New book: Glossary of terms in water supply and sanitation (Vietnamese – English)

Core terms in the field of water and sanitation are usually found mostly in English. Non-English speakers often use these terms in English or translate them into their own language, according to their own understanding of the English terms. This is also the case in Vietnam, as experienced on several occasions by a working group of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South in Vietnam. As a result, we now see that many English water and sanitation terms have a variety of Vietnamese translations and that no consensus about the correct translation of individual terms has been reached among the experts who apply the terminology. In our experience, disagreement about the meaning of the terms due to different understandings of the English terminology can complicate work in seminars, trainings, and workshops. It can also lead to unexpected difficulties when implementing and managing water and sanitation projects. To our knowledge, no complete translation of water and sanitation terminology exists from English or other languages into Vietnamese. This is why we decided to collect water and sanitation terms in English from different sources. We then translated these terms into Vietnamese and provided them with systematized explanations, which went through a round of editing in order to create the present Vietnamese glossary of water and sanitation terms. The purpose of our work was to contribute to the synthesis of water and sanitation terminology in Vietnamese and to create a platform for exchange among people working in this field. Indeed, the present document is meant as a first step towards a consolidated English-Vietnamese glossary in the field of water and sanitation. We explicitly call for feedback from readers who use the present document in their work.

Cover page of the book Glossary of Terms in Water Supply and Sanitation 

We welcome feedback on the present glossary from any colleague or organization working in the field of water and sanitation in Vietnam. We look forward to receiving your feedback via email at cenpher@huph.edu.vn  and thank you very much in advance for your collaboration. 

We hope that this glossary will be of use in your work.

The Authors

Citation: Nguyen Viet Hung 2013. Glossary of Terms in Water Supply and Sanitation. Science and Technique Publishing House. Hanoi. 104 pages. ISBN: 9786046700487. Download here.