u/RudeInspection4352

i came back from vietnam recently and one thing i still can’t stop thinking about is how genuinely sweet people were to me there

like every time i looked confused for even 2 seconds, someone would immediately try to help me 😭 even when we barely understood each other

there were SO many moments where i wanted to say more but couldn’t because my vietnamese is basically nonexistent right now

one time i tried ordering coffee and accidentally answered the cashier completely wrong because i misunderstood her question 💀 we both just stood there awkwardly smiling at each other for a second before she switched to broken english to help me

and honestly that interaction has been living in my head ever since lol

because the more i traveled around vietnam, the more i realized i didn’t just wanna visit as a tourist anymore. i actually wanna understand people properly next time i go back

like i wanna be able to order food without panicking

i wanna understand little jokes people make

i wanna stop nodding pretending i understood everything 😭

i know vietnamese is gonna be hard as hell for me but idk… the language feels weirdly warm to me now

for people who learned vietnamese as adults, what actually helped you the most in the beginning?

i genuinely don’t understand how my brain works sometimes 😭

when i’m alone, my english feels kinda fine. i can watch videos, read comments, listen to podcasts, whatever. i’m not fluent or anything but at least i feel like i’ve improved a bit over the years

but the SECOND someone talks to me directly??? suddenly i sound like i started learning english yesterday

like my coworker asked me a really basic question earlier and my brain literally froze for a few seconds. not because i didn’t understand him, i just got stuck thinking about how to answer without sounding awkward

and then of course 10 minutes later i magically know exactly what i should’ve said 💀

i’m 24 from china and i need english for work so this whole thing stresses me out way more than it probably should

does this get better naturally with more speaking or do i just need to embarrass myself 500 more times until my brain gets used to it lol

I’ve been trying to learn Vietnamese for a while but I struggle with listening.
Any tips that actually worked for you?