LogFAQs > #978730823

DrizztLink posted...

Do you have an example of someone saying it correctly and clearly?

I picked up the basic pronunciation but I doubt I know the proper one.

If you got the basic pronunciation, most Viets would actually applaud you for even getting that part correct. You're already step above the "nuh-guy-in" or "nuh-goo-yens"

With that said, I prefer to actually say it rather than type it because I don't know if I'll be able to do it justice typed out. The anglicized way to correctly say it would be "nu-win" but it's in one syllable (every vietnamese word is one syllable), with the "nu" part being more softer to make the "ng" sound, and the "win" part more emphasized to make the "uyen" part.

Now with that said, there's different pronunciations because of dialects as well, but I don't think we need to go there lol.

Bass posted...

I cringe every time I see your last name since I have no idea how you're really supposed to say it, lol. I honestly wouldn't attempt it since I wouldn't want to be insulting.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought even in Vietnamese there's some variation in how you can say it.

And that's fair, most of us expect other people in getting it "wrong" so when someone does say it correctly some of the first generations would laugh, clap, praise, or even ask you how you know how to say it correctly (most of the answer is because they married someone Viet or have friends/family of someone who is Viet with that last name).

But yeah, we follow the French rule in accents changing a word completely. So saying a vietnamese word a certain way is going to completely change the meaning of a word if you say it in a different accent, and different accents change the way the vowel of a word works like saying it in a higher pitch versus a low pitch. My cousins name is Vu, but if you say it in a incorrect accent you might accidently say it to mean a women's nipple for instance lol.

And then there's the whole dialect North vs South pronunciation that I won't even get into lol.