giải âm

Sino-Vietnamese word from 解 (“to explain”) and 音 (“sound”).

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [zaːj˧˩ ʔəm˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [jaːj˧˨ ʔəm˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [jaːj˨˩˦ ʔəm˧˧]

giải âm

1. (historical, translation) a historical category of texts aim to "explaining the sounds" of works written in Literary Chinese

• There is significant diversity within works called giải âm, with some came fairly close to the modern concept of translation, while some are closer to annotations with simple "word-matching" between Literary Chinese and Vietnamese, with little to no regard to the structure or syntax of Vietnamese. On the contrary, some giải nghĩa/diễn nghĩa works focus on extracting as much meaning as possible from the source texts, with little to no regard to the structure and syntax of Literary Chinese.

• giải nghĩa, a similar category of texts, with a stronger focus on "explaining the meaning"