Thai has an initial “ng” sound ( ง – Ngor ngoo ) which I suppose is related to that of Vietnamese (they use same phonetic symbol). As others suggest, there are two problems: learning to pronounce the sound, and learning to hear it.
A way to learn to pronounce it is to start with an English word with “ng” in the middle, like “singer” or “bingo” and drop the initial “si” or “bi”! Pronounce such a residual syllable 20 times every morning, with a native speaker checking for correctness and you’ll have it pat in a few days.
Learning to recognize it in another’s speech may be more difficult: I’ve read that phoneme recognition is learned best only as a young child. When alerted to the presence of a pest, I still sometimes have to double-check whether it’s a rat (“noo”) or snake (“ngoo”). :smack:
I’ve been friends and coworker with many separate Nguyen’s over my life, and have asked several directly. They’ve replied that it is either “win” or “ngwin” as a single syllable. They’ve said that when they hear “engoowin” or “nuhgoowin” they usually just don’t bother to correct the speaker.
Well, you have to understand that there’s often an existing context of politeness and expediency when answering pronunciation questions. If you’re the typical American who asks a native person how to pronounce it, you’ll get a polite and servicable answer such as…
… which is perfectly acceptable approximation to avoid repetitious back and forth tedium. It’s not as if you’re in a foreign language class. You’re in a business office or casual setting which is fine for that.
However, if you ask them again in a very explicit way such as, “ok, now tell me how to really pronounce ‘Nguyen’ such that a blindfolded Vietnamese person could not detect I was an American” and you should get a different sounding answer. It would be an answer that you can’t exactly type using English syllables – you’d have to use those funny phoneme characters that acsenray posted.
The spirit of the OP was asking how native Vietnamese folks actually say it (in Vietnam). The question was not how they American-ize the pronunciation to get past those pleasantries of conversation with English speaking colleagues.
A similar example is when my friend is asked how to pronounce “Jorge.” He responds with “George” (like George Washington). Well, his parents actually pronounce it “hor-hay.” I sometimes call him “hor-hay” but even that is still not exactly right because his parents say the embedded “r” with native nuances that my mouth can’t duplicate.
One of my Vietnamese electricians back in the 60s was named Nguyen Van Minh. The first name was impossible for us, so he was just called Minh, which was much easier to approximate. I did learn how to ask a few simple questions, tell time, and count to ten in Vietnamese while I was there, but I’m sure I butchered much of it.
In the 70’s I helped some Vietnamese kids learn English, just by letting them hear me talk, someone else interpreted and I helped explain Americanisms. I didnt pick up any Vietnamese but their surname was Nguyen and I recall they pronounced it, nWin.
Funny thing is, I had little trouble learning. One of my best friends as a child was Bruce Nguyen, and I learned reasonably well. Then again, I do pretty well at accents.
There’s also the issue of what part of Vietnam the person (or person’s family) is from. There are quite distinct differences in both the pronunciation of the vowels and consonants and in the number and character of the tones of the different dialects.
I knew someone in school (now giving me Facebook angst), and I always pronounced it as if there was an “i” in front of the “n”. I ALSO went to school with a Nguyen. I pronounced it “Nu-jen”. Took watching poker to get “win”
Cantonese has it too. It’s not that difficult to pick up really.
Off the top of my head, the Canto word for I or me is “ngoh”. And the word for ant is “ngai”.
Irrelevant anecdote time: I had an ant infestation. I knew that mosquito repellent was “mun pa soui” and that “mun” was mosquito, and “ngai” meant ant. So I went into a store and asked for “ngai pa soui”. The woman in the shop fell around laughing then said in English “you want to buy an ant that is frightened of water?”
It would be an answer that you can’t exactly type using English syllables – you’d have to use those funny phoneme characters that acsenray posted.