[LESSON 1] VIETNAMESE ALPHABET

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Lesson 1: Vietnamese Alphabet

I. Aims of lesson:

After the lesson you will learn:

The Vietnamese alphabet system and its pronunciation
Learn more detail vowels, consonants, diphthongs, etc.
Tones

II. Content:
1. Vietnamese alphabet system
There are 29 letters in the Vietnamese alphabet system which consists of 12 vowels and 17 consonants. See the list below:
Table 1

A a	Ă ă	Â â	B b	C c	Dd	Đ đ	E e	Ê ê	G g
H h	I i	K k	L l	M m	Nn	O o	Ô ô	Ơ ơ	P p
Q q	R r	S s	T t	U u	Ư ư	V v	X x	Y y

2. Vowels
As mentioned above, there are 12 vowels in the Vietnamese alphabet system. They are including:
Table 2

a	ă	â	e	ê	i
o	ô	ơ	u	ư	y

How to pronoun these vowels is to follow the below
Table 3

	Front	Central	Back
High	i, y	ư [ɨ]	u [u]
Upper mid	ê [e]	â [ə] / ơ [əː]	ô [o]
Lower mid	e [ɛ]	â [ə] / ơ [əː]	o [ɔ]
Low	ă [a] / a [aː]

Front, central, and low vowels (i, ê, e, ư, â, ơ, ă, [i]a) are unrounded, whereas the back vowels (u, ô, o) are rounded. The vowels â [ə] and ă [a] are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Thus, ơ and â are basically pronounced the same except that ơ [əː] is long while â [ə] is short — the same applies to the low vowels long a [aː] and short ă [a].
- Now turn back to the list, (table 2) listen and repeat
* Diphthongs and Tripthongs
In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs), Vietnamese has diphthongs and triphthongs. The diphthongs consist of a main vowel component followed by a shorter semivowel offglide to either a high front position [ɪ], a high back position [ʊ], or a central position [ə]. See the table below:
Table 4

Vowel nucleus	Diphthong with front offglide	Diphthong with back offglide	Diphthong with centering offglide	Tripthong with front offglide	Tripthong with back offglide
i	-	iu~yu [iʊ]	ia~iê~yê~ya [iə]	-	iêu [iəʊ]

ê	-	êu [eʊ]	-	-	-

e	-	eo [ɛʊ]	-	-	-

ư	ưi [ɨɪ]	ưu [ɨʊ]	ưa~ươ [ɨə]	ươi [ɨəɪ]	ươu [ɨəʊ]

â	ây [əɪ]	âu [əʊ]	-	-	-

ơ	ơi [əːɪ]	-	-	-	-

ă	ay [aɪ]	au [aʊ]	-	-

a	ai [aːɪ]	ao [aːʊ]	-	-	-

u	ui [uɪ]	-	ua~uô [uə]	uôi [uəɪ]	-

ô	ôi [oɪ]	-	-	-	-

o	oi [ɔɪ]	-	-	-	-

The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i, ư, u) as the main vowel. They are generally spelled as ia, ưa, ua when they end a word and are spelled iê, ươ, uô, respectively, when they are followed by a consonant. There are also restrictions on the high offglides: the high front offglide cannot occur after a front vowel (i, ê, e) nucleus and the high back offglide cannot occur after a back vowel (u, ô, o) nucleus.
The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For example, the offglide [ɪ] is usually written as i however, it may also be represented with y. In addition, in the diphthongs [aɪ] and [aːɪ] the letters y and i also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay = ă + [ɪ], ai = a + [ɪ]. Thus, tay "hand" is [taɪ] while tai "ear" is [taːɪ]. Similarly, u and o indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au = ă + [ʊ], ao = a + [ʊ].
The four triphthongs are formed by adding front and back offglides to the centering diphthongs. Similarly to the restrictions involving diphthongs, a triphthong with front nucleus cannot have a front offglide (after the centering glide) and a triphthong with a back nucleus cannot have a back offglide.
With regards to the front and back offglides [ɪ, ʊ], many phonological descriptions analyze these as consonant glides /j, w/. Thus, a word such as đâu "where" [ɗəʊ] would be /ɗəw/.
It is difficult to pronoun these sounds, you must listen and repeat carefully (table )

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3. Consonant
The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right.
Table 5

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p[p]	t [t]	tr [ʈʂ~ʈ]	ch [c~tɕ]	c/k [k]
	aspirated		th [tʰ]
	voiced	b	đ [đ]		d [ɟ]
Fricative	voiceless	ph [f]	x [s]	s [ʂ]		kh [x]	h [h]
Fricative	voiced	v [v]	gi [z]	r [ʐ~ɹ]		g/gh [ɣ]
Nasal		m [m]	n [n]		nh [ɲ]	ng/ngh [ŋ]
Approximant		u/o [w]	l [l]		y/i [j]

Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a two-letter disgrah (like "ph"), and others are written with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as "c", "k", or "q").
The tables below show detail and it may help you easier to understand
* There are 17 single consonants as listed below:
Table 6

