mysterious email

[joho07]

I got this email today. Can someone tell me what language this is and what it says? I think someone sent it to me by mistake. Thanks!

Chi khoe khong?
Vua roi co di dam cuoi cua Phuong do'. Tham bi benh nen khong co di.
Chi co tin vui gi chua? Tet nay chi co dinh ve Vn an Tet khong?
Bye chi,
Chuc chi cuoi tuan vui ve

Comments

Vietnamese

[chcl3]

I am so excited that I can understand it! <3

Re: Vietnamese

[chcl3]

Chi khoe khong?
Hey sis, how are you?

Vua roi co di dam cuoi cua Phuong do'. Tham bi benh nen khong co di.
Recently I went to Phuong's wedding. Tham was sick and thus didn't go.

Chi co tin vui gi chua? Tet nay chi co dinh ve Vn an Tet khong?
Have you got any happy news yet? Will you return to Vietnam for this Lunar New Year?

Bye chi,
Goodbye sis,
Chuc chi cuoi tuan vui ve
Have a nice weekend

Re: Vietnamese

[chcl3]

I translated this sentence literally, but it has an idiomatic meaning.
Chi co tin vui gi chua? is actually a polite way of asking 'Is there any baby news on the way?'

Re: Vietnamese

[come_love_sleep]

*wibble*

Re: Vietnamese

[ghede]

Admittedly my knowledge of Vietnamese is close enough to 0 as to not bother distinguishing between the two. But, how did you manage that without the tonemarks? Are enough of them common(ish) phrases and such that it was made straightforward in context, or is there some sort of secret voodoo that you learn once you've become sufficiently proficient in a tonal language?

Re: Vietnamese

[chcl3]

I'm a learner, not a L1 speaker of Vietnamese, so it's hard for me ;P Grammar structures are absolutely the key - after identifying that, I went on to try and identify individual words/phrases using a dictionary.

Let's take this sentence: Vua roi co di dam cuoi cua Phuong do'.

This is a sentence, not a question. Co đi is the verb (to go). Cua Phuong is Phuong's (cua followed by a name = name's). So I needed to find out what dam cuoi was, and the dictionary told me wedding. Then I Googled 'vua roi tieng viet' to get 'vừa rồi', and the dictionary told me recently.

Re: Vietnamese

[ghede]

Well, that makes much more sense than I was hoping for.

Nonetheless, nice work of your resources.