Press 6 7 8 9 after a letter ( a e o u d ) to add a diacritical mark to it. Press 1 2 3 4 after a letter ( a ă â e ê i o ô ơ u ư y đ ) to add a tone mark to it. Press the key again to type the digit 1 2 ... 9 instead. This keyboard follows the VNI standard.

Stop the mouse over each button to learn its keyboard shortcut.

Shift + click a button to insert its upper-case form. Alt + click a button to copy a single character to the clipboard.

You can select text and press Ctrl + C to copy it to your docu­ment. In your target document, press Ctrl + V , or, if you want to paste the text without formatting, try Ctrl + Shift + V .

Type Vietnamese characters without a Vietnamese keyboard Welcome! This page allows you to easily type Vietnamese characters without a Vietnamese keyboard. You can edit your text in the box and then copy it to your document, e-mail message, etc. ">?    

Point at a button to see its shortcut.

The Vietnamese Writing System

Modern Vietnamese is written with the Latin alphabet, known as quoc ngu ( quốc ngữ ) in Vietnamese. Quoc ngu consists of 29 letters. These are:

  • The 26 letters of the English alphabet minus f , j , w , and z . ̣ (These letters are, however, found in foreign loanwords.)
  • Seven modified letters using diacritics: đ , ă , â , ê , ô , ơ , and ư .

These modified letters are all considered separate letters of the alphabet. Vietnamese dictionaries follow the order a - ă - â - b - c - d - đ - e - ê - ... etc, where the extra letters follow the letter on which they are based. The order after o is: o - ô - ơ .

The combinations gh , gi , kh , ng , nh , th , and tr have also traditionally been considered separate letters with their own section in the dictionary, but this is less common nowadays.

In addition, diacritics are used to indicate the tones of Vietnamese. Tone markings are: a (no mark), à , á , ả , ã , and ạ . When letters are combined with tone markings, some complex diacritics can result, such as: ắ , ở , ẫ , and ể .

The following is a sample of Vietnamese in quoc ngu , a rather unexciting story about the increase in tourism to Laos in 2004. There are many words in this passage that are derived from Chinese, but because they are not written in Chinese characters their origin is not immediately apparent. Note that Laos has its own name in Vietnamese, like many countries in Europe and other Asian neighbours, but unlike the names of most other countries which are simply written in English.

Background of Quoc ngu

Considering that Vietnam has been an independent nation for a thousand years, quoc ngu has a surprisingly brief history. The system was developed by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century. The earliest extant dictionary using quoc ngu was the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum , published by Alexandre de Rhodes in 1651. Rhodes, who was French, relied heavily on earlier Portuguese dictionaries in compiling his work.

Quoc ngu was largely neglected until the 19th century when it was taken up by the French colonial government as a means of breaking the grip of Chinese culture and fostering Western ways of thinking. Despite its colonial background, the simplicity and ease of use of quoc ngu resulted in its gradual spread, especially after it was seized on by the Vietnamese reformers in the twentieth century as a means of breaking free from Chinese tradition and spreading mass literacy. It was eventually chosen as the official Vietnamese script only in the 20th century.

Features of quoc ngu

1. Diacritics are used to represent sound distinctions not covered by the Roman or Latin alphabet. This is not unusual. Although it is used around the world, the Roman alphabet is actually inadequate to represent even the languages of Europe. Some diacritics in Vietnamese:

The letter đ (not strictly speaking a diacritic) represents an ingressive 'd' sound, which means that the breath is not exploded outwards, it is held inwards, so to speak. (The Vietnamese /b/ sound is also ingressive, which gives it a peculiar auditory impression quite different from English /b/). ơ , and ư are the unrounded versions of o and u respectively. These unrounded vowel sounds are not found in most European languages. For short vowels, ă represents short a while â represents short ơ . The letters e and ê represent the distinction between [ɛ] and [e] in IPA symbols (mid-open and mid-close front unrounded vowels respectively). Similarly, o and ô represent the difference between [ɔ] and [o] (mid-open and mid-close back rounded vowels respectively). The result is a neat and regular distinction, better than that in some European languages (See this article for French and this article for German). Since European languages do not have tones, diacritics were introduced to represent these ( a , à , á , ả , ã , ạ ).

While helping achieve a regular and predictable spelling, diacritics are cumbersome to write and cause problems on computers and browsers. International Roman-letter character sets (such as ASCII) are unable to accommodate all the Vietnamese forms, so special encodings had to be devised. Recently, Unicode has become the standard encoding.

2. The quoc ngu has a very obvious Western heritage , which is apparent in several ways.

The Portuguese lineage shows through in spellings such as nh (initially pronounced /ny/ as in Portuguese). This heritage is less benign in some other cases. For instance, the sound /k/ is represented by the letters c, q, and k, depending on the environment. The letter c is used before a and o, and k before the vowels e, ê, and i. This practice dates back to Portuguese, which, like English, pronounces c as /k/ before 'a' and 'o' but /s/ before 'i', and 'e'. Portuguese is also followed in the combination qu. These complications could have been avoided by using k in all these positions. A different quirk is seen in words like khỏe and khuy . The letters o and u are pronounced slightly differently under the influence of the following vowel. This difference in sound was picked up by Europeans learning Vietnamese and reflected in the quoc ngu . For a Vietnamese native speaker, however, the difference is trivial -- imperceptible even -- and should not really be shown in the spelling.

3. In spite of its shortcomings, the system that the missionaries created was remarkably suited to the Vietnamese language. Of particular usefulness is its ability to bridge dialects . The writing system shows not only distinctions in sound that are found in the standard Hanoi dialect but also those in other dialects. Two different letters may be pronounced identically in Hanoi but differently in other dialects. For instance:

Please note: Although I have used slashes (/) to enclose sounds, the symbols are not standard phonetic or phonemic symbols used by linguists.

4. One very noticeable feature of quoc ngu is its monosyllabic nature. Every syllable is written as though it were a separate word, with a space before and after. This is a throwback to the use of Chinese characters in Vietnamese (see below). Partly as a result, Vietnamese speakers tend to believe that their language is made up entirely of monosyllabic words.

To be sure, the monosyllable is an important entity in Vietnamese. Each syllable tends to have its own meaning and thus a strong identity, and is strongly felt to be a single independent unit by Vietnamese speakers. However, the Vietnamese monosyllable is not automatically a 'word' -- or at least, not a word as we would define it in English. Often, two syllables go together to form a single word, which can be identified by the way it functions grammatically in a sentence. For instance, take the sentence:

Mấy giờ máy bay sẽ hạ cánh ở sân bay Tokyo? What time does the plane arrive at Tokyo airport?

It is clear that máy bay does not simply mean 'machine flies'; it is a single word meaning 'flying machine' or 'aeroplane' and functions as the subject of the sentence. Hạ cánh does not mean 'come-down wing' (which is the literal meaning of the two monosyllables); it is a single word that means 'to land' and functions as the verb of the sentence.

Máy bay is a 'compound word' made up of two native Vietnamese elements. Similarly, hạ cánh is a compound word made up of Sino-Vietnamese forms that have their ultimate origin in Chinese.

