it plans to accept 60 students.

Huyen admitted that Chinese language proves to be the study branch which finds it most difficult to enroll students, even though there have been more opportunities for jobs recently, since more Taiwanese and Chinese companies come to Vietnam to do business and seek the employees who can speak Chinese.

Huyen said that Vietnamese students keep indifferent to Chinese language, because this is really a difficult subject to learn. Besides, they believe that they would have more job opportunities with English, rather than Chinese. Therefore, every year, the school has to seek students for Chinese faculty from the ones, who fail the entrance exams to prestigious schools (under the current laws, those students, who fail the exams to registered schools, can go studying at other schools if they have enough marks from the exams as required by the other schools)

According to Ta Quang Lam, Deputy Head of the Training Division of the HCM City University of Education, students now turn their back to foreign language majors because they cannot see many job opportunities. Most of the students, graduating French language majors, for example, have to seek jobs in the tourism sector, while Russian language graduates have to seek jobs in the oil and gas industry.

Lam went on to say that it is really alarming that schools cannot maintain these study branches. “The society still needs the people with foreign language skills. Where to find qualified people if schools stop training?” he said.

Source: NLD