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Does anyone know how the "r" is pronounced in Southern dialect? Google translate gives a "z" sound similar to the "d" and "gi" letters in Vietnamese, but I believe this is Northern dialect. Thanks
You are correct. R should be pronounce like r I English. Google gave a dialect sound for r. Which is not its true sound...
1253
Noun
(classifier con) rắn
1) snake; serpent
From Middle Vietnamese rẳn, from Proto-Vietic p-səɲʔ, from Proto-Mon-Khmer (b)saɲʔ
Derived terms
rắn hổ mang (“cobra”)
From Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/r%E1%BA%AFn
They are not the same word, the Vietnamese "rắn" is derived from a Proto-Austroasiatic word, which is also the origin of the Khmer word "msanh" (the year of snake ). On the other hand, the Chinese word 蚺 was pronounced as "nhiêm" in Sino-Vietnamese.
no, the character used in Vietnamese is 虫 + 吝 combined together. 蚺 was never used in Vietnamese
The word translator suggested con could be a classifier or mean child. Does the sentence mean you have a baby snake?
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"con" acts as a classifier for animals here. if you want to say a baby snake, you'll use con twice but with different meanings and usages: "con rắn con". the first con is once again a classifier for the head noun. the second is a descriptive word qualifying the head noun.
ps. please take note that descriptive words, like adjectives, usually come after the nouns they modify.
