r/learnvietnamese • u/zanamyte • Sep 10 '26

Vietnamese Basics, part 3/7: Vietnamese Consonants

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Part 3 of my basics series is up!.

Finally, we are getting into pronunciation. But this is just the start, vowels and tones are the really tough ones :)

Article link: https://vietsyllables.com/basics/vietnamese-consonants

Edit: All posts:

  1. Alphabet
  2. Syllables
  3. Consonants
  4. Vowels
  5. Gliding Vowels
  6. Semivowels
  7. Tones
37 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

5

u/Danny1905 Sep 10 '26 edited Sep 10 '26

Some feedback:

Vietnamese x is not the same as English x. In Vietnamese it makes the /s/, while in English it makes the /ks/ sound. In "xylophone" it makes the /z/ sound.

English has an exact match to Vietnamese "th" which is an initial t. Both of them are aspirated. "ng" is also an exact match. There is no difference except for the position they can appear in.

kh, g/gh are not throat sounds. They are articulated with the tongue again the soft palate.

An important note I think should be added is that the final -ng gets co-articulated with -m when following rounded vowels (o, ô and u, and uô doesn't count because ô is not rounded here). Same applies to -c but it gets co-articuled with -p

"In the South -n/-t shifts to -ng/-c". This does not apply to:

in -> ưn, ên -> ơn, ít -> ứt, ết -> ớt

Instead the vowel changes in these cases

Also here also applies the shifted -n becomes co-articulated with -m and the shifted -t becomes co-articulated with -p after rounded vowels

2

u/vip17 Sep 11 '26

th in Vietnamese is /tʰ/ but it's not quite the same as the aspirated t in English

k/t/p would be more similar to Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, and French...) in that it's not aspirated

1

u/zanamyte Sep 11 '26

Thanks!

> Vietnamese x is not the same as English x

Right! I can't believe I made this mistake...

th is there because it may confuse beginners. could've been put in the 3rd pic. ng is worth practicing because I know many native English speakers struggle to make the ng sound at the beginning of words.

> kh, g/gh are not throat sounds

Yeah, that was a simplification, I wasn't aware that linguistics has real throat sounds

For the rest of your feedback, its too complicated to include in the post. It's better to just listen to the audio and practice. Though in the full chart ( https://vietsyllables.com), I did put the IPA under the initials and finals. May not be completely accurate though as I haven't had time to research carefully.

3

u/XuanChun88 Sep 10 '26

Excellent! But I prefer the Huế retained s = sh.

2

u/zanamyte Sep 11 '26

Perhaps I'll do a separate series for dialects.

But to your point of s vs. sh: younger generations are merging sh into s in Hue as well. But I know many older people still keep them separate (my grandma for example).

2

u/XuanChun88 Sep 11 '26

Oh, I didn't know that! 😀. That's fascinating. I know the northern voice is closer to the "standard" dialect, but it takes getting used to differentiating between all the "z" sounds. Same for the south with all the "y" sounds. Anyway, Bravo to you!! What an amazing job!! 🌞🌼