Vietnamese also has native polysyllabic words like bồ nông 'pelican' that cannot be broken up into anything meaningful. More recently, Vietnamese has borrowed polysyllabic words from foreign languages like French, e.g., va-li or vali ('valise' or 'suitcase').

In an earlier era many compound words were hyphenated but this practice has now been abandoned.

Quoc ngu was not the first system of writing used to represent the Vietnamese language. Before quoc ngu came along, two scripts existed and were in use. The first was Chinese characters, known as chu nho in Vietnamese. The second was a native adaptation of the Chinese characters known as chu nom .

CHU NHO ( chữ Nho )

For much of Vietnam's history the official written language was Classical Chinese, using, of course, Chinese characters. Chinese became established as the dominant cultural medium during the millennium (111 B.C. - 938 A.D.) when Vietnam was under direct Chinese rule. Even after Vietnam gained its independence, Classical Chinese continued in use among the literati. In fact, the characters were in official use right up until the 20th century. It was only the abolition of the Chinese-style official exams in 1918, following on from China's own abolition of the exams, that finally sounded their death knell.

During the time it was the official language, Chinese had a massive influence on the Vietnamese language and literature. Even today, a huge proportion of the modern vocabulary has its origins in Chinese.

As in the case of Japanese, the original Chinese pronunciations were modified to suit local habits. In many cases the pronunciation of Chinese words appears closer to the dialects of southern China. Similarities can often be found with Cantonese, the language of nearby Guangdong province, rather than Mandarin. As a random example, the word 高級 'superior, high-class' is gāojí in Mandarin and gou 3 kap 7 in Cantonese. In Vietnamese, the equivalent is cao cấp . (It is interesting to speculate whether such similarities are due to closer contact with Guangdong than with the mainstream northern Chinese dialects, or whether Vietnamese simply retains older features of Chinese pronunciation, as do Korean and Japanese).

The story of Vietnamese writing does not end with Classical Chinese. Despite the overwhelming prestige of Chinese writing, the Vietnamese managed along the way to develop a system to write their own language.

1. Chinese loanwords (Sino-Vietnamese) : For Vietnamese words borrowed from Chinese, chu nom used the original Chinese character without change. For example: The word sơn meaning 'mountain' was written 山 (modern Chinese shān ). The word hỏa meaning 'fire' was written 火 (modern Chinese huǒ ). The word vị meaning 'flavour' was written 味 (modern Chinese wèi ). 2. Naturalised Chinese words : Some very old borrowings from Chinese came to be considered naturalised Vietnamese words. These words were generally represented by the original Chinese character, but in order to distinguish them from newer Chinese loanwords sometimes a mark was added. The word for 'smell, flavour', mùi , was borrowed earlier than vị and had come to be regarded as a naturalised Vietnamese word. It was written or . (The mark on the top right indicated that this was a 'naturalised' word to be read mùi , not vị .) 3. Native Vietnamese words : For native Vietnamese words, there were essentially two methods of representation: (i) Chinese characters were used without change to represent the pronunciation only (emptied of meaning). Native Vietnamese Word Chu Nom Character Function một 'one' 沒 Sound: 沒 is pronounced mut 6 in modern Cantonese and mò in modern Mandarin. There is no connection between một 'one' and the meaning of 沒, which is 'to sink' or ('not have') in modern Chinese. (ii) New characters were created , either by putting two Chinese characters together on the basis of meaning and/or sound, or by modifying existing Chinese characters. (Sometimes this meant putting together two chu nom characters.) Some chu nom characters are: Combination of two meanings: Native Vietnamese Word Chu Nom Character Components Function trời 'sky, heaven' 天 Meaning ('heaven') 上 Meaning ('above') Combination of two characters, one chosen for its meaning, one for its sound: Native Vietnamese Word Chu Nom Character Components Function núi 'mountain' 山 Meaning ('mountain') 內 Sound ( nèi in modern Mandarin) lửa 'fire' 火 Meaning ('fire') 呂 Sound ( lǚ in modern Mandarin) lạ 'strange' 羅 Sound ( luó in modern Mandarin) 奇 Meaning ('strange') Modification of existing character chosen for its sound: Native Vietnamese Word Chu Nom Character Components Function ấy 'that' 'clothing' minus top part Sound only ( yī in modern Mandarin); original meaning is irrelevant

The chu nom system of writing could only be mastered by someone who already knew Chinese characters. Its use was thus confined to the educated elite and it was regarded as secondary to Chinese characters. Although chu nom was the medium for some of Vietnam's vernacular literature, most notably the Story of Kieu , a classic 18th century work, it was unable to match the prestige of orthodox Chinese writing. It was only fleetingly successful in gaining official acceptance as Vietnam's writing system. In the end, the Vietnamese abandoned both Chinese characters and the chu nom .

Although Chinese characters have been swept into the dustbin of history, it's remarkable how much their spirit lives on, both in the Vietnamese vocabulary and, ironically, in the writing system.

In fact, the practice of representing each syllable as one 'word', which is the common practice in modern Vietnamese, is actually a throwback to the old concept that each Chinese character is equivalent to one word. For instance, 'Hanoi', which linguistically speaking is one word, is written in Vietnamese as two: Hà Nội . This follows the Chinese script, which writes 'Hanoi' with two characters: 河內 (literally, 'river' + 'inside').

Treatment of foreign words

Being written in the Roman alphabet, it is now quite easy for Vietnamese to adopt foreign words (from English, French, etc.) outright. There is no need to transform words into katakana as in Japanese, or try to find suitable-sounding characters, as in Chinese.

Neverthless, Vietnamese has a long tradition of transforming foreign words into an acceptable Vietnamese form. This can be seen in naturalised words like:

And there are also cases where foreign words have entered via Chinese. The word câu lạc bộ is the Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese word 俱樂部 (Mandarin: jùlùbù ), which is the English word 'club'!

For more modern borrowings, conflicting tendencies can be seen. For instance, it is possible to find the loanword 'guitar' written ghi ta, ghi-ta, ghita, or guitar. The loanword 'video' may be written vi-đe-ô , vi-đi-ô , or video .

It is reasonable to expect that this tendency to directly use the foreign spelling will continue.

****************************

For more information, see Links . See also the Chinese Writing System and the Japanese Writing System .

YourVietnamese

Learn Vietnamese & Explore Vietnam

How to type Vietnamese: a complete guide

Introduction to vietnamese typing.

Learning to type Vietnamese is learning to type its alphabet and its 5 accent marks (or more accurately diacritics). The complete Vietnamese Alphabet and the 5 accent marks are given below:

Vietnamese alphabet

a, ă, â, b, c, d, đ, e, ê, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, ô, ơ, p, q, r, s, t, u, ư, v, x, y.

The 5 accent marks

acute accent(“´”), grave(“`”), hook(” ̉ “), tilde(“~”) and dot(“.”)

After a closer look, you would probably agree that what you need to know how to type are just ă , â , ê , ô , ơ , ư and the 5 diacritics.

