Essential Vietnamese Grammar

Essential Vietnamese Grammar is designed for use by English-speakers to help them speak and write Vietnamese more naturally. The twelve chapters in this book cover the essential grammatical constructions of Vietnamese--from beginning to intermediate and advanced levels. Strong emphasis is placed on the differences between translating directly from English, which yields awkward and incorrect sentences, and the use of idiomatic Vietnamese constructions and expressions. This book can be used for self-study or classroom instruction. All Vietnamese grammatical concepts are clearly explained and copiously illustrated with example phrases and sentences. The chapters progress from fundamental components (the sounds of Vietnamese, spelling, the use of accent marks and tones) to structural components (parts of speech, grammatical functions, structure of phrases and sentences), and then to nuances expressed through word choice, word order and cultural elements. Each chapter is accompanied by a set of exercises (with answer keys provided) that the learner can use to reinforce their understanding of the materials and their ability to apply them in real life situations. Audio recordings by native speakers are available online for all the Vietnamese sentences to help the learner acquire good pronunciation and intonation patterns for various types of sentences.