Consonants	Sound	Phoneme	English equivalent sounds
b		/b/	but, bike
c		/k/	car, clean
d		/z/	zoo,
đ		/d/	do, does
g		/g/	go, get
h		/h/	hat, house
k		/k/	keep,
l		/l/	leaf, lose
m		/m/	meet, mouse
n		/n/	not, no
p		/p/	pipe, people
q		/k/	queen
r		/r/	run, road
s		/sh/	show, shower
t		/t/	tea, top
v		/v/	video, vowel
x		/s/	see, sea

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Table 7

Consonants	Sound	Phoneme	English equivalent sounds
ch		/ts/	cheap
gh		/g/	ghost
gi		/j/	yes
kh		/x/	loch
nh		/ɲ/	canyon
ng		/ŋ/	sing
ngh		/ŋ/	single
ph		/f/	fine
th		/θ/	thin, theory
tr		/ʈʂ/	try
qu		/kw/	queen

* There are 8 final consonants:
Table 8

Consonants	Sound	Phoneme	English equivalent sounds
c		/k/	car
ch		/ts/	lunch
m		/m/	them
n		/n/	then
nh		/ɲ/	canyon
ng		/ŋ/	sing
p		/p/	stop
t		/t/	top

Now click the sounds again, listen and repeat carefully.
It is necessray to make a difference between these two sounds:
+) K vs. Kh
“K” & “kh” are two of the consonant symbols in the Vietnamese language. “K” is produced fortis and unaspirated. It is similar to the “c” in cat. In Vietnamese language it is similar to “c” and “q”. Perhaps one of the most common words beginning with “k” is “kem” which means “ice cream” and “kẹo” which means “candy”. 'Kh' is produced lenis voiceless dorsorelar spirant. The most common 'kh' word is “không” which means “no” or “not” though there are less common meanings as well. “Khỏe” which means “strong” and “healthy” is another common word. To place “khỏe không” after a personal referent is to enquire as to another's health - literally: “you well no?” as in “bạn khỏe không?” Also in these times of fast food, the ubiquitous french fry is known as “khoai tây chiên” meaning “potato fry”.
+) Ng and Ngh
The sound that ng and ngh make in Vietnamese is by far the hardest sound for Westerners to make. Ng and ngh simply make the last sound in "king" or "running” (as long as you don't make the hard /g/ sound at the end). The problem arises when ng or ngh come at the beginning of a word, as the common family name Nguyễn clearly demonstrates. Here, the speaker has to isolate the /ŋ/ sound, which even many Western dictionaries don't recognize in their pronunciation guides. (Those that do tend to represent it as /ng/.) This lesson will help you to at least pronounce the /ŋ/ sound well enough for a native listener.
One thing you have to take a notice of is the combination of these above consonants Ng/ ngh with vowels. See below for detail:

a

ă

â

e

ê

i

o

ơ

ô

u

ư

y

Ngh

nghe

nghê

nghi

Ng

nga

ngo

ngơ

ngô

ngu

ngư

Ngh can only combine with the vowels which are started with i, e, ê.
Ng can combine with vowels started with a, o, ơ, ô, u, ư.

Besides, Vietnamese has another pair of sound (g/ gh) which are all pronouned as /g/, for these consonants, there is also rule in combining with vowels.

a

ă

â

e

ê

i

o

ơ

ô

u

ư

y

g

ga

gi*

go

gơ

gô

gu

gư

gh

ghe

ghê

ghi

- gh can only combine with vowel started with e, ê, i.
-g can go with vowel started with a, o, ơ, ô, u, ư.
* g can also go with i but in this case it will be pronoun as /j/, e.g. cái gì.

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3. Tones
Vietnamese is a tonal language, It means that different voice inflections on any word will change the meaning of that word. For example, if you say ban with a rising tone, it means "sell," but if you say it with a falling tone, it means "table." Tone is the central part of a word
There are five tones in Vietnamese, plus a mid-level non-tone. Press each symbol button below to hear what each tone sounds like, and the name of the tone. Then press the word buttons to hear how one word can be pronounced with all six tones. Underneath is the English translation of each word.

Description	Name of tones	Symbol	Sample word & meaning
Midrange voice goes flat and level.	Ngang		“three”
High rising	Sắc		bá “to hug”
Low falling	Huyền		“grandmother”
Start in a low tone, go down and gently back up	Hỏi		“bane”
Start high, bring voice down, cut off, and go back up	Ngã		“residue”
Bring voice down and cut off abruptly.	Nặng		“haphazardly”

Hình minh họa
It is time to practice. Now listen and repeat carefully

1	Ba	Bá	Bà	Bả	Bá	Bạ
1
2	Ma	Má	Mà	Mả	Mã	Mạ
2
3	Be	bé	bè	bẻ	bẽ	bẹ
3
4	Me	mé	mè	mẻ	mẽ	mẹ
4
5	Le	lé	lè	lẻ	lẽ	lẹ
5

* How to type Vietnamese on computer:
To use Vietnamese on your computer, you need to download Unikey and then choose vietnamese. You also need to follow this rule:

Letters	Tones
ă = a w â = a a đ = d d ê = e e ô = o o ơ = o w ư = u w	Huyền = F Sắc = S Hỏi = R Ngã = X Nặng = J

- The rest is to follow the normal rule.
Example:
Tiếng Việt = t i e e n g s v i e e t j

[LESSON 1] VIETNAMESE ALPHABET

[LESSON 1] VIETNAMESE ALPHABET

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