When learning any language, the first thing to do is to purchase a language dictionary of your language and the language you want to learn. In this case, I need to purchase an English-Vietnamese / Vietnamese-English dictionary. In the past, I've bought German-English/English-German dictionaries. Spanish-English/English-Spanish dictionaries. Turkish-English/English-Turkish dictionaries. And so last week I entered a book store to buy a good, portable Vietnamese-English/English-Vietnamese dictionary for my time here. I found the foreign dictionary section and began scanning the books. Viet-Ahn (Vietnamese-English). Viet-Ahn. Viet-Ahn. Viet-Ahn. Near those I found Ahn-Viet. Ahn-Viet. Ahn-Viet. I kept seeing the same thing - one way dictionaries. Of all the dictionaries on display, I only came upon one Viet-Ahn/Ahn-Viet dictionary! Weird.
So I visited another book store. Viet-Ahn. Viet-Ahn. Ahn-Viet. Ahn-Viet. Only one Ahn-Viet/Viet-Ahn dictionary was on the shelf and it was the same company that I'd seen in the previous store. Where were the combined 2-way dictionaries??? So I asked. Now, if you don't know the language at all, it's a little difficult to ask, "Don't you have any Vietnamese-English/English-Vietnamese dictionaries?" And after I did to the young man working in the shop, he didn't understand. I explained it very simply: I used the left hand to describe Ahn-Viet. I used the right hand to describe Viet-Ahn. And then I slapped my hands together to describe a book with both; he still didn't understand. Luckily, an old man standing nearby understood. In the end, 3 guys searched the shelves for what I wanted, for what was in every other country in the universe, but not here. No success. There was only one big combined dictionary and thus I was left in a stupor as to how this could possibly be. It was a large bookstore - 2 floors at least. The previous bookstore had been large. The selection of dictionaries in both was large. But apparently the idea of a combined dictionary had just never occurred to the Vietnamese publishing companies.
I consulted a Vietnamese acquaintance. She's a college student who's learned English. I consulted the daughter of the guesthouse where I'm staying. I even consulted God. But no. If the Vietnamese want to learn another language, they must buy 2 dictionaries. In fact, my acquaintance had never heard of such a thing as 1 language dictionary! She thought it was an interesting concept.
And so, I too, now own two dictionaries.
