A 7-year-old boy in the south-central province of Binh Dinh surprised parents and teachers with his fluent, natural English despite never having attended an English class.

Nguyen Dang Nhat Minh lives with his parents in a small house in Quy Nhon City, the capital city of Binh Dinh.

The parents, Nguyen Dang Quyen and Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thanh, who came from different parts of the country moved to the province to build their home and make a living by running a small food stall out on the porch of their house.

Minh’s mother Thanh said it was thanks to the food stall that the couple has been able to provide Minh with an education.

When Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters came to their house to meet the young talent, Minh had just got back from school, and the bespectacled boy greeted his surprise guests with gentle manners.

Minh then engaged in a few English exchanges with the reporters, showing fluency and demonstrating proper pronunciation.

Speaking of his son, Minh’s father Quyen said his English gift was discovered when the boy was four or five years old while he was still in kindergarten.

According to Quyen, there had been a delegation of volunteers from the U.S. and New Zealand visiting Minh’s kindergarten at the time. Minh had been able to communicate fluently with the volunteers in English while his teachers could not.

Quyen also recalled that when Minh was younger he was able to watch and understand English movies without Vietnamese subtitles and comment on the movies in English afterwards, the father recalled.

He said that before Minh’s talent was discovered and confirmed by English teachers at first, he thought his kid was only been babbling nonsense by imitating the movie characters.

Attending school one year earlier than his peers, Minh performs well in a number of subjects, including English, his father said.

Nguyen Minh Ha, head of the Englsh division at Le Quy Don High School in Quy Nhon City, said after chatting with the boy that, “Despite not having attended any formal English class, Minh’s ability to communicate in English is still natural.”

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!