The system of personal pronouns in Vietnamese language is a very complex one. There is not a set of general personal pronouns in Vietnamese like it is in English (I, you, he, she, we, they). The personal pronouns in English can be used freely without external non-linguistic connotations. I can say that every time my students use personal pronouns (especially “he” and “she” and also “my” and “your”) they make mistakes. I always have to say “It is about your father, your father is a man, why are you using ‘she’?”.

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Using “it” as a subject is another problem that Vietnamese learners have to face. Impersonal “it” is very often used in English (example: It is raining, it is necessary etc). There is no equivalent of impersonal “it” in Vietnamese.

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The English definite and indefinite articles (the, a, an) don’t have exact parallels in Vietnamese language. Instead of articles, Vietnamese language uses a type of word called classifier to make similar distinctions in nouns.

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Vietnamese learners of English have some problems using adverbial expressions correctly. A short comparison between how these adverbial expressions are used in Vietnamese and English can be seen below.

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Unlike English, Vietnamese adjectives follow nouns or pronouns. This leads to mistakes in most cases. An even bigger problem is the use of the followed by an adjective, as in the rich, the poor, the old etc.

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