(CPV): Enhancing the position of Vietnamese in the context of integration

On June 11, 2024, The San Francisco City Council of Supervisors (USA) has decided that Vietnamese will be used as one of the official languages ​​of this city. Thus, in addition to English, Chinese, Spanish and Filipino, the city of San Francisco will use Vietnamese in public services such as translation, announcements, and website texts.

A representative of the City Board of Supervisors speaks on June 11, recognizing Vietnamese as an official language in San Francisco. (Photo: San Francisco Chronicle)

Previously, in order to serve immigrants, the city of San Francisco stipulated that English would be translated into several languages ​​for communities with at least 10,000 people who were not fluent in English. With the newly passed resolution, the city of San Francisco has lowered the minimum threshold from 10,000 to 6,000 people. Meanwhile, according to statistics, in the city of San Francisco, there are more than 6,700 people who primarily speak Vietnamese, which is more than the requirement to make Vietnamese an official language.

In the US, apart from San Francisco, Vietnamese has been used quite widely in public services in many cities, especially in places with large Vietnamese communities such as Orange County, California, Houston, Texas or Seattle, Washington. In these areas, Vietnamese language is provided in many essential services such as healthcare, education, social services. This has contributed to creating equal opportunities, promoting the integration and strong development of the Vietnamese community in the US.

Not only is it recognized as one of the official languages, in recent years, Vietnamese has also been taught at some universities or primary and secondary schools in many countries as a foreign language.

At Ca'Foscari University, Venice (Italy), the Vietnamese language department has been introduced into the Department of Asian and North African Studies. Students graduating after 3 years of studying Vietnamese at Ca'Foscari University will achieve an intermediate level, or about B1 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​(CEFR). At this level, students can understand the main idea of ​​conversations about common topics at work, at school or in the entertainment area. Although established late, the Vietnamese language department at Ca'Foscari University is considered to have the most complete Vietnamese language program in Italy because students also learn about Vietnamese history, literature, economics and culture.
 

In Korea, since 2013, the Ministry of Education has stipulated that English is the first foreign language, Vietnamese and 8 other languages ​​(German, French, Russian, Chinese...) are the second foreign languages. In Korea, there are 4 training institutions for Vietnamese and Vietnamese studies: Department of Southeast Asian Studies (Busan University of Foreign Studies); Department of Vietnamese Studies (Chungwoon University); Department of Vietnamese Language (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies); Department of Vietnamese Studies (Youngsan University). At the high school level, Chungnam Foreign Language High School (Cheonan City) has a Vietnamese Language Department established in 2015. These Vietnamese training institutions have contributed to meeting the demand in recent years, as Korean students tend to learn Vietnamese more, and at the same time, the number of Koreans coming to Vietnam to live and work is increasing.
 

On November 17, 2022, the national university entrance exam in Korea (also known as Suneung) officially took place with the participation of hundreds of thousands of students. Korean students completed 6 exams including Korean Language, Math, English, Korean History, minor subjects and Foreign Language 2. And Vietnamese is one of the second languages ​​chosen by most Korean students.

Vietnamese teachers in Taiwan (China) participate in training on teaching methods (Photo: NVCC)

Meanwhile, since September 2019, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (China) has made Vietnamese an optional language officially taught in schools from grades 3 to 12 in Taiwan. The demand for learning Vietnamese among Taiwanese people as well as the F2 generation (mixed-race children of Vietnamese and Taiwanese people) has increased so much that Vietnamese is now taught everywhere in Taiwan (China). In addition to Vietnamese being taught in primary school as a mother tongue, Vietnamese is taught as a second foreign language in secondary schools, high schools and universities.
According to Dr. Le Thi Thanh Tam, Head of the Department of Vietnamese Studies and Vietnamese Language, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi: Vietnamese has been taught as a foreign language in many famous universities in the world and the region since very early times. For example, in Europe, Russia was the country that introduced Vietnamese into research the earliest (in 1954) at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. After that, the Institute of Oriental Languages ​​of Lomonosove Moscow State University also officially organized Vietnamese language teaching for Russians. And recently, in 2017, Moscow State Linguistic University also started Vietnamese language courses for Russian students. In France, in 1979, the University of Paris 7 invited Vietnamese experts to teach Vietnamese for the Faculty of Oriental Studies for the first time. In Japan, Vietnamese has been taught since very early, around the 1960s. By 2020, many universities in Japan have programs to teach Vietnamese as an important foreign language such as: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Osaka University, Kanda University of Foreign Studies, Showa Women's University, Kobe University, Waseda University, Daito Bunka University, Nagoya International Language Academy...

The team of the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies and Vietnamese Language won the National First Prize in the Final Round of the Vietnamese Speech Contest for Foreign Students in 2023.

Recently, in 2021, a notable event was that two prestigious American universities in the Ivy League, Brown University and Princeton University, jointly launched the first online Vietnamese language course. Meanwhile, Vietnamese is considered an important language in training high-quality human resources in languages ​​in China. A system of universities teaching Vietnamese has been established across Beijing, Shanghai, Guangxi and Yunnan... In 2009, Sichuan Foreign Language University in Chongqing, Southwest China, also established a Vietnamese language major.
 

Student Sotnichenko Ivan (Ukraine) learns about Vietnam through a book in Vietnamese. (Photo: Kieu Giang)

Dr. Le Thi Thanh Tam believes that the increasing presence of Vietnamese in teaching programs in many countries or the fact that Vietnamese has become the official language in major cities around the world has shown the vitality and great potential of Vietnamese language and culture in the context of international integration. "Vietnamese language preserves the traditions and identity of the nation's origins, and at the same time is the gateway to great opportunities in connecting and accessing the quintessence of human culture," Dr. Thanh Tam emphasized.
The fact that Vietnamese language has been constantly developing is a living proof of the intelligence and spirit of Vietnamese people, the spread of Vietnamese culture in the context of international integration. With its increasingly affirmed position and role, Vietnamese language has contributed significantly to enhancing the position and prestige of Vietnam in the international arena./.