vietnamese, virtually

2005-08-05

Awkward Vietnamese on Yahoo!Mail

During a recent trip to Việt Nam, the universal reaction to the new Vietnamese version of Yahoo!Mail is a welcome one.

However, this is followed by comments that the language used therein is quite peculiar, does not correspond at all to common usage or syntax, and/or the translation must have done by someone who does not live in Việt Nam. For instance, the Vietnamese word order is noun adjective, yet "Yahoo! Thư" is used. It is suggested that the name should be left as "Yahoo! Mail" as this is already quite familiar.

Other problems include: inconsistency, verbosity, repetitiveness, archaic forms.