On every Sunday afternoon, I go to an English club in Hanoi in which I live. Its name is HYEC which stands for Hanoi Youth English Club. How people often address its name, however, is quite unique. That is, they say "hai ếch" which is composed of two Vietnamese words. "Hai ếch" means "two frogs". How can they say that?

First of all, look at HY in HYEC. Because HY is somewhat similar to HI. How English word "Hi" is pronounced is very much similar to how Vietnamese word "hai" is pronounced. Yet, the Vietnamese word "hai" means "two" in English.

Now let's see how two last letters in HYEC is called as "ếch". This is a little bit tricky. Although as I see, EC and "ếch" are not the same in pronunciation in Vietnamese language, many people consider that those two words are similar anyway. In addition, "ếch" means "frog" in English.

Actually, Vietnamese often say "hai con ếch" instead of "hai ếch". People still understand what "hai ếch" means though.

To sum up, HYEC, "hai ếch" and "two frogs" are names of that English club. I think the club's logo could be this:

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Comments

  • He he, I like it, if I live in Hanoi I'll join HYEC :D but I'm living in HCMC too far away :P
  • Hi Tran,
    Strange but flashy story,,:)) Good expression !
  • Interesting description! I wonder if you could tell us more about the club and what's the English learning like at HYEC?
  • Great blog post. Where is HYEC? I went to an English Club in Hanoi a few months ago. But I didn't see any frogs so I don't think it was the same :)))
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