Online Vietnamese courses for university admission at level Bậc 4

Circular 30/2018 of Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training governs foreigners who study in Vietnam and has applied since 8 February 2019. Its Article 6 requires students in programmes taught in Vietnamese to have graduated in Vietnamese or to reach a level equivalent to B2, level 4 of 6, under the Vietnamese Language Competency Framework for Foreigners. That framework, introduced with Circular 17/2015, sets six levels, Bậc 1 to Bậc 6, against the levels A1 to C2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

Students who lack Bậc 4 must take a preparatory Vietnamese course. At its end they sit a test. If they pass, they move to the regular programme, and if not, they keep studying and retake the test until they pass. Students in programmes taught in another language must instead meet the level of that language set by each programme.

In Hanoi, the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies and Vietnamese Language at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities of Vietnam National University (VNU-USSH) teaches Vietnamese language and culture to foreigners. According to the university, more than 10,000 foreigners have studied there, and the faculty looks back on about 55 years of Vietnamese studies. International students from dozens of countries learn Vietnamese alongside Vietnamese students of the subject.

A 2021 circular of the education ministry lets universities with programmes in Vietnamese studies, Vietnamese language or literature run the official framework exams, as well as units that state agencies assign to teach Vietnamese to foreigners. The exams cover listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Outside Vietnam, universities teach Vietnamese within Southeast Asian or Vietnamese studies. The University of Hamburg in Germany is one example, where the Asia-Africa Institute teaches Vietnamese within the languages and cultures of Southeast Asia.

No official hour counts per level exist for Vietnamese. The figures are rough estimates for lessons plus self-study, derived from the US Foreign Service Institute (FSI), the State Department's language school, which plans about 44 weeks of full-time training for confident professional use.

At ten study hours a week, Bậc 4 takes about 80 to 110 weeks, at fifteen hours about 53 to 73 weeks. A realistic plan therefore starts 18 to 24 months before the degree:

1. Start with a general course that practises tones every day and writes with all tone marks.
2. Reach A2 within the first year and add listening at normal speed.
3. From B1, read short academic texts and practise summaries and emails to lecturers.
4. Take a framework exam at Bậc 4, or plan the preparatory course in Vietnam into your timeline.

Vietnamese absorbed many words from Chinese over centuries, especially in formal and academic vocabulary. These Sino-Vietnamese words dominate lectures, textbooks and theses, and many everyday words have a formal counterpart of this kind.

Core academic terms come from the same source: nghiên cứu (research), kết quả (result) and luận văn (thesis). A course that teaches them as a group lets you recognise their parts in new words.

You address male lecturers as thầy and female lecturers as cô, and emails to them open with Kính gửi, a formal greeting meaning respectfully to. Academic texts are written with all tone marks, because without them a syllable such as ma can stand for six different words.

A degree in Vietnamese demands more than the admission test measures.

1 Following lectures

Many learners read Vietnamese long before they follow speech at normal speed. Lectures are where that gap shows first, so long recordings belong in every preparatory course.

2 The lecturer's variety

Vietnamese has northern, central and southern varieties with different tones and everyday words. A degree in Hanoi trains your ear for the north, one in Ho Chi Minh City for the south.

3 Reading dense texts

Academic texts pack many Sino-Vietnamese terms into each sentence. Word lists by subject help more than general vocabulary at this stage.

4 Discussing in seminars

Among fellow students, the same age-based address applies as in daily life, so anh, chị or em, and often bạn between peers of the same age. With lecturers you stay with thầy or cô and formal phrasing, even when you disagree.