You Have to "Take a Bath" Upon Meeting? Vietnamese Greetings Can Be Quite Embarrassing

 ▲ Learning a few Vietnamese phrases and trying out simple conversations during your trip to Vietnam can make the journey more fun and lively.

Reported and photographed by Reporter Chen Ruizhong / Vietnam

When traveling in Vietnam, visitors will definitely need to adapt to local customs and learn some basic Vietnamese phrases. But many might be startled the first time they hear them—because greeting someone in Vietnam starts with saying "take a bath," and when parting, you’re supposed to tell the other person to "go to the toilet."

It turns out that the Vietnamese language is composed of 22 Latin letters and 7 diacritic letters, using 5 tone marks to represent 6 different tones. It requires very subtle movements of the tongue, lips, and nasal cavity, and includes honorific forms, making it not an easy language to learn. However, for convenience, there’s a “secret martial arts manual” tailored for Taiwanese travelers, which uses similar-sounding Chinese pronunciations to aid memorization.

Take the greeting "hello" as an example—the easiest pronunciation to remember is similar to Taiwan’s "take a bath," while the Vietnamese word for "goodbye" sounds like "go to the toilet." As for saying "thank you," the pronunciation is very close to Taiwan’s "gratitude." And if you’re a traveler looking to buy something, saying "bao niu" is how you ask "how much."

▲ Vietnamese girls demonstrate how to say "hello" and "goodbye," which sound similar to Taiwan’s "take a bath" and "go to the toilet."

Although the Chinese-based pronunciation method is not exactly the same as authentic Vietnamese, using this fun approach to learn simple Vietnamese phrases doesn’t it also make the language feel more relaxed and enjoyable?

Quick Memory Guide to Vietnamese Phrases:
Hello: take a bath
Goodbye: go to the toilet
Greeting (can replace hello or goodbye): tao
Thank you: gratitude
How much: bao niu
Sorry: xin lỗi (phonetic: xin lou yi)
I love you (female to male): an dung an
I love you (male to female): an dung an
A little cheaper: lèi hēng lěng hēng
Pretty (for younger women): a xīn lán
Pretty (for older women): tī xīn lán
Handsome (for younger men): an léi tài
Handsome (for older men): an léi tài lán