Referring to:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/latinforstarters/posts/719703460640925/
Vīsne discere linguam Vietnamicam? │ Do
you want to learn the Vietnamese language?
Meā
sententiā, nōn est difficilis. │ In my opinion, it’s not
difficult.
Prīmum omnium, facile
est legere et scrībere. │ First of all, it’s easy to
read and (to) write.
Anteā ūtēbāmur* 𡨸喃 / Chữ
Nôm │ Before (previously) we used 𡨸喃 / Chữ
Nôm [the writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language]
Sed nunc, ad
scrībendum ūtimur* litterīs Latīnīs. │ But now we use Latin letters to
write [literally: for the purpose of writing]
Praetereā nōn
sunt dēclīnātiōnēs │ Besides, there are no declensions
nec genera nōminum
│ nor genders of nouns
nec coniugātiōnēs
verbōrum temporālium. │ nor conjugations of verbs [literally: ‘time’ words]
Exemplī grātiā “muốn” significat: │ For example “muốn” means:
velle│to want
volō│I want
velim│I would like
vīs│you want
volēbāmus │we were
wanting
voluimus│we have
wanted
et cētera │ and so
on.
Omnia illa verba
sunt ūnum in linguā Vietnamicā. │ All those words / verbs are one (the same) in
Vietnamese.
Nōn necesse
est cūrāre dē fōrmā verbī │ It isn’t necessary to bother
about the form of the verb / word
quia fōrma numquam
mūtātur │ because the form never changes [= is never changed]
__________
*ūtor, utī, ūsus
sum [3/deponent]: use; followed by the ablative case
ūtimur litterīs
Latīnīs │we use Latin letters
Some useful words
related to language learning:
coniugātiō, coniugātiōnis
[3/f]: conjugation
dēclīnātiō, dēclīnātiōnis [3/f]: declension
fōrma, -ae [1/f]:
form
genus, generis
[3/n]: [i] kind; type [ii] (here) gender
lingua, -ae [1/f]:
language
nōmen, nōminis
[3/n]: [i] name [ii] (here) noun
verbum, -ī [2/n]:
word; verb
verbum temporāle:
a word denoting time i.e. a verb
Side note:
Vietnamese is a beautiful language and, living an hour away from Vietnam, I’ve
always felt I should learn it. What Vincent says about the lack of tenses,
declensions and conjugations also applies to other Asian languages e.g. Malay
(which I taught) and Khmer. What Vincent (Nguyễn Duy Thiên) doesn’t mention (as a true salesman) is that
Vietnamese is a tonal language with six different tones (two more than
Mandarin) and a head-spinning number of diacritics above, below and to the side
of the vowels! But, in terms of ‘easiness’ Vietnamese is way ahead of Latin.