In order to type those “foreign” symbols using the standard English keyboard, there are many different typing conventions, or formally “input methods”. Nowadays, two of the most widely used conventions are the Telex and the Vni. The main difference between these two conventions is that Telex uses letters (a-z) while Vni uses numbers (0-9) to express the accent marks and the marks on top of the vowels (i.e., to type ă , â , ê , ô , ơ , ư )

There is absolutely no advantage or disadvantage of Telex over Vni when it comes to support: it’s 99% correct to say that whenever Telex is supported, Vni is also supported and vice versa. Once you have learned the 2 conventions, you can decide on your favorite convention.

Installing Vietnamese keyboard

In the Telex Convention, for example, you’ll type the sequence “aa” (two a’s) to get â . Please go ahead and try typing aa on your favorite text editor to see what you get. What did you get?

Of course, it’s … aa !

This is because by default, your computer has yet to support Vietnamese typing, which means that you need to either install a software or enable Vietnamese typing if it’s already shipped with your Operating System (for example, on Mac and Gnu/Linux). Once that piece of software has been properly installed and the mode to type Vietnamese is selected, you’ll get â whenever you type the sequence “aa”. Please refer to the Notes (*) below for more details on the various Vietnamese typing software.

To practice typing Vietnamese online using Telex or Vni typing methods, as you’d be shown below, you can use this no-frill Vietnamese typepad or using the typepad on this site .

Type Vietnamese using Telex

Typing â , ê , ô.

As you can observe, these 3 letters all have the circumflex. The rule to type them is hence the same:

  • Telex: Type the underlying letter twice. For example, to get â , your typing sequence is “aa”. Similarly, “oo” for ô and “ee” for ê .

Typing ư , ơ and ă

These first 2 letters share the “horn”; the last one is not quite the same but is close enough, at least according to the Telex way of typing.

  • Telex: type the underlying letter + w . For exaple, to get ư , your typing sequence is “uw”. Similarly, “ow” for ơ and “aw” for ă .

Typing the 5 diacritics

The Telex and Vni conventions for typing the 5 diacritics are summarised in the following table:

Type diacritics (or accent marks):

And there you go! Congratulation on having learned how to type Vietnamese. But before we conclude, let’s do some exercises to make sure everything has been well understood. How would you type ớ ? Yes, it’s: ơ + the acute accent, so that the Telex typing sequence is “ows”.

Now, how about the word đặng ? If your answer is “ddawjng” for Telex, you’ve got it! The only note here is that instead of typing the dot right after the ă (i.e, “awj” for Telex), you can delay the dot till completing the whole word, which means your typing sequence could have been “ddawngj” for Telex. In fact many Vietnamese use this second way of typing the accent mark after completing the alphabet.

Now, if you have asked if it’s possible to defer the “breve” on top of the a till finishing the whole word, which means typing “ddajngw” instead of “ddawjng”, the answer is yes. It’s possible because the typing software, which understands our conventions, would easily figure out that your “w” is to change the a to ă . However, this type of deferral is not used by many people and is also not recommended for the reason that it may actually slow you down. Indeed, when you finish the world, you probably need to “look back” at the word and see what kind of “symbol” you need to add to the vowels. In addition, since ă , for example, is part of the Vietnamese Alphabet, it makes sense that we type it as one single unit.

Type Vietnamese using Vni

  • Vni: type the underlying letter + number 6. For example, to get â , your typing sequence is “a6”. Similarly, “o6” for ô and “e6” for ê .

Type ư , ơ and ă

  • ư , ơ : type the underlying letter + number 7. That is, “u7” for ư and “o7” for ơ .
  • ă : type “a8”

Type the 5 diacritics

Let’s do a review excercise to clear things up. How would you type ớ ? Yes, it’s: ơ + the acute accent, so that the Vni typing sequence is “o71”. The reminder here is that we type Vietnamese alphabet letters before typing accent marks.

Now, how about đặng ? If your answer is “d9a85ng” for Vni, you’ve got it! The only note here is that instead of typing the dot right after the ă (i.e, “a85” for Vni), you can delay the dot till completing the whole word. In other words, your typing sequence could have been “d9a8ng5” for Vni. Many people find this deferral of typing diacritics help improve typing speed.

As with Telex, it’s possible to defer the “breve” on top of the a till finishing the whole word so that you could also have typed “d9a5ng8”. However, this way of typing is not commonplace as it actually slows you down.

Regardless of what’ve been suggested or advised, as the ultimate goal is to get you type fast, you should use whatever method you feel most comfortable with.

Type Vietnamese on Mac

The great news is that Mac has built-in support for Vietnamese Language. To enable Vietnamese typing support, go to System Preferences and open International . Then select the tab Input Menu .

For Operating System before Leopard, you would see only the Vietnamese option. For OS X Leopard onwards, you have the Vietnamese Unikey option where you can select the Telex or Vni input method as learned above!

Now, for folks with an old Mac OS, the table below shows how to type the special alphabet letters and diacritics in Vietnamese: (Thank you Greg at CJVLang for suggesting this)

Type Vietnamese On Mac before Leopard:

So to type the word huyền , the sequence would be “huy3n5”.

Type Vietnamese on Gnu/Linux

As for Mac, Gnu/Linux Operating systems such as Ubuntu has built-in support for Vietnamese.

To activate Vietnamese typing support in Ubuntu, for example, go to: System->Administration->Language Support: Click Install/Remove Language and then select Vietnamese to install. And there you go.

Type Vietnamese on Windows

On Windows, you would need to install a software to help you type Vietnamese. But don’t worry, install this piece of software is just a piece of cake.

Below are a couple of Vietnamese typing software that you can use.

  • Unikey : Unikey is probably the most widely used among the Vietnamese;
  • Vietnamese Multilingual Keyboard Driver for Windows : With smart (and fast) typing methods, Han Nom (old Vietnamese) typing among other cool features, it’s worth a try.
  • VPSKeys (from Yale University)

If you don’t know what to use, select the first one: Unikey. Go to Unikey’s download page , and select the latest version to download. As of this writing, the latest version is Unikey 4.0 RC2. After it’s downloaded, everything else would be a series of clicking ‘Next’, typical of installing Windows software.

Insert Vietnamese Accent Marks automatically

Congratulations for having gone through this lesson on how to type Vietnamese using the Telex or Vni convention. You should now be comfortably typing Vietnamese, with some practice of course.

Now that you’ve known the fundamentals, I would like to show you a “secret weapon”: automatically inserting Vietnamese accent marks. Yes, that’s possible through application of a field called Natural Language Processing.

There are a couple of sites providing such a service but the best one is  VietnameseAccent.com .

But I only introduce them to you at the end of the lesson because of 2 reasons:

  • They’re not 100% correct. In fact, no artificial intelligence tool can be 100% correct. This means that you can’t rely on them to help you insert the accent marks for Vietnamese.
  • Even if they were 100% correct, you should still know how to type Vietnamese accent marks because you can then type Vietnamese in any editors, not just in the sites mentioned above.

