The pitfalls of the Vietnamese alphabet

These are the major "gotchas" of the Vietnamese alphabet I have come across.

1. An ơ is not an o is not an ô

The o and ô are both rounded vowels (lips pursed). The ơ, on the other hand, is unrounded. It's position is more front than the other two. That is, the tongue is placed further toward the front of the mouth. The difference between the o and the ô is that the o is pronounced with the tongue further down. As tongue and mouth usually move in unison, that means the mouth is also more open when pronouncing the o vs. the ô.

Similarly, a, ă and â are quite deceiving. The rule that appears to be most commonly taught is that ă is a short a and â is a short ơ. But this may not be entirely accurate. Certainly in the Southern dialect, the â sounds different from an ơ, at least to my ears. However, I have only found contradicting claims during my online research so far. Perhaps, it depends on the dialect.

2. Implosives

Đ/b at the beginning of a word as well as c/ch/p/t at the end of a word are actually implosives. That means, you are supposed to suck in the air while you pronounce them, rather than exhale like it is done in English. If you pay attention to initial đ/b, you will sometimes notice that they sound like the person is gulping. That's what's meant by implosive. If you're male, you can feel your Adam's apple moving down if done right.

3. The letter g

Another one that looks easy, but isn't. It's not a g like in goat or goofy. Instead, it's the (Northern) Vietnamese kh sound, but voiced. The difference between voiced and non-voiced is like an English "d" vs a Vietnamese "t". You can google "voiced velar fricative" to see demonstrations of how to pronounce this sound.

4. Ending diphthongs

The diphthongs iê/ươ/uô are spelled as ia, ưa, ua if they appear at the end of the word (e.g., bia, not biê). But are ending diphthongs really the same as diphthongs in the middle of a word? I have no definite answer. According to Wikipedia, ending diphthongs are centralized. So, they effectively become something like iơ, uơ and uơ. I can't tell the difference, though.

5. The matter of the syllable nucleus

Every word in Vietnamese has a vowel that is pronounced louder than the remaining parts of the word. That's the vowel nucleus (aka the main vowel). If you want to pronounce words correctly, this is actually important. Besides the nucleus, there can also be an onglide before the nucleus and an offglide after the nucleus. In Vietnamese, there are only two sounds that can be onglides or offglides. They are the /j/ and /w/ sounds. That's /j/ and /w/ according to the IPA, not according to the English alphabet. The /w/ is pronounced exactly like the "wh" in "what". The /j/ is like the "y" in "you". So, in Vietnamese, these two sounds can be represented by different letters. For example, /w/ may be spelled as either o or u. The rules are:

• u in combination with q if at the beginning of a word (quên, quán, quyết, quớt)
• o if the the nucleus is either a or e (đoán, khỏe, heo)
• u if the vowel after the /w/ is either i (spelled as y), ê, ơ or â (tùy, níu, thuê, lều, luật)
• if /w/ comes after a, the above rules don't apply. Instead, the spelling according to the long "a"/short "a" rule takes precedence

The /j/, on the other hand, is always represented by i (and d/gi in SV), except, as in case "d." above. Examples: trời, hôi, hơi, dạ (SV), giống (SV). A "y" is never an offglide, but always the nucleus (except after a). That's why khuỷu is spelled with a "y". That's also what differentiates túi and tùy. In túi, the nucleus is the u, so the correct way to pronounce it would be something like "tooy". Whereas in tùy, the u is actually the /w/ offglide and the pronunciation would be more akin to "twee" in English.

6. Long "a"/short "a" spelling rule

This is one of the harder gotchas to get used to. Basically, the vowel ă is spelled as "a" if it comes before the offglides /j/ and /w/. The /j/ is then spelled as "y" and the /w/ as "u". So, hay is actually hăi and tàu is actually tằu. Combined with the regular long a, the offglides are spelled as "i" and "o", respectively. So, tai is actually tai and táo is actually táo.