VietNamNet Bridge - More and more errors have been found in newly published dictionaries. Local newspapers said that the market is flooded with ‘rubbish dictionaries’, and analysts have warned that these dictionaries will spoil the Vietnamese language.

Many mistakes have been found in the Spelling Dictionary for students published by the Thanh Nien (the Youth) Publishing House.

Teachers and parents have pointed out that the mistakes are ‘unacceptable’ because the misspelling happens with popular words: “Xác suất” was misspelled as “sác xuất” and “xác xuất”, “truyện cổ tích” as  “chuyện cổ tích”, “xớn xa xớn xác” as “sớn sa sớn sác”, “xạc một trận” as “sạc một trận”. Instead of “chạnh lòng” it was written as “trạnh lòng” in the dictionary, and instead of “chưng hửng”, it was “trưng hửng”.

The book was printed and deposited in 2011 and then reprinted in 2012. However, the mistakes have only been found recently. About 1,000 copies of the book have been printed. The Nhan Dan (People) Book JSC is in charge for the book cover and proofreading. The editors are Nguyen Quang – Minh Tri. The group of authors is “Ban bien soan tu dien Vietnambook” (Vietnambook dictionary compilation board).

“I cannot understand why there are so many basic mistakes. All the wrong spelling ways can be found there,” said Hoang Thieu Hoa, a parent in Cau Giay. 

Dictionaries with careless compilation will have negative influences on students and place big difficulties fie them to learn the Vietnamese language.

“I can see that this is a ‘rubbish dictionary’. You see, even the name of the person responsible for the publication – Mai Thoi Chinh – was also written in small letters,” she said.

Prior to that, in December 2015, local newspapers discovered a lot of mistakes in the ‘Vietnamese Dictionary’ by Kim Danh – Ngoc Hang published by the Tu Dien Bach Khoa (encyclopedia) Publishing House. The dictionary was found copying other books and copying mistakes.

The Tre Publishing House, which published erroneous dictionaries in the past, had to admit the mistakes and the books were recalled by the Publication Agency.

In late 2014, the Dong Nai Publishing House had eight ‘Vietnamese Dictionaries’ seized because of serious mistakes, for which it was imposed a fine of VND15 million. The dictionary gave poor explanations of many Vietnamese words.

However, the mistakes were only discovered six months after the dictionaries hit the market. This means that many students had bought books and learned in accordance with books before they were recalled.

Dr Tran Tri Doi from Hanoi National University warned that dictionaries with careless compilation will have negative influences on students and place big difficulties fie them to learn the Vietnamese language.

Lao Dong