Lesson 02: Vietnamese alphabet, tone marks and spelling rules

Summary: This lesson is an overview of Vietnamese alphabet, tone marks, and a Vietnamese word structure. It may seem like a lot, but you don't need to remember everything in this lesson, because I will introduce all letters one-by-one in the next lessons.

• Vietnamese alphabet and pronunciation of each letter. 
• Six tone marks are used.
• A simplified structure of a word in Vietnamese that you can use to learn spelling rules in Vietnamese later.

Hello, happy to see you here again!

If this is the first time you're here, you can go back to the Learn Vietnamese instruction to know where you're at. If not, let's get started!

1. Vietnamese Alphabet

The Vietnamese alphabet contains 29 letters, including seven letters using four diacritics (ă, â, đ, ê, ô, ơ, and ư) and five tone marks combined with only vowels (for example: ò, ó, ỏ, õ, ọ).

VIETNAMESE ALPHABET
A / a	Ă / ă	Â / â	B / b	C / c	D / d
Đ / đ	E / e	Ê / ê	G / g	H / h	I / i
K / k	L / l	M / m	N / n	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

Download the photo of Vietnamese alphabet here.

Listen to my audio below to know how to pronounce letters in the alphabet.

Note: Click to play

2. Tone marks in Vietnamese

And here is how all vowels with tone marks look like:

(Note: Swipe left and right if you can't see the whole table)

VIETNAMESE TONE MARKS
No tone	High rising	Low falling	Dipping	Leng-thened dipping	Low rising
a	á	à	ả	ã	ạ
ă	ắ	ằ	ẳ	ẵ	ặ
â	ấ	ầ	ẩ	ẫ	ậ
e	é	è	ẻ	ẽ	ẹ
ê	ế	ề	ể	ễ	ệ
i	í	ì	ỉ	ĩ	ị
o	ó	ò	ỏ	õ	ọ
ô	ố	ồ	ổ	ỗ	ộ
u	ú	ù	ủ	ũ	ụ
ư	ứ	ừ	ủ	ũ	ụ
y	ý	ỳ	ỷ	ỹ	ỵ

Quiz 1: How many tone marks are there in Vietnamese

(Note: Correct answer button will turn green.)

Explore how tone marks alter the pronunciation and meaning of words, illustrated with examples of vowels bearing these marks.

No tone	High rising	Low falling	Dipping	Leng-thened dipping	Low rising
ma	má	mà	mả	mã	mạ
ghost	mother	however	grave	horse	rice sprout

Note: Click to play

And this is the name of tone marks in Vietnamese for you to use them in spelling.

No tone	High rising	Low falling	Dipping	Leng-thened dipping	Low rising
(No name)	Dấu sắc (or Sắc)	Dấu huyền (Or Huyền)	Dấu hỏi (Or Hỏi)	Dấu ngã (or Ngã)	Dấu nặng (or Nặng)
ma	má	mà	mả	mã	mạ

Note: Click to play

3. The simplified structure of a Vietnamese word

There are three elements in a Vietnamese word:

Initial consonant (s)	+	Vowel (s)	+	Closing consonant (s)

And the tone mark of the word is always on the middle vowel.

You can see examples below:

(Note: Swipe left and right if you can't see the whole table)

Initial conso-nant(s)	Vowel(s)	Closing conso-nant(s)	The complete word
C	a	m	Cam = Orange
	Ă	n	Ăn = Eat
B	a		Ba = Father/Dad
B	ề	n	Bền = Durable
	Ố	m	Ốm = Thin
B	é		Bé = Small

Quiz 2: How many elements does the word "Lúa" in Vietnamese have?

(Note: Correct answer button will turn green.)

As you can see, a Vietnamese word must contain Vowel(s). Some words have both Initial and Closing consonant(s), some others only have either of them. But are all consonants in the alphabet both Initial and Closing ones?

No. Some letters can only be Initial Consonants, other can be both Initial and Closing ones. Vowels can be not only a single letter, but also two or three letters put together. You may feel stressed right now, but I will group and make them easier to remember in the next lesson. But first, let's see the overview:

(Note: Swipe left and right if you can't see the whole table. Download the photo of all Vietnamese vowels and consonant here.)

Letters	Initial consonants		Vowel(s)			Closing consonant(s)
	Conso-nants	Conso-nant digraphs	Vowels	Diph-thong	Triph-thong	Conso-nants	Conso-nant digraphs
a			a	ai, ao, au, ay
â			â	âu, ây
ă			ă
b	b
c	c	ch				c	ch
d	d
đ	đ
e			e	eo
ê			ê	êu
g	g	gh,
h	h
i			i	ia, iê/yê,iu	iêu/yêu
k	k	kh
l	l
m	m					m
n	n	nh, ng, ngh				n	ng
o			o	oa, oă, oe, oi	oai, oao, oay, oeo
ô			ô	ôi
ơ			ơ	ơi
p	p	ph				p
q		qu
r	r
s	s
t	t	th,				t
u			u	ua, uâ, uê, ui, uô, uơ	uây, uôi, uya, uyê,  uyu
ư			ư	ưa, ưi, ươ, ưu, uy	ươi, ươu
v	v
x	x
y			y	yê/iê	yêu/iêu

In the next lesson, we will learn all consonants and vowels in groups that helps you remember them easily. See you in the next lesson!

Source:

• Vietnamese Alphabet - Wikipedia
• How to use consonants and vowels in Vietnamese - Jellyfish Vietnam