So do play around with them, but you should always treat them as mere convenience tools, not something for you to avoiding learning how to type the Vietnamese accent marks.

If you have questions related to this post, please comment below.

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writing in vietnamese

yourvietnamese

Thinker. Entrepreneur. View all posts by yourvietnamese

guest

This may helping me typing alot better.

John

Thanks for the helpful Tips. 😊. My Vietnamese typing is much faster now.

John

using VPSkeys, windows 10, Unicode works fine for Vietnamese font Arial but font VNI doesn’t work. When type A1 it backspaces and erases both characters. Auto-replace unchecked.

yourvietnamese

I haven’t tried out VPSkeys yet but nowadays most people would use Unikey (the 1st option). How about trying that out?

Kathy

Thank you for this guide, it was really helpful for my dad.

Glad it’s helpful to your dad.

Meridith Tormala

Thank you for this. I would like to know how I would text an older Vietnamese person respectfully to tell them good evening/ we will talk soon and have a good night.

Hi Meridith,

a good night. See you again soon.”

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Vietnamese Keyboard - Việt Keyboard

Click or type it... copy it... and paste it... done.

Select All Copy Undo Redo Clear All Save Text - + Send Email Tweet in Vietnamese Google in Vietnamese Google Translate

This Vietnamese Keyboard enables you to easily type Vietnamese online without installing Vietnamese keyboard . You can use your computer keyboard or mouse to type Vietnamese letters with this online keyboard.

Pressing Esc on the Vietnamese keyboard layout will toggle the mouse input between virtual QWERTY keyboard and virtual Vietnamese keyboard. The key will also turn on/off your keyboard input conversion. Pressing Esc on your keyboard has the same function.

Press Shift or either Ctrl + Alt or AltGr for additional Vietnamese letters that are not visible on the keyboard.

For mobile phones and tablets, touch and hold inside the text area to copy the text. You can then paste the text in any app such as Facebook, Twitter, email, or search app.

The Beginner’s Guide to Vietnamese tones and accent marks

  • Post author By Elisabeth Ruth (Thảo)
  • Post date 07/05/2013
  • 6 Comments on The Beginner’s Guide to Vietnamese tones and accent marks

writing in vietnamese

In this post, we’re going to take a look at the Vietnamese tones and accent marks, and how to pronounce them correctly.

What are the 6 Vietnamese tones?

Are vietnamese tones hard, resources for vietnamese tones, vietnamese vowels, why do some vietnamese words have two accent marks, regional variations, part 1 – vietnamese tones.

Vietnamese is a tonal language. That’s why it can sound musical or melodic. There are six tones (though some parts of the country don’t pronounce them all) and they are represented by symbols that actually quite closely match their sound.

Each tone has a different pitch and intonation, and these tones can a large part of the meaning. So it’s important to learn the tones and try your best to pronounce them well if you want to be understood when speaking Vietnamese.

If you look closely, the symbols used for each of the tones represent the sound they make. The sắc symbol goes up, just like the tone. Hỏi looks and sounds like a question. And nặng, the heavy tone, is the only tone written below the letter.

* The full name for the tones includes dấu (eg. sắc is dấu sắc), but a lot of the time they’re just referred to by the names in the table above (eg. we usually just say sắc).

Vietnamese pronunciation can be tricky for foreigners. Tones appear hard but I assure you, they are manageable.

First, it’s important to remember that no language is completely flat. English uses sentence intonation to express meaning. For example, when we ask questions the intonation goes up or down. We also emphasise words in a sentence to show annoyance or surprise.

So, tones are not so strange after all.

That said, it takes some time and effort to get used to them.

Many people give up at this point. That’s a real shame because besides tones, Vietnamese is a relatively easy and amazing language. You will need to practice to improve your pronunciation but if I can do it, so can you.

Learn more about the tones here:

Part 2 – Vietnamese accent marks

Some vowel letters in Vietnamese are pronounced differently depending on whether or not an accent mark is used. If you’re familiar with a language like French, you’ll have seen accents like é and ê that change the sound of the letter ‘e’.

Vietnamese also has some accent marks to represent different vowel sounds.

Let’s look at an example:

ô, o and ơ are totally different sounds. ô – eg. bộ (walk) – oh like in the English word ‘go’ o – eg. bò (beef) – o like in ‘hot’ ơ – eg. bơ (butter) – er or ir like in ‘bird’

Mixing ô and o is the most frequent mistake I heard in my Vietnamese classes.

Vietnamese has 12 vowels: a, ă, â, e, ê, i, y, o, ô, ơ, u, ư.

You can listen to all of these in this alphabet video. Pay attention to the speaker’s mouth as she makes each sound. For example, to make the ư sound, you have to smile a little when you say it.

I absolutely have to mention the name of two of the accent marks in Vietnamese:

ơ, ư, and ă have an accent called móc (hook) â, ê and ô have an accent called mũ (hat)

Yes, ^ is called dấu mũ – literally ‘the hat accent’!

We’ve seen how Vietnamese tones work and how the different accents work. These can be combined – a vowel can have both a tone and an accent.

diacritics ). How do they combine?-->

Here’s a video combining some different vowels (a, o, ô, ơ) with the various tones.

Let’s look at an example – the word phở .

phở (Vietnam’s most famous noodle soup) Accent: Smile a little to say the ‘uh’ sound, ơ Tone: Say the whole word like it’s a question “phở?”

What does this look like in practice? Let’s look at a short sentence:

Học tiếng Việt hay lắm. (=Studying Vietnamese is very interesting.)

Some words have one mark on the vowel(s) like học . Others have two marks such as tiếng and Việt . And some vowels have none like hay .

The tones and accent marks used in Vietnamese are the same throughout Vietnam. However, regional and dialectal differences can affect the pronunciation of these sounds.

The main difference you may notice is that southern Vietnamese only has 5 spoken tones. Ngã is pronounced the same as hỏi.

If you visit central Vietnam, you may notice some vowel differences. For example, ê is pronounced differently. But that’s getting well beyond beginner level.

Vietnamese has a unique writing system that can look a little confusing for beginners. However, with a little practice, you will be able to read , write and pronounce Vietnamese with ease.

If you want to pronounce Vietnamese well, you should practice repeating the sounds and use lots of audio material like Pimsleur * or VPod101 *.

Over to you : How did you feel the first time you saw written Vietnamese? Was it reassuring to see a romanised alphabet or confusing to see two accent marks? Are you impressed by how phonetic Vietnamese is?

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  • Tags Accents (on letters) , Beginner , Tones

6 replies on “The Beginner’s Guide to Vietnamese tones and accent marks”

[…] pick up some good colloquial expressions and slang this way. If friends post statuses without diacritics, you could try websites that automatically add them so you can then look phrases up in a […]

[…] this includes emails, which I am trying to be less lazy with as I usually don’t write the tones and accents because it’s quicker that way. If I have something interesting to write about, or if […]

LIGHT BULB!! awesome. it all makes sense now. the best thing that ever happened was my Viet friend telling me “Vietnamese is easy, dont worry, its simple” and really it is. its just the tones, and i just got it! grammar, spelling etc is simple, and if you can read……. thank you. xxx

I’d agree with that! Learning the sounds, spellings and basic grammar you find the language really starts to fall into place. I’m glad that’s happening for you. 🙂 Good luck with your ongoing learning journey!

