LookAtVietnam – “Hello everybody. My name is Bud Brown and I speak a little Vietnamese. In 1972, I was in Viet Nam. I like the Vietnamese people very much

Good morning, Vietnam: Bud Brown, who made Vietnamese language clips in the car while waiting for his wife to shop and posted them on YouTube.

“I was looking on YouTube to learn Vietnamese and I really couldn’t find too much beneficial information. So I thought I would take the opportunity to teach a few words,” he says.

The Californian admits his Vietnamese is a little rusty 35 years after he last used the language, but as a retired teacher he feels the need to educate and help people. “As the proverb says ‘In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,’” he says.

“The best thing I think I can do is just to aim you in the right direction. Hopefully you take off and learn a lot on your own. I have made some mistakes, that is for sure. But you know, don’t give up. Do the best you can.”

More and more Americans and others are visiting Viet Nam and they want to learn Vietnamese by watching video clips, he says.

Brown was surprised by the positive response he received to the first post.

A viewer named Cynthia000100 wrote: “Thank you so much for posting tones! I just began studying Vietnamese and have had a very hard time distinguishing tones. Yours is the first description of the differences that really made sense to me.”

Feeling encouraged by the good comments, he made 20 other clips soon after. He taped the clips in his car while waiting for his wife to finish shopping.

The clips, each a few minutes long, are sprinkled with simple and useful phrases.

His lessons include tones, adverbs for questions, verbs, phrases to express love, the use of “we” with and without the listener included, pronouns, diacritical marks, numbers, and simple tips.

“What I love about Vietnamese is that once you learn the verb, you don’t need to change it for past, future, or any other tense,” he says.

Brown made a short video in response to a young man’s request that he has a Vietnamese girlfriend and wants to tell her something in her language.

“Of course the best phrase is ‘I love you’ and a young man tells a young lady ‘Anh yeu em’,” he says in the clip.

“I know my pronunciation is definitely [like a] non-Vietnamese person trying to speak Vietnamese. So I strongly suggest you ask a Vietnamese - how to say things.”

Brown, who served as an interpreter in the Marines in 1971-72, first learned the language at a defence language school in California. After serving in Da Nang for a 12-month spell, he was garrisoned in Viet Nam as an interpreter. “That was a wonderful job and I loved it. My job was harmonising the differences in culture between Vietnamese and Americans,” he says.

Brown has received innumerable messages of thanks. A viewer called mootbain said: “Bud, this is just what I’ve been looking for. I once rented a room from a Vietnamese friend’s family when I was in college, and I fell in love with their cooking, culture, family life, and overall hospitality. Since those days I have wanted to learn the language well so that I could make an extended visit to Viet Nam. Your lessons are so good. Thanks for sharing this knowledge.”

Another, SilentxxSolitude, said: “Your videos are amazing. My best friend is Vietnamese and because of your videos I can actually talk to him in his language, although I’ve only just begun learning. At least I can greet him in Vietnamese. Thank you very much for posting these videos and trying to incorporate Vietnamese in Americans’ lives. Please post more videos, you inspire me to learn more of the language.”

Even a Vietnamese nicknamed trangsinh87 wrote: “I think you have very good knowledge of Vietnamese. I myself find it difficult to explain to my foreign friends about the tones in Vietnamese and the way people talk in different parts of Viet Nam. Besides, you say it correctly, which is very hard for foreigners, I think. Thanks for your good job!”

After failing other Vietnamese courses, an American woman married to a Vietnamese said her husband told her that she could finally speak Vietnamese properly after 20 years of marriage after seeing Brown’s clips.

Brown himself thinks one-third of his viewers are Vietnamese, another third Vietnamese-Americans, and the rest Americans who are planning to visit Viet Nam or who are already there.

A pleasant surprise for Brown has been the number of Vietnamese-American youngsters who say his posts have helped them break the language barrier with their parents or grandparents.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News