You are learning drinks and toasting: you will read the scene it happens in, take apart the pattern behind them (drinks vocabulary + toasting), hear them in a conversation, rehearse them, and finish by saying one thing out loud to be graded.
Vietnamese restaurant drinking culture: from the opening lotus tea to the bia hơi rounds to the bia chai (bottled beer) to the closing herbal tea. Each has its moment and its phrase.
Midway through the meal. The host — Minh, who has been explaining the origin of each dish — produces a small bottle from his bag: Nếp Mới, a Northern Vietnamese rice wine, 29.5% alcohol, slightly sweet and smoky from the fermentation crock.
He fills the small glasses. The stranger looks at his. 「Đây là rượu gì?」 What kind of wine is this? Minh explains: fermented glutinous rice, aged sixty days, a family recipe from his village in Hà Giang province.
The stranger lifts his glass. 「Tôi uống ít thôi — không quen uống rượu mạnh.」 (I'll just drink a little — not used to strong spirits.) Minh smiles, nods. 「Đúng rồi! Uống ít thôi!」
「Nâng ly! Một, hai, ba, dzo!」 The rice wine is warm, sweet, and completely wrong in the best possible way. 「Vui quá!」