How does one type the name Nguyen in all capital letters with the two diacritical narks over the N?

I have found examples of it with a lower case letter for the n, but not with that letter in upper case.

The surname is typed as Nguyễn (there is also a different given name with one diacritical mark).

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How to Write an Email or Letter in Vietnamese: the complete guide

If you’re learning Vietnamese, chances are no one has taught you how to write an email or letter yet.

That’s because there aren’t many rules for email or letter writing that are specific to Vietnamese. You will be fine as long as you keep it concise.

However, if you need some help filling in that blank page, this comprehensive guide is a great place to start!

Before you start diving in, make sure you review Vietnamese pronouns , which you will use heavily while writing your email.

At the end of this guide you will find an example of an email written in Vietnamese.

Email Subject lines in Vietnamese

You need a concise and to-the-point subject line to quickly convey the email’s topic to the reader.

The following Vietnamese words can be used in the subject line to clarify the type of email which is being sent:

  • Thông báo : “notice”
  • Yêu cầu : “request”
  • Đơn xin : “application”
  • Thư mời : “invitation”

If necessary, add these words in your subject line to indicate that you need a quick response from the recipients:

  • Khẩn : “urgent”
  • Gấp : “urgent”
  • Quan trọng : “important”

Once you have a clear and concise email subject line, the next step is to start writing the body of your Vietnamese email.

How do you start an email or a letter in Vietnamese

The most versatile vietnamese email/letter opening:.

For most instances, whether formal or informal, the two most common ways to start a Vietnamese email or letter are:

  • Chào + [TITLE/RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN AND NAME]
  • Chào + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN]

This is completely similar to how you say « hello » in spoken Vietnamese. There are a lot of formalities in spoken Vietnamese already, so this format works in a formal context. On the other hand, its brevity also makes it easy to use in casually written exchanges.

The similarity to the spoken language means learning how to speak Vietnamese will make writing Vietnamese tenfold easier.

You can also start to see here the importance of pronouns . Vietnamese people never refer to someone just by name. Pronouns, which are dictated by age and gender, are crucial in both formal and informal exchanges.

Vietnamese formal email / letter openings

In instances when you need a bit more poise, the following formal Vietnamese email opening lines can be used:

  • Kính gửi + [TITLE/RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN and NAME]
  • Thưa + [TITLE/RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN and NAME]

Both «Kính gửi» and «Thưa» correspond to the English word “Dear”.

These are the most formal ways to begin an email or letter in Vietnamese. You can commonly see them in official notices, correspondence from businesses to customers or shareholders, and correspondence containing important deliverables.

Save these opening lines for a job or school application or for writing to an important person.

Vietnamese informal email / letter openings

Lastly, there are endless ways to start an informational written exchange in Vietnamese. Below are a few popular choices:

  • Dear + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN]
  • Hi + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN]
  • Hello + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN]

Yes, the English words. Since the advent of electronic mail, these words have made it into Vietnamese email and letter-writing vernacular.

Vietnamese also frequently use the English versions of Internet terms like « email », « copy », « paste », or « cancel » for brevity’s sake. This is especially common for emails among friends or among office workers.

How to end an email or letter in Vietnamese

How do you end a formal email or letter in vietnamese.

To sign off a formal Vietnamese email or letter, express gratitude to the reader, and express your wish to hear back from them as necessary.

  • Xin cảm ơn This roughly translates to “ I would like to thank you ”. Think of this as a formal way to say “ thank you ”.
  • Chân thành cảm ơn “Sincerely thank you”
  • Mong nhận được hồi đáp sớm từ + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] This closing line lets the recipient know that you wish to hear back from them. It roughly translates to: “Looking forward to hearing from you”
  • Trân trọng “Best regards” / “respectfully”
  • Thân ái “Best regards”

Another way to end a formal email that’s been popularized by businesses is to wish the recipient well:

  • Chúc + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + có một ngày làm việc hiệu quả This Vietnamese email sign-off line means: “Wishing + [PRONOUN] + a productive work day.”
  • Chúc + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + có một ngày tốt lành This Vietnamese email closing line translates to: “Wishing + [PRONOUN] + a good day.”

Lastly, wrap up by adding your usual email signature.

How do you end a casual email/letter in Vietnamese?

There are two phrases you can use to end pretty much any email in Vietnamese:

  • Cảm ơn “Thank you”
  • Thân “Best”

If you’re writing specifically to a loved one, whether a family member, friend, lover, or anyone you really care about, use:

  • Thương + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN]

There is no direct translation of the word « Thương » in English since it’s an expression of love unique to Vietnamese. However, you can see this as the equivalent of signing “Love, + [SENDER’S NAME] ” in an English email.

Other useful Vietnamese email phrases

Below are some common Vietnamese email phrases:

how to state the purpose of an email or letter:

  • Gửi + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + tài liệu/thông tin/ giấy tờ/báo cáo/etc “I'm sending you documents/information/paperwork/report/etc”
  • [PERSONAL PRONOUN] + muốn hỏi về + [TOPIC] “I want to ask about + [TOPIC] ”
  • [PERSONAL PRONOUN] + viết thư này để liên hệ với + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + về… “I’m writing to contact you regarding…”

how to let the recipient know about an email attachment

  • Phiền + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + kiểm tra tệp đính kèm “Please see the attached file”

how to let the recipient know where to find information

  • Để biết thêm thông tin chi tiết, vui lòng liên hệ… “In order to learn more, please contact…”

Specific types of Vietnamese letters

Vietnamese people are big on gift-giving. On special occasions, gifts and bouquets are accompanied by a small card with brief well-wishes.

How to write a thank you card in Vietnamese

Thank you cards are a common courtesy in Vietnamese culture, especially to those who have taught or mentored you.

Here are some phrases which can be used when writing a thank you card in Vietnamese:

  • Cảm ơn + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + đã dành thời gian giúp đỡ + [PERSONAL PRONOUN] “Thank you for taking the time to help me.”
  • Cảm ơn + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + đã ủng hộ + [PERSONAL PRONOUN] “Thank you for supporting me.”
  • [PERSONAL PRONOUN] + muốn bày tỏ lòng cảm ơn sâu sắc đến + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] “I want to express my deep gratitude to you.”
  • Cảm ơn + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + đã tạo điều kiện cho + [PERSONAL PRONOUN] “Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

How to write a birthday card in Vietnamese

In Vietnamese, birthday cards are often packed with wishes for the coming year. Start by saying:

  • Chúc mừng sinh nhật! “Happy birthday!”

