It's quite easy for us to name some carbonated drinks, but if you had to translate Vietnamese sugarcane juice, tamarind juice, or apricot juice into English, what would you say?
Mr. Quang Nguyen, an English pronunciation training expert, shares some ways to name familiar summer drinks:
"Do you want some icy cold water?" - Uncle Don asked me during a camping trip on a hot summer day. There is no new word, but the expression is interesting. If I had to translate the word "ice", I would probably use "ice water" instead of "icy cold water". Actually, "ice water" is melted ice (snow), not cold ice.
On one occasion when I went to a restaurant with a couple of close American friends, when one of them ordered "orange juice", I also enthusiastically ordered "lemon juice". The waiter stammered and asked: "Do you mean lemonade?". It's true, "lemonade" is lemonade, and "lemon juice" is lemon juice, which is only used to squeeze into salads, but who ever drinks it? Actually, "lemonade" is lemon juice from yellow lemons (lemon), and lemon in Vietnam is "lime", so it's called "limeade". But in America, there's only "lemonade". Therefore, if you order salted lemonade, it's "salted lemonade" (if made from yellow lemons) or "salted limenade".
If squeezed directly from fruits like oranges or lemons, the drink is called "juice", for example "apple juice", "peach juice"... As for coconut water, you can use the words "coconut water" or "coconut juice", and coconut meat is called "coconut meat".
When you blend fruit and add some ice and milk, it's called a "smoothie". There's another drink that's similar to a "smoothie" but the main ingredient is milk, blended with ice and some fruit, called a "shake". When I was in America, my kids loved "milk shakes".
Crocodile juice. Photo: Bui Thuy
In Vietnam, the "classic" drink is definitely "iced tea". Iced tea in English is "iced tea" (or icy cold tea). Sitting at a tea shop in Vietnam, you can drink drinks that are very difficult to translate into English, such as apricot juice or sour plum juice. So how can we name them?
Apricot juice is apricots soaked in sugar. I think apricot juice can therefore be roughly translated as "sugar-soaked apricot juice", and water apricots as "sugar-soaked apricot juice with icy cold water". But that translation is not practical at all because it will make the speaker's mouth distorted. So if I invite a foreigner to drink a glass of apricot juice, I will introduce: this is "apricots", then "soak them in sugar for a few months to a few years", and from there we will have "soaked apricots juice". Next, the juice is "add sugar, icy cold water" and "mix them up" to get apricot juice. In addition, I will add that "mỏ" in Vietnamese also means "dream", so if you drink this juice tonight "you will have sweet dreams".
The same goes for Dracontomelon, as long as you remember the name of the dracontomelon fruit. To make it easier to remember, you can split the word into two halves, "draconto - melon" (melon is a melon). I don't see the pronunciation of the word Dracontomelon in some popular online dictionaries, so I have to listen and make my own IPA, which is /ˈdreɪkəntoʊˈmɛlən/. Therefore, even if you tell a foreigner the correct name of "dracontomelon", the listener still won't understand what fruit it is. If you want to introduce "dracontomelon juice", just teach them to say "dracontomelon juice".
When I was studying in the US, I was surprised to learn that the consumption of "soft drinks" in the world is larger than "drinking water". "Soft drink" is the general name for non-alcoholic carbonated drinks such as Coca, Pepsi, 7Ups... While drinks such as beer or wine (spirits...) are generally called "alcoholic drinks".
So what is sugarcane juice called in English? In 2005, a sister of mine from the US came back to Vietnam and used "sugar cane juice" to call this drink, and commented "It's the best drink in Vietnam". So if you have foreign friends coming to Vietnam, remember to invite them to a glass of "sugar cane juice".
Quang Nguyen
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