Hi, everyone.
Today, as I'm shooting this video, it's the 21st of "December," according to the lunar calendar.
By the time I upload the video, it'll probably be the 26th or 27th.
Only a few days left till Tet.
In my Tet video last year, I went out and tested foreigners' knowledge of this special occasion,
but I haven't yet taught you guys much about vocabulary related to it.
So, in this video, I'm going to do just that,
so that you can use that vocabulary when you want to explain things about Tet to foreigners.
The video is divided into three parts:
food, customs, and greetings.
"food"
When talking about Tet dishes, you can't forget banh chung.
I've mentioned this a few times before, if you ask me, you shouldn't call it "chung cake,"
because if you say that, foreigners will immediately picture a sweet cake made from wheat flour,
like this or like this.
And banh chung isn't like that, is it?
I suggest you just call it "banh chung,"
similar to sushi or pizza.
Those aren't English words. They've just been adopted into English from other languages.
So, call it banh chung,
and then give some additional description.
First, call it "a sticky rice cake."
That way, foreigners will be able to picture it more clearly.
However, they might picture a sweet sticky rice cake, rather than a "mặn" (savory) one like banh chung.
In English, the word "mặn" can be translated in two different ways.
If you mean "mặn quá," then English speakers would use "salty" or "too salty."
If, however, you use "mặn" just to mean the opposite of sweet, then we would use "savory."
In short, when you describe banh chung, say something like:
And if you want to describe it further, you could say:
With banh gio and banh day, you can apply that same principle.
Ah, and how about gio lua? How to describe that?
You guys should call it "sausage."
Now, there might be some people who protest . . .
Huh? "Sausage" is "xúc xích," Dan.
Yeah, that's right.
But the word "sausage" in English includes every kind of food made from ground, pressed meat.
For example, this is sausage,
this is sausage,
and gio lua is also sausage.
If you want to describe it more precisely, you can say:
All right, I'm not going to talk about savory foods anymore.
Now it's time to move on to "ô mai / xí muội."
I think foreigners would just call it "dried fruit,"
or, since it usually has sugar, ginger, salt, and various other seasonings, we might call it "seasoned dried fruit."
And "mứt," like coconut mứt and ginger mứt . . .
you should use the adjective "candied."
I'm guessing you all know what candy is,
so you know that when you say "ginger candy," native speakers will picture something like this.
But when you say "candied ginger,"
native speakers will understand that you mean an actual piece of ginger that's been cooked with sugar.
Mm, this candied coconut is so good.
But, unfortunately, I can't just sit here and eat candied coconut.
We've got to move on now to Tet customs.
First, I'm sure that everyone knows "lì xì" is usually called "lucky money."
But what about the custom of "mừng tuổi?" (Roughly translates as "celebrating age.")
That's really tough, because Westerners don't have the concept that beginning a new year also means beginning a new age.
For us, it's only when you reach your birthday that you begin a new age.
So when it comes to the custom of "mừng tuổi," the English language really doesn't have any term at all.
Sorry.
The same goes for the custom of "xông đất."
There's no concise term in English.
You guys will just have to explain the nature of that custom, like . . .
All right, now we'll move on to a simpler custom,
that of "kiêng."
As I understand, during Tet, Vietnamese people often won't eat squid,
and in the Year of the Rooster, they might not eat chicken,
in the Year of the Dog, they might not eat dog meat,
in the Year of the Dragon, they might not eat dragon meat.
The most natural way to describe that in English is:
And if you want to describe it in a more precise, academic way, you can use:
Next, we've got the Tet custom I like the most,
which is putting up a "quất" tree, a "đào" tree, or a "mai" tree.
"Quất" is simply "a kumquat tree,"
"đào" is simply "a peach tree,"
and "mai" is . . .
In my Tet video last year, I said that I don't know what "mai" is in English.
And a lot of people in the comments wrote:
"'Mai' is 'apricot blossom,' according to the sixth-grade English textbook.
I don't really agree,
first of all because apricot belongs to the Rosaceae family,
and "mai" belongs to the Ochnaceae family.
And more to the point, if you say "apricot blossom" or "apricot tree" to foreigners,
they'll picture a tree with very white flowers,
or maybe white with a bit of pink,
but definitely not yellow flowers like this.
The reality is that we don't have "mai" trees in the West, and English doesn't have any common term for it.
On Wikipedia, they say "Ochna" or "Vietnamese mickey-mouse tree,"
but I've never heard either of those terms.
If you ask me, it's best if you guys just call it "a mai tree," and then explain what it's like.
And if you're determined to call it "apricot blossom,"
then please at least call it "yellow apricot blossom,"
so the other person can picture it more clearly.
And another special Tet flower is "hoa cúc" here.
Two years ago I took a trip to the Central Highlands during Tet,
and I was really surprised by the big pots of "hoa cúc" that they had there,
because you don't see them up here in the north.
The "chậu" is called a "pot."
Wait, what? A pot is what you cook food in.
Yup, that's right.
But this thing is also called a pot.
And the flowers are called . . .
Oh, how do you say THAT?
Prepare to listen and read the IPA, okay?
English!
What horrendous pronunciation.
I'm sorry, guys.
"greetings"
Finally, I'm going to talk about some of the special greetings during Tet.
The simplest greeting, of course, is just "Happy New Year!"
Everyone knows that.
And then, greetings like . . . (Translations to follow, don't worry.)
First of all, I want to say that I find these kinds of greetings are rarely used in Western culture,
because they sound kind of greeting-card-ish,
and we very rarely say things like that.
However, since you're Vietnamese, foreigners will probably find it charming rather than cheesy if you say something like that,
because it's a greeting that comes from another culture.
So, how to give New Year's greetings in accurate English?
I've found that Vietnamese people often write greetings like this:
That's not really correct.
You should use the -ing form of "wish":
And when speaking, you should get rid of the word "wish" altogether
and replace it with "I hope."
Or you could also get rid of "I hope" and just say:
And if you want to say "Vạn sự như ý," there's not really an exact way to translate that sentence,
but something like . . .
. . . will do just fine.
And that's it.
I hope you all have a healthy, happy, successful new year.
See you in the Year of the Dog.