Learning Vietnamese

The Rosetta Stone language software that we purchased arrived! The software is supposed to be able to teach us Vietnamese. I did a lot of research online, and this was the software that seemed to be the most thorough.

The only complaint that others seemed to have with this software was that it teaches Northern Vietnamese dialect (which apparently is so different from Southern Vietnamese dialect that learning one does not mean you can understand the other). Learning the Northern dialect is apparently a disadvantage to many Americans, because many of the Vietnamese that have settled in the United States are from the South. However, for us I think that it will be okay, because our purpose is really to be able to speak while in Vietnam, and we plan to be in the North of the country. Our agency does business with an orphanage close to Hanoi.

I am really nervous about the tonal aspects of this language. I have never studied a language before where the tone used could change the meaning of the words. But, we loaded the software, and we will see how it goes...wish us luck:)