Then follow up with one or a few of these well-wishes:

  • Chúc + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + có một sinh nhật ý nghĩa và hạnh phúc “I wish you a meaningful and joyful birthday”
  • Chúc + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + một tuổi mới nhiều niềm vui “I wish you another year full of happiness”
  • Hy vọng những dự định của + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + sẽ thành hiện thực “I hope all your aspirations will come true”
  • Chúc + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + thành đạt trong cuộc sống “I wish you success in life”
  • Chúc + [RECIPIENT’S PRONOUN] + luôn xinh đẹp như thế này “I wish that you’re always pretty/beautiful like this”

The last wish may come off as strange, but it’s common in Vietnamese culture to comment on a woman’s features. This birthday wish is commonly used among women and is viewed as a compliment toward the recipient’s physical beauty.

What do you write on a Vietnamese wedding card

Vietnamese people don't write wedding cards. They write wedding envelopes instead.

Why? Because instead of giving gifts to newlyweds, Vietnamese people give them cash. Some even argue that this is way better than giving gifts!

Since there isn’t much space on an envelope, a one-liner should be enough:

  • Chúc + [PRONOUN] + hạnh phúc “I wish you happiness”
  • Chúc + [PRONOUN] + đầu bạc răng long “I wish your love lasts until your hair is gray and your teeth fall out”
  • Mừng hạnh phúc + [PRONOUN] + và gia đình “Happy wedding to you and your family.”This one also refers to the family of the people getting married, since marriage is seen as a family affair in Vietnamese culture.
  • Chúc mừng hạnh phúc tân lang, tân nương! “Congratulations to the newlyweds!”
  • Luôn luôn được hạnh phúc vẹn tròn nhé! “I wish that you’re always happy and fulfilled!”

Vietnamese email/ letter example

Piecing together a few of the phrases above, you can craft a short Vietnamese email or letter in minutes.

In this example, an employee named An is writing to her supervisor, Phương, to ask for feedback on an important report.

With these common phrases, you are all set to write an email in Vietnamese. As you can see, most Vietnamese emails will begin and end in the same ways.

To save time, choose an email formula that works for you so you can get straight into writing the main content.

writing in vietnamese

writing in vietnamese

  • about the margins
  • transpacific literary project
  • flash fiction
  • a world without cages
  • black and asian feminist solidarities
  • signature events
  • radical thinkers
  • partnership events
  • fireside chat
  • asian american caucus
  • the margins fellowship
  • open city fellowship
  • aaww radio podcasts
  • aaww tv videos
  • opportunities

Tôi phải ở lại trong ngôn ngữ này, như đã trong một cơn mơ bổng, như đã trong một cú kéo chìm, một tự trói buộc, nhọc nhằn và vẫn ở đó, chút lửa nhen. | I have to reside in this language, as in a flying dream, as in a sinking down, a self-bound, burdensome and still there, little fire.

writing in vietnamese

Editor’s note: This essay by Nhã Thuyên opens a notebook of experimental and experiential Vietnamese poetry, the collection of which is gathered here . The pieces of this notebook, having transformed across time and space as well as various material forms, are presented here in their digital bodies as reproductions of the print edition tôi viết (tiếng Việt) | i write (in Vietnamese) (AJAR, 2021) and its art exhibition in Hanoi . We encourage readers to click on any images of text for enlargement. Print copies of tôi viết (tiếng Việt) | i write (in Vietnamese) are available for purchase here . Read the English version of editor Nhã Thuyên’s opening essay here.

Vài ghi chú về tôi viết (tiếng Việt

tôi viết (tiếng Việt) | i write (in Vietnamese) tượng hình một triển lãm của các sinh thể, vật thể chữ, tạo ra từ sự chơi giữa văn bản và hình ảnh, âm giọng trên nhiều chất liệu và phương tiện, kèm ấn phẩm thơ của những người viết (tiếng Việt) và người trẻ làm nghệ thuật ở Việt Nam.

Khi nghĩ về từ, về chữ như một vật thể hay một sinh thể, hiện diện đó liệu có thể là một hữu thực-động đậy hay chỉ là một tưởng tượng thơ? Chữ viết phẳng dẹt trên giấy trên màn hình có thể cọ quậy, hít thở, được tay ta cầm lên, đặt xuống? Chữ, có thể là một thứ gì, không dính chặt với các tiền giả định về nghĩa để tạo nghĩa bằng hiện diện sinh-vật thể? Và cái “đẹp” của các sinh-vật thể chữ bày ra ấy được nhìn thế nào để không bị bó buộc trong cảm giác về tính trang trí của vật liệu? 

Quá trình làm việc của các tác giả, dịch giả và nghệ sĩ trong dự án này, cốt lõi và xuất phát điểm là hành động viết. Viết chữ và chữ hiện, biến, sinh, hóa, tan, loãng, được, mất; viết chữ dịch thành viết họa, viết hình, viết âm, viết giấy, viết đất, viết nước. Những sinh-vật thể chữ ở đây là quá trình tìm, thử, thử sai, dịch và tự dịch giữa các vật liệu và các phương tiện, để quay lại câu hỏi ban đầu: tôi có thể viết một thứ tiếng (Việt) nào, và thế nào? Câu hỏi này thiết thân đặc biệt với những người viết trẻ, những người viết đã-đang dùng không chỉ tiếng Việt trong đời sống và viết, những người viết tiếng Việt không bắt rễ địa lý, những người viết không có lựa chọn nào ngoài tiếng Việt, những người muốn ăn đời ở kiếp với tiếng Việt… Một câu hỏi về rễ , nguồn . Các dòng chảy vừa chảy vừa xa nguồn. Rễ mọc ngược hút khí. tôi viết (tiếng Việt) tự thân là một lưỡng lự, lưỡng nan, tiến, thoái. Chỉ hành động viết của người viết, như hành động chảy của nước, như hành động tìm chất của rễ, nhẫn nại, tẻ nhạt, miệt mài, chập chững, len lỏi, cuốn trôi.

Tại sao tiếng Việt, và một cái ngoặc?

Cuối năm 2019 đầu năm 2020, tôi phác thảo vài ý tưởng tôi (cùng) đọc thơ tiếng Việt . Tôi đã e dè gửi một lời mời trong những ngày tháng đóng cửa lảm nhảm nói chuyện với tường của mình: tôi sống và viết tiếng Việt (thế) nào? Đây cũng là sự tiếp tục, trong một cách thức lẻ hơn, cụ thể hơn, câu hỏi lúc phác thảo một hình hài AJAR: có một cộng đồng nào của những người viết (tiếng Việt) và cá nhân nương dựa, tham dự trong cộng đồng ấy thế nào? Từ lời mời mở đó, một nhóm nhỏ người trẻ yêu mến chữ nghĩa hình thành. Vừa ấn định ngày gặp tại một thư viện riêng, Hà Nội bùng dịch. Một vài người quyết định không đến, nhưng hầu hết chúng tôi vẫn gặp nhau và ngồi cạnh nhau trong căn phòng nhỏ, rì rầm tập thơ Bến lạ của Đặng Đình Hưng và trong một khoảnh khắc, quên đi khung cảnh bắt đầu trở nên hỗn độn hơn của thành phố. Ba tháng dập dềnh các cuộc gặp on-offline, chủ ý và ngẫu hứng, đứt nối thời gian và xáo trộn không gian, xoay quanh các tác giả, tác phẩm, các chủ đề thơ tiếng Việt, thơ dịch – dịch thơ, người xưa kẻ nay, Đặng Đình Hưng, Phùng Cung, Phạm Công Thiện, Hoàng Cầm, Tô Thùy Yên, Đinh Hùng, Tản Đà, các tác giả AJAR đã xuất bản và của chính những người tham dự mang tới. Mỗi người bày ra một sự đọc, cùng những băn khoăn về đọc và viết, cụ thể hơn, đọc và viết thơ tiếng Việt. 

