Five year sago, Hanna Larsen, 29, decided to leave the US for Vietnam to enjoy ‘slow living’. She was a vegetarian and only ate fruits and vegetables, so Vietnam, seemed a suitable destination.

In the first year in Vietnam, Hanna spent time to adapt to the new living environment and local culture. She tried to learn Vietnamese several times, but failed. She found the Vietnamese language too difficult for her, so she gave up learning several times.

In 2020, when she moved to HCM City, she again decided to learn Vietnamese in a serious way in the first six months of staying there. During that time, she did not speak English and avoided meeting foreigners.

“It took me 2-3 years to speak Vietnamese. I am grateful to a teacher named Thuy, who was very enthusiastic when teaching me. I lived in her home several times just to learn Vietnamese,” she said.

She finds Vietnamese language interesting and rich in vocabulary, with every region having its own slang words and jokes. 

She felt that she would be closer to people when communicating in Vietnamese.

Wherever and whenever she hears Vietnamese, either the words of a song or a voice of a man, she feels happier.

Hanna had a lot of fun when she was in Vietnam. When she went to the market to buy fruit, she surprised the seller when she asked about the prices in Vietnamese. And the seller was even more surprised when hearing from Hanna that she wanted durian, which is not favored by many foreigners.

Now Hanna can read and write in Vietnamese. Her writing is better than her speaking skill. She finds it very interesting when writing Vietnamese, though she has had problems with diacritic marks.

With her improved Vietnamese skills, Hanna has been to Da Nang and Binh Thuan, where she enjoyed life with Vietnamese at homestays.

When she was in Binh Thuan in 2018, she met Luong Thanh Duc, the man who became her husband.

At that time, she went to cast for a movie where Duc worked as a production assistant. Her Vietnamese was not good and they had to communicate in English. However, when they met each other the second time, Hanna was impressed by the Vietnamese voice of the man from the central region and Duc also was surprised when Hanna could speak Vietnamese fluently.

Later, they met each other more regularly and found that they had the same hobbies and thoughts. Both of them wanted a life close to nature.

As they began dating, Hanna had more reasons to learn Vietnamese. She became pregnant when Covid-19 broke out and felt the life was impermanent. She shared her idea with Duc that she wanted to go to Loja, an area in Ecuador, to give birth in the most possible natural way.

Duc agreed and they planned the journey to the mountainous area of South America.

Overcoming difficulties, Hanna and Duc finally set foot in the land called the longevity village in South America.

During the pregnancy, Hanna regularly spoke with her unborn baby in Vietnamese.

After she gave birth to a baby girl, she communicated with the baby in English and ‘assigned’ her husband to teach Vietnamese to the baby.

“I want my baby to learn Vietnamese from father, so that she can speak correctly,” she explained.

Hanna said she was moved to tears when she first heard the girl speaking Vietnamese. The first Vietnamese the girl spoke out was ‘bo’ (daddy). Later, she could speak more and more Vietnamese words.

Hanna and her family have had another baby. She said she is happy and wants the children to speak with each other in Vietnamese.

In the multicultural and multilingual village, Hanna's small family keeps the love for Vietnamese and speaks Vietnamese.

Ngoc Lai