2019 Vietnamese Textbook (open-source)

https://andyfoster.github.io/VietnameseTextbook/book

Table Of Contents

• How This Book Works
• Alphabet
• Structure
• Grammar
  • First Words
  • Final Words
  • Similar Words
• Hanoi Streets and their Namesakes
• Situtations
  • How to Read a Menu
  • Ordering water
  • Motorbike repairs
  • Haggling at the market
  • Calling the hospital
• Slang
• Conversations
  • First conversations
  • Intermediate
    • Teacher’s Day
• Signs
  • Miscellaneous Signs
  • Food
  • Road Signs
  • Political Signs
• Using a Vietnamese Keyboard
• Lessons
  • 26 April 2018
• Stories
  • The Ass Carrying the Image
• Appendix
  • Colours
  • Foods
  • Vehicles
• Resources
• Example Conversations
• Conversational devices
• Language Learning

Alphabet

Vietnamese has a 29-letter alphabet (Wikipedia)

At first glance it looks similar to English with just a few accents but it can be deceiving. The letters, particularly the vowels, don’t usually sound like their English comunterparts so you need to learn them carefully.

There are 3 types of A, 3 types of O, 2 types of U, 2 types of E and 1 type of I.

The As

I like to think of the three As as sitting on a continuum from extremely open to extremely closed (A - Ă - Â)

A is open like in aunt or father (kind of a longer version of the first one)

Ă　with a crescent on top is said like the U in UNDER. A bit shorter than A.

 (with a conical Vietnamese hat) rhymes with the vowel in hit or miss (watch out for this one - very different than an English A)

The Os

• O
• Ô
• Ơ

The Us

• U
• Ư

The Es

• E
• Ê

The I

• I is always a long /ee/ sound

The Y

While we are talking about vowels, the “y” in Vietnamese is also an /ee/ sound but when it is inside a word, it is said fast and merges with the following consonant.

Alphabet Table

Aa	Ââ	Ă ă	B	C c	D d	Đ đ	E e	Ê ê	G g	H h	…
“pa”	“it”	“up”		“guy”	/z/ (N) /y/ (S)	/d/					…

Vietnamese has no F, J, W, Z letters

Vietnamese	English	sounds like
A a	a	the “a” sound in “father”
 â	-	as in “it”
Ă ă	-	as in “up”
B b	(same as English)
C c		Pronounced as a hard g (like in /golf/)
D d	d	pronounced /z/ in Hanoi and /y/ in Saigon (watch out)
Đ đ	-	hard D sound (this is the closest to English “d” but comes from the back of the mouth)
E e	-	-
Ê ê
-	F	(not in Vietnamese)
G g
		Gi - (in the north pronounced /z/)
H h		(same as English)
I i
-	J	(not in Vietnamese)
K k
		Kh -
L l
M m	(same as English)
N n		(same as English)
		nh - /nya/
		ng - siNG - (only comes at the end of the word in English. They can start a word with Ng in Vietnamese)
O o		mORE
Ô ô	-	hellO, L M N O
Ơ ơ		crOss
P p	(same as English)
Q q	(same as English)	always comes as QU
R r	(same as English)	In the south, similar to English ‘R’. In the north, pronounced /z/
S s	(same as English)	same
T t	**	kind of a soft d sound
		TH - an actual T sound
		TR - CH
U u		mOO
Ư ư	Uhh
V v		(same as English)
-	W	(not in Vietnamese)
x		said like a s
Y		(same as English)
-	Z	(not in Vietnamese)

Special Vietnamese Letters

ô, ơ, â, ă, ê, ư, đ

Tones

There are 6 tones that affect how you say each word. Words only have one tone each and always stay the same (i.e. the tone is attached to that word and doesn’t change)

-

Using a Vietnamese Keyboard

• Choose either Vietnamese or Telex keyboard
• Each tone has a letter attached to it. This is why it’s sometimes hard to mix English and Vietnamese using the same keyboard. If you type the letter twice, it should let you actually type a W, etc.
• If you type the wrong tone key, you don’t have to erase the word, just type the one you wanted and it will fix for you.
• Tones (using a an an example vowel)
  • huyền ‘hanging’ à af
  • sắc ‘sharp’ á as
  • hỏi ‘asking’ ả ar
  • ngã ‘tumbling’ ã ax
  • nặng ‘heavy’ ạ aj
• Special Letters (and how to get them)
  • ô (o + o)
  • ơ (o + w)
  • â (a + a)
  • ă (a + w)
  • ê (e + w)
  • ư (u + w)
  • đ (d + d)