tôi viết (tiếng Việt) nối dài chuỗi thảo luận nhiều cảm hứng đó, và/để đối diện câu chuyện khó và khó san sẻ hơn. Những mặt và mặt nạ dần thân thuộc và thêm đôi ba mặt xa lạ thân thuộc khác nữa, nghe và nói qua màn hình Zoom, lúc mau lúc thưa, lúc hào hứng lúc vô vọng, lúc kéo dài tới khuya, lúc ngắt giữa chừng. Mỗi tuần một câu hỏi được xới lên, viết hay không viết, tiếng mẹ hay tiếng người ngoài, ta hay tây và những từ đó thực sự có ý nghĩa gì, trong và ngoài, (kiếm) sống và viết, chuyên-nghiệp dư, các chủ đề dễ lọt tai bắt mắt, các nhóm phái, các tạp chí, các mô hình xuất bản, quá khứ và hiện tại, tính chính trị của viết… Mỗi người tiếp tục đọc, gợi ý đọc, không nhất thiết các văn chương tiếng Việt, và nhiều hơn là theo mối quan tâm của từng người, bất kể comics hay Đường thi. Những cái tên được nhắc nhỏm, xếp hàng dài trong ký ức đọc: M.Rilke, M.Duras, L.Borges, Charles Olson, Sylvia Plath, Linda Le, Đinh Linh, Phạm Thị Hoài, Dương Nghiễm Mậu và những nhà văn tôi chưa từng nghe đến. Đọc “văn mẫu”, để nhớ và quên, để viết sự đọc, để viết cùng người sống và người khuất, để nghĩ về mình như một người đọc, “đọc dở và đọc nốt” (chữ dùng của Phạm Thị Hoài, một nhà văn viết tiếng Việt xa xứ các bạn thường nhắc), đọc trôi dạt và đọc neo đậu. Những tiếp cận cá nhân về viết giữa các nghệ thuật được đề xuất dưới dạng những thực hành ở thì hiện tại hoàn thành tiếp diễn: những di sản, những thể nghiệm viết đã và đang xảy ra như thế nào và ta có thể viết thế nào từ đây? Làm thế nào để bền bỉ thơ sống thơ, theo nghĩa rộng rãi nhất của từ này, và làm thế nào những ý hướng viết không dễ thỏa mãn thị trường sống sót được? Mỗi người cũng “mò” vào nháp viết và dịch của nhau, chấp nhận nỗi sợ hãi bị nhìn thấy để bàn thảo các chuyện kỹ thuật bếp núc, chuyện viết rồi/để mà xóa, các bài tập về cấu trúc, cách biên tập, việc giữ hay bỏ những bài thơ đầu tay, cả việc viết thơ (thất) tình thế nào. Họ tự nhiên xây dựng các kết nối, cùng làm các dự án riêng chung. 

Cấu trúc 12 tuần đọc viết ban đầu thành một sự đi dai dẳng hơn. Nhìn lại bản lưu các giờ đọc viết, dằng dặc các tác giả tác phẩm, các bản thảo đọc dở, các nhật ký ngỏ, tôi ngợp trong năng lượng của những mỏ quặng ẩn lộ kho báu nơi những người viết trẻ còn bẽn lẽn với danh xưng “người viết”. Mong muốn vị kỷ của tôi phần nào hiện thực hóa: tôi nhìn thấy những người đọc, người viết tươi mới, đang ấp ủ các dự định viết, vỡ vạc các thực hành chữ, dù hướng tới viết như một chốn riêng hay một việc, một nghề, một nghiệp. Những cái tên đang ủ nụ và đã nở trong tập sách và triển lãm này mong sẽ dần trở nên thân thuộc với bạn đọc, trong những phấp phỏng đọc viết của riêng họ.

Câu hỏi về cộng đồng trở nên riết róng hơn với riêng tôi sau một chặng đường đủ dài, từ những bước háo hức với sum vầy, kết, tụ, mắt mở, đến những bước chao đảo vì tản mát, chia, lìa, khép cửa. Một cộng đồng không làm sẵn mà luôn phá vỡ và biến đổi. Không có cách nào tuyệt đối không nhọc nhằn cọ xát. Không có cách nào tuyệt đối cô độc, khi còn mơ cái cộng đồng của hai tồn hữu-biểu tượng của Maurice Blanchot: “How not to search that space where, for a time span lasting from dusk to dawn, two beings have no other reason to exist than to expose themselves totally to each other- totally, integrally, absolutely- so that their common solitude may appear not in front of their own eyes but in front of ours, yes, how not to look there and how not to rediscover the negative community, the community of those who have no community?” (Maurice Blanchot, Unavowable Community, bản dịch tiếng Anh của Pierre Joris) [Tạm dịch: Làm thế nào không tìm kiếm không gian đó, khi từ hoàng hôn dùng dắng tới ban mai, hai hữu thể không có lý do tồn tại nào khác ngoài việc phơi trần hoàn toàn trước kẻ khác – hoàn toàn, nguyên khối, tuyệt độ – và nỗi cô độc chung của họ có thể hiện ra không phải ngay trước mắt họ, mà trước mắt ta, phải, làm thế nào không nhìn ra nơi đó và làm thế nào không lần lại cái cộng đồng âm bản trống không này, cái cộng đồng của những người không có cộng đồng?”] Mỗi cá thể đọc-viết đang trở thành là một cấu trúc khép phải mở ra, lần nữa, lần nữa nữa. Mỗi người viết luôn là một giữa những người viết người đọc khác, những người đã viết và những cuốn sách đã ra đời cùng những người chưa viết và những cuốn sách chưa ra đời. Mỗi cuộc gặp một gương soi. Tôi luôn là tôi số nhiều. Thuộc về và không thuộc về. Mắc kẹt và không tự huyễn

(Nhiều) tôi muốn ở lại trong ngôn ngữ này, trong tiếng Việt, sau những rời rụng, những tàn phá, những hủy hoại, những chia cắt, những kết nối lại. Tôi phải ở lại trong ngôn ngữ này, như đã trong một cơn mơ bổng, như đã trong một cú kéo chìm, một tự trói buộc, nhọc nhằn và vẫn ở đó, chút lửa nhen. 

Tháng Hai, 2021

writing in vietnamese

Some notes on tôi viết (tiếng Việt) | i write (in Vietnamese)

tôi viết (tiếng Việt) | i write (in Vietnamese) imagines and constructs an exhibition of word-objects and letter-beings born from a play between texts and images and sounds in various materials and mediums, along with poetic prints of young (Vietnamese) writers and artists in Vietnam.

