Following last year’s passage of the Vietnamese Advertisement law which requires that advertising content, spoken or written must be in Vietnamese, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recently told cultural departments nationwide to exercise greater control over the many shop signs featuring only foreign languages, or signs where Vietnamese is not the focus. Shops that have only or predominantly foreign-language signs will face fines up between VND1 – 5 million.

According to Tuoi Tre, in recent years, many shops have put up signs in only foreign languages, such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese, a direct violation of the Vietnamese Advertisement Law. The ministry said that it reflects a lack of respect for the national tongue and culture.

Under the law, foreign languages can only be used when representing foreign brands, trademarks, proper names or internationalized words which can’t be replaced with Vietnamese. In these cases, signs must be written in both Vietnamese and the foreign language, and “foreign words must be no less than one-third of the Vietnamese words’ font size, and placed beneath the Vietnamese words.”

Ninh Thi Thu Huong of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism elaborated:

“As stipulated by the Advertisement Law, established names or trademarks like Panasonic aren’t required to be translated into Vietnamese. The shop owners are only required to inform local customers in Vietnamese of what kinds of goods they trade in. However, it is the signs featuring prices and miscellaneous information in only Chinese, Korean and Japanese, not the signs of established brand names, that trigger most reactions from locals.”

Huong added that while Da Nang authorities have managed to put the control the situation to a certain extent, those in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have failed to do so.

[Tuoi Tre]