Talk:Tết

Tet is THE Spring holiday in Vietnamese culture, marking the start of Spring. I'm aware that it occurs during winter, but it is the symbolic beginning of Spring and is inextricably associated with it. Calling it a winter holiday might be a bit misleading. DHN 16:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Could someone put in an IPA transcription? Hearing the pronunciation is insufficient because non-native speakers will mishear the tones, vowels and consonants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.227.133.212 (talk) 00:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

We need to use Image:304px-Mai.jpg in here somewhere. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 07:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You're not the only one who missed it. If you can find an appropriate place to put it, please do. DHN 01:50, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it sure that Vietnamese follow Calendar differences described in this article? Other resources in web seem to indicate that they just follow Chinese Lunar Calendar. E.g. New Year would be on 18th Feb 2007 (like Chinese New Year), not 17th Feb 2007 (indicated in Wikipedia article) rec.travel.asia, Information of Vietnamese New Year 2007

Note that the Tet will fall on the same day as the Chinese New Year on most years, but will occasionally fall on a different day (usually one day or one month difference). See the first reference in the article for a detailed discussion about the reason. The pages you cited are hardly authorative, they are probably unaware of the calendar difference and used a Chinese calendar lookup tool. The calendar difference had only occurred twice before (since being adopted in 1967) and each time causing a great deal of confusion (especially during the Tet Offensive in 1968, when the North had adopted the system but the South had not; communist fighters didn't know which date to attack and some attacked prematurely). You might want to drop them a note so that they don't badly mess up their plans for Tet. DHN 14:17, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Tet Offensive mentioning

I question the sentence "Nowadays, the term "Tet" in English often refers to the bloody Tết Offensive, which occurred during Tết in 1968." in the intro paragraph. I think that's over-generalizing this without proper citation or background. There are quite a lot of Tet-related articles in English, and most of the non-Vietnamese people I talk to don't necessarily associate Tet with the Tet Offensive. Minh T. Nguyen 05:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Face it, the only reason that the word "Tet" is known in English is because of the Tet Offensive. If it didn't occur, it would still be known as "Chinese New Year". Actually, that's the case right now in France...I heard that it used to be known as Tet because of the large Vietnamese presence there, but with the Chinese gaining in influence, it's gradually converted to "Nouvel An chinois"...DHN 06:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I kinda feel like you’re both right… The Tet Offensive isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes into Americans’ minds when they hear “Tet,” but I don’t think most non-Vietnamese would know what Tết is, either, unless they’re familiar with the background of the Tet Offensive. I sort of was vaguely aware that the Vietnamese celebrated Lunar New Year, and I’d heard of the Tet Offensive, but I didn’t know the word Tết until this year. (I don’t even know how I learned it; probably just googling.) I woulda just said “Vietnamese New Year” (by analogy with “Chinese New Year”)—after all, we don’t say “Spring Festival,” right? There weren’t few Vietnamese where I grew up, but it wasn’t a big deal in the wider community, like how there’s visibility and televised Chinese New Year’s parades and everything.

Nevertheless, if people associate it, you know, they do or they don’t. I don’t know that that’s necessary in the intro. — Like Brigitte Bardot 09:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that, this article talks about the festival, not about the offensive, saying "the term "Tet" in English often refers to the bloody Tết Offensive" is POV!, AFAIK, this is not the case of people around me. Or we can create another article named Vietnamese New Year Festival. Vinataba (talk) 00:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Do people around you speak English? DHN (talk) 17:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

One day difference with Chinese New Year?

My Vietnamese wife says that her country celebrates the New Year one day before the Chinese do. This has been the case since the brief China-Vietnam war in 1976. Any information on this?Jlujan69 02:32, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This is already covered in the article. See Tết#Calendar differences. DHN 05:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

most of the time it falls on the same day. only very rarely does it not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Breaistwrote (talk • contribs) 22:37, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Do / Do not

This section needs some work, especially with spelling/grammar. I would change it myself, but I don't know what the original author meant by some of the statements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ippyy (talk • contribs) 04:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've removed this line: "One should come back home before New Year's Eve if you don't want to be in difficult working." for precisely that reason. If anyone knows what this means, please feel free to revise it. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 05:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Plants and flowers

I've noticed that a number of flowers have been left in Vietnamese. For example:

• Hoa ban. According to Vdict ([1]), ban is paulownia. Is this correct?
• Hoa cúc. According to Vdict, cúc is chrysanthemum. Is this correct? A thread at www.englishtime.us/forum ([2]) gives daisy, too.
• Vạn thọ. According to Vdict, vạn thọ is marigold. Is this correct? Unfortunately, "marigold" may refer to several species in English, including Calendula (marigold or pot marigold), Tagetes (Mexican marigold, African marigold or French marigold), and Glebionis segetum (syn. Chrysanthemum segetum; corn marigold). The thread at www.englishtime.us/forum specifically gives Tagetes paluta L for vạn thọ.
• Mào gà. According to the thread at www.englishtime.us/forum, this is Celosia cristata or "cockscomb". Is this correct?
• Hoa bướm. According to Vdict and the thread at www.englishtime.us/forum, hoa bướm is pansy. Is this correct?
• Thủy tiên. This appears to be equivalent to Chinese 水仙, which is in turn equivalent to flowers of the genus narcissus (including daffodils). This is the translation given at the thread at www.englishtime.us/forum. I am wondering whether the term "paperwhite" is the correct one to use here, since this refers in English to one very specific species, namely Narcissus papyraceus, which is a "perennial bulbous plant native to the Mediterranean region".
• Viôlét. Here this is translated as lavender. I have no way of checking if this is correct, but on the thread at www.englishtime.us/forum it is translated as "violet". However, this may be a quite literal translation, based on the superficial equation of hoa violet = "violet", not taking into account the actual identity of the flower.

Could someone check up on these flower names? Bathrobe (talk) 03:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)