Six Marks, Six Words — Epoche A1
My Vietnamese teacher in Ho Chi Minh City wrote one small word on the board six times: ma, má, mà, mả, mã, mạ. 'Read them,' she said. To me they looked almost the same. They are not the same. They are six words: ghost, mother, but, grave, horse, young rice plant. The little marks are not decoration. Each mark is a tone — the voice goes up, or down, or falls and rises — and the tone is part of the word, like a letter. I wanted to say 'mother'. With the wrong mark, it was 'ghost'. The class laughed, and the teacher laughed too. Six marks, six words.