Things you taught me (Remembering teacher Nguyen Tai Can)

Endless passion

Then the teacher appeared. Old coat, scarf wrapped around, a huge cigarette between his teeth. His first words: “Hello everyone! It’s freezing. Cold enough to make your ears hurt. Unbearably cold. Indescribably cold… Do you see the difference? That’s language!” Then he enthusiastically analyzed the differences in the utterances. First, the scarf was in a pile on the chalk-dusted table, then the coat was thrown on the back of the chair, then sweat was beading under his parted hair that was starting to turn gray. Then he suddenly changed direction: “That’s vocabulary, grammar, and today we’re going to deal with phonetics, a difficult but very interesting subject. The world began with words. The Bible says so.” Suddenly, the teacher put his hand to his neck, opened his mouth wide, stuck out his tongue, wrinkled his nose, and raised his eyebrows. He introduced us to the pronunciation department. With a few strokes on the board we understood what makes the sound of speech, the A, E, Ô, U, B, M, D… Four lessons flew by.It was the winter of 1974, still in the hut with mud walls, with everything we could wrap ourselves in, we went to class, shivering, waiting for the teacher. The whole class arrived early and in full because today was the class of Professor Nguyen Tai Can. To us, all the famous university teachers were professors. We did not care whether one had been awarded a title and the other was still waiting. We were taught 3 subjects by him.Phonetics,Vietnamese GrammarandOrigin and formation process of Sino-Vietnamese reading. In all three subjects, I got average marks, and now, after more than 30 years of reading, I understand that a poor mark would have been more appropriate. But he had instilled in us the flame of love for science and literature since that indescribably cold winter morning. I lived right in the dormitory, and he cycled 11 kilometers to school at exactly 7 o'clock, never missing. The enthusiasm and passion he had always given, I pray will never be extinguished.

How to teach at university?

Knock, knock, knock. I opened the door. The teacher appeared at the door and said: “Sing another verse! I was downstairs listening to you sing, come up and play for a bit, but look:Mother's heart is pure and honestbut notlivewhere. We sing wrong songs so often that it becomes a habit. We have to understand. LikeI date five me seven snowof Nguyen Binh, must be understood asfive years seven lessonsnew meaning. It is just an appointment this time and that time. But do you have a pipe of tobacco?" When he knew that I was staying at the school to teach, the teacher was surprised and then commented: "You are a bit short. It's okay. It's a bit of a loss. But let me tell you a story about my teacher, who was even shorter than you, but he taught very well. The teacher sat at the table and pointed: Mr. A go to the board. Then: Mr. A go back to his seat. At that time, the teacher came out to correct the test. At that time, we had two children who were still in the same class, very tall. If the teacher came out to correct the test and stood next to a tall person, he would lose his posture. The problem is correlation. And do you know how to teach at university?". While I was confused, the teacher continued: "I will say it quickly. It's simple. Teaching at university is giving examples. Theory is often short postulates. Phenomena are richer than laws. The tree of life is forever green. Short is easy to learn, students are smart and memorize faster than us. What is needed is for them to learn in the way that people perceive theory. So examples are needed, the more the better, the richer the better. To do this, the teacher must study in advance, study each one specifically. There are many types of examples:Basic example, there is a school rule, all books must be written the same, whether Western, Vietnamese or Chinese, they must be written the same way and teachers must also give them as books. But if we only give them as books, students will say reading books is better. Therefore, next isextended example, you must read books and look for reliable opinions and cite clearly. Not citing clearly will be considered plagiarism. Third isunique example, which means that only I have it, but books in the world cannot have it. This requires teachers to diligently research their own things, even keep them, without printing them out. Sometimes when printed out, students read them somewhere and don't remember the author's name, they think that I stole it from someone, which is harmful to my reputation. To make such an example, we have to turn over a problem very carefully, even if it is small, but carefully, deeply, and accurately. We even have to empirically research abstract problems such as morality, spirit, and experience. Fourthly,behavioral examples, with which object, with which situation, give appropriate examples: regular one is different, in-service one is different, propaganda officer one is different, otherwise one day you will have trouble with your mouth. There are funny examples when it is necessary to be funny and there are serious examples when it is necessary to be serious. There are things I can say but you are not yet able to say at your age. That's it. In a lifetime as a teacher, if you can give me a hundred "deadly" examples, you will become a great scientist. Going to research examples will create a need for theory and will accumulate theory. These two are closely related, especially in a social sector like ours." It was true that my ears were ringing, but after many times meeting him again, he would smile and ask: "What do you have?" and I would immediately understand how I had to work.

Must act and act

The teacher came into the room and saw my desk full of vocabulary papers. I was working on the Nom poetry language of Nguyen Trai. The teacher asked about my intention, I said I would make a quantitative statistic of Nguyen Trai's poetry by word unit. The teacher looked through it and asked: "What is a word?". I was confused and gave some common definitions. The teacher said, see, people are still arguing about how words are in Vietnamese, and it's very dangerous for you to jump into it. In my opinion, you should make a statistic by word. That was in 1978, I was still very faltering so I couldn't follow the teacher's advice, as a result I didn't complete the work. I complained that you weren't prepared with the theory so you couldn't finish the work. The teacher encouraged: “It’s okay, just do it and leave it there, it will be useful later. I believe that few people read Uc Trai’s poems as carefully as you. That is a gain. Nothing is lost. The point is to take action. Look, Nonna and I went to the library for 6 months to hand-copy the entire Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary of the late priest Alexandre de Rhodes. Many people advised us to print it, why bother copying it. But you see, it’s been more than ten years since it was printed. We have more time than others. Just do it, it will be useful.” The teacher’s work ethic was endless, something that many of us could not learn. Nowadays there are too many pleasures. Once returning home to attend an international scientific conference, he excitedly said: “There are initiatives but we have to act immediately. Let me tell you this story, my whole family went to visit the grave of my father-in-law, who was a major general of the Red Army. The whole family went to the car but I was still rummaging around in the kitchen. Snacks, snacks. I struggled to carry out a cardboard box. Nonna said: “If a scientist is late, everyone will wait”. I kept quiet. When we got to the grave, weeds were growing all over it. Nam pulled, Viet pulled, the children pulled. It was no use. Only then did I open the box. Here is a knife, here is a hammer, here is a shovel blade… Here you go, here you go! The whole family exclaimed in admiration at my intelligence. Isn’t that great! It’s nothing, this is called “tomb sweeping”, which means cleaning the grave. Cleaning the grave requires tools, that’s all. I love him, his wife loves him, the children love him. But it’s still action”. The very next day, passing the dormitory, I saw from afar, the teacher leading a bicycle with a heavy bag on the handlebars. When I asked where he was going, he said he was going to ask for some sand and cement to fix the septic tank. I told him to let my child follow and help him. The teacher waved his hand repeatedly: "I'll finish plastering a bit, you can go home!". I walked away and turned around to look at the teacher, a world-famous linguist, living in faraway Russia, nearly 80 years old but willing to do such ordinary jobs. Just like us, one shot is enough. The stories about our beloved teacher are endless. Many stories have become legends. I did not study linguistics so I could not fully understand him. Remembering him, I recounted a few memories that deeply influenced my character and always kept in mind "Without a teacher, you cannot achieve anything" even though I myself have not achieved anything.