You guys know that any time a language interacts with another language,
and that other language has useful words that the first language doesn't have,
then people will just adopt those new words, right?
It's a good thing. It makes languages richer.
However, there are times when people adopt a word into their language,
and then change the meaning or usage of it.
Then, if they encounter the word in the original language, they'll misunderstand it.
Take the Vietnamese word "banh my" for example.
That word has made its way into English.
Or at least West Coast American English.
In Vietnam, "banh my" is just bread.
But in America, "banh mi" is that one characteristic type of Vietnamese sandwich.
Because of that, when I first came to Vietnam
there was one time that I was really happy to see a sign that said "banh my."
But when they brought out my order,
it was bánh mỳ chảo ("skillet bread"),
totally different from the banh mi I knew.
And Vietnamese people also encounter that situation when using English.
In this video I'm going to show you the English words you misunderstand
because they've been adopted into Vietnamese.
It seems that in Vietnamese, "going for a picnic" means exploring the great outdoors with your friends.
But in English a picnic is a very different thing.
Sometimes Vietnamese people say things to me like:
And when I ask:
They say that they went somewhere really far, for example:
And I just want to ask:
The reason I get confused is that in English, a picnic is just a meal outdoors,
a pretty short and simple affair.
When Westerners go for a picnic, they typically just go to the park, not anywhere that requires a long trip.
For example, parks in America all have tables like this,
and this type of table is called a picnic table.
So if you go someplace far away and explore a lot, as opposed to just eating and then going home,
then that's a trip, or a day trip, not a picnic.
There may be no other English word that Vietnamese people use more than "stress."
I constantly hear friends and coworkers say things like:
"Oh, she's stressed."
Or :
"It's exam time, so all the students are really stressed."
However, the influence of Vietnamese grammar often makes you guys use that word incorrectly.
I hear a lot of people say things like:
Or :
No. Let me explain.
"Stress" is a noun, and it means "sự căng thẳng." For example:
We can't "get stress" in English the way we can "bị stress" in Vietnamese.
When talking about the feeling of stress, you need to use the adjective form of the word.
But stress has two adjective forms, so you need to choose carefully.
The first adjective form is "stressful," which means "gây sự căng thẳng." For example:
This sentence and "My job has a lot of stress" have the same meaning, just different grammar.
And to talk about the feeling of stress, you've got to use "stressed," which means "bị căng thẳng."
And although you can't say, "get stress," you can say, "get stressed," which means "trở nên căng thẳng."
For example:
Complicated, huh?
I often encounter this mistake at work.
A staff member or a teaching assistant comes into my classroom and asks me:
Even though they're doing their work very conscientiously, I still feel a bit annoyed,
because this "máy cát xét" is not a "cassette" in English.
In fact, I'm guessing most of you guys have never used a cassette,
because they're really old, and you guys are pretty young.
This is what a cassette looks like.
Man, is that thing old or what?
Native speakers would call this machine a CD player, because playing CDs is its primary use.
And if it's really old, and only has the ability to play cassettes, then it's a cassette player,
not a "cassette."
The first time I heard someone in Vietnam call a woman "les,"
I figured she just didn't know the full word in English.
But after that, I gradually came to understand that nearly all Vietnamese people use the word "les"
when talking about gay women.
Look, when speaking English, you should never use the word "les."
First, because native speakers don't say that,
and second, because . . .
How to put it?
To me, when you guys say,
for example, it sounds . . .
a bit insulting, kind of like you're laughing or sneering at lesbians, even though I know that's not your intention.
If you don't want to be considered ignorant, then don't say, "She's les,"
and instead say, "She's a lesbian" or "She's gay."
Ok, there are two problems with this word.
First, it's not pronounced "vee-log," but "vlog."
And the people who make vlogs are called "vloggers."
I know it's difficult to pronounce, but you should try:
And the second problem is that in Vietnam,
"vlog" is understood as any video made by an independent creator talking into a camera lens.
Not so in English.
"Vlog" has a more detailed meaning than that.
It's a type of video that's made on a regular basis, meaning every day, or very nearly.
There's no script,
there's no main topic,
there's no acting,
and it's kind of like a document of the creator's real life.
Take Casey Neistat as an example.
He used to make about two videos a month on lots of different subjects.
They had effects, they had stories . . .
but then one day he decided to make vlogs every day.
And the vlogs he currently makes have a very different character from his earlier videos.
I don't think Vietnam has any true vloggers.
JV calls his videos "vlogs," but they're not vlogs in the English sense of the word.
Same goes for HuyMe, An Nguy, and Lam Viet Anh.
Some people have also called my videos vlogs, and called me a vlogger.
No.
Really, I don't like the vlog form.
That kind of video basically has no content,
and no meaning.
They're just a few kind of pretty pictures,
and a few banal words.
So please don't consider my videos vlogs.