Ba, Ba, and Ba

Posted by J on Apr 21, 2013 in J Posts | 0 comments

This will come as no surprise to serious students of the Vietnamese language … but there is a vast subtlety to various words that convey entirely different meanings.

Take ba, ba, and ba. Depending on how you pronounce the words, they could mean: three, father, or grandmother.

That’s the lesson we learned from Jack and Mark during a recent train trip along Vietnam’s coast. They’d been vacationing at the same beach and we sat across from each other on the way back to Ho Chi Minh City.

Mark was a patient teacher, or giáo viên — though his scribbles in my notebook do reveal some professorial frustration with how I was accenting my words:

One of the best things about our time with Jack and Mark? Their father, Dung (pronounced “young”), befriended us … and wrote a super generous and super kind note in an email the next day.

We’re so thankful for meeting people like Dung on this journey. Here’s what he wrote:

Hello Jim,

It was very nice to meet you on the train.

Hope you and your family enjoy the trip in Vietnam and Asia.
If you need any information and support, please feel free to let me know.
Keep in touch

Regards
Dung