Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, is the easternmost nation on the Indochina Peninsula. It borders China to the north, Laos to the northwest, and Cambodia to the southwest.
Vietnamese, spoken by most of the population, is a tonal language and definitely not easy to master. It is written in a Latin-based script, making maps and signs relatively easy to understand. More than 20% of the modern Vietnamese vocabulary originally came from Chinese, so travelers fluent in other East Asian languages may find some similar words. |