When thinking of a word, a letter, as an object or a living thing, can this presence possibly be a wriggling being, or does it only exist as a poetic imaginary? Is it possible for letters, lying on the flat surface of a paper or a screen, to jiggle, breathe in and out, be picked up and put down by our hands? Could a letter be something that does not stick tightly with presumptions of its signification, but instead connotes the presence of its object and being? And how can the “beauty” of these exhibited word-objects and letter-beings be seen without being constrained in the decorative effect of the materials?

The core and starting point of the authors, translators, and artists in this project is the writing action. Writing letters: they appear and disappear, are born and transform, melt and dilute, are lost and are found; writing letters translates into writing pictures, writing moving images, writing sounds, writing paper, writing earth, writing water. The word-objects and letter-beings here are a process of searching, experimenting, failing to experiment, translating and self-translating, between different materials and mediums, to come back to the initial question: which (Vietnamese) language could I write in , and how? This is an intimately significant question to the young writers gathered here: writers who use languages other than Vietnamese in their ordinary and writing lives, writers who write in Vietnamese and are not yet geographically rooted, writers whose only choice is Vietnamese, and writers who want to commit their whole lives to Vietnamese. It is a question of root , of origin . As streams flow away from their origin when forming their existences. As roots absorb nutrients from the air to grow upwards. tôi viết (tiếng Việt) | i write (in Vietnamese) is by itself a hesitation, a dilemma, a going back and forth. What apparently exists: the act of writing, as the act of water flowing, as the act of roots absorbing nutrients, patient, boring, resilient, tiptoeing, creeping, and floating.

Why Vietnamese, and a parenthesis?

By the end of 2019 and the start of 2020, I had sketched some ideas for a workshop series tôi (cùng) đọc thơ tiếng Việt | i (with you) read Vietnamese poetry . I was hesitant to send out an invitation to people whom I didn’t yet know after the months and days I had closed my doors for soliloquy, speaking to my own walls: How could I live and write in Vietnamese, and in which Vietnamese language? The project continues, in a more private and concrete way, the question asked when cherishing an AJAR being: Is there a community of (Vietnamese) writers that each individual can rely on and participate in, and how?

As a response to my open invitation, a small group of young word-loving people formed. Our first meeting was set at a private library during the COVID-19 outbreak in Hanoi. Some decided to stay home, but most still met and sat together in a small room, murmuring the words of Đặng Đình Hưng’s Bến lạ ( Unfamiliar Landing ) into each other’s ears and for a moment, forgetting the growing chaotic scene of the city. For the next three months, we would hold meetings online and offline, intentionally and improvisationally, un-chronological and spatially mixed up, we worked around the authors, literary works, and subjects of Vietnamese poetry, we discussed translated poetry and the act of translating poetry, writers of the past and the now, poets such as Đặng Đình Hưng, Phùng Cung, Phạm Công Thiện, Hoàng Cầm, Tô Thùy Yên, Đinh Hùng, Tản Đà, as well as AJAR’s new authors , and the writings of the participants. Each participant exposed their personal reading selves, full of wonder for reading and writing, specifically reading Vietnamese poetry and writing poetry in Vietnamese.

tôi viết (tiếng Việt) | i write (in Vietnamese) continues these inspirational reading and writing workshops, and/in order to face a more difficult issue that is more difficult to share. These gradually familiar faces and avatars, and some other familiar strangers met, spoke, and listened to each other through the Zoom screen, frequently exciting and occasionally hopeless, discussions sometimes lasting for many hours, and sometimes being disrupted. Every week, a new question was asked: to write and not, the mother’s tongue and the others’s, east and west and what these words could even mean, inside and outside, writing and (earning a) living, professionalism and amateurism and professional amateurism, catchable subjects of the “contemporary worlds”, literary groups and movements, literary magazines, publishing modes, the past and the now, the personal politics of writing and of the writers, and more. Each continues to read, offering a shared reading list of (not necessarily) Vietnamese literature; while also calling in more personal interests, inviting comics and Tang poetry alike. Many names began to appear in a long queue of reading memories: M.Rilke, M.Duras, L.Borges, Charles Olson, Sylvia Plath, Linda Le, Đinh Linh, Phạm Thị Hoài, Dương Nghiễm Mậu, and many others I had never heard of. Reading “good samples”, to remember and to forget, to write the act of reading, to write with the dead and the living, to think about oneself as a reader, to “read partially and read completely” (“đọc dở và đọc nốt”, a quote from diasporic writer Phạm Thị Hoài), to read adrift and to read anchored. The participants’ personal approaches to writing in between various art forms suggest a practice in the present perfect continuous tense: what are the ongoing legacies of world literature and literary experiments, and how do we write from here? How can we make poetry live poetically, in the most extended sense of the phrase, and how are the writing intentions which do not easily satisfy the market’s desire able to survive? These young writers also “scoured” each other’s drafts of compositions and translations, accepted the fear of being seen to talk more in depth about techniques, about writing and/in order to erase, exercises to build a writing structure, and practices of editing, what to do with their “first” poems or how to write a broken (hearted) poem. They naturally built their own connections and worked on individual/collaborative projects.

The initial structure of a 12 week workshop has since transformed into a more enduring journey . Revisiting the archive of reading and writing folders, the long list of writers and books, the drafts of compositions, some open writing diaries, I become overwhelmed and energized by the ores with hidden treasures in these young writers, who are still reluctant to identify as “writer”. My partly selfish desire has been visualized: I can now see fresh readers and writers in their incubation of writing and reading ideas, who are enthusiastic to plunge into not yet defined practices, though each looks toward writing differently, as a hobby, as a private room for expression, or as a job, a profession, a career. The budding and blossomed voices in this notebook hopefully soon become familiar to our readers, with their swaying paths of reading and writing.

The question of community has become more urgent and heavy to me personally after a long enough journey of AJAR, from the wide-eyed gatherings with open hearts to the wobbling steps of separations with closed doors. It’s never a ready-made and stable community, but communities that are always changing, transforming into others. There is no way to completely not crash into others. There’s no way for absolute solitude. With the persistent dream of Maurice Blanchot’s community of two: “How not to search that space where, for a time span lasting from dusk to dawn, two beings have no other reason to exist than to expose themselves totally to each other—totally, integrally, absolutely—so that their common solitude may appear not in front of their own eyes but in front of ours, yes, how not to look there and how not to rediscover the negative community, the community of those who have no community?” (Maurice Blanchot, Unavowable Community, English translation by Pierre Joris).

Each becoming-personality of reading and writing is a closed structure that needs to open up, once more, once more again. Each writer is a different one among other writers, among their readerships, the ones who write with books already born, and the ones who are not yet writing, with their books still waiting to come to life. Each meeting each mirroring. I am always a plural I. Belonging and unbelonging. Being stuck and not deluding oneself about it.

(Plural) I want to reside in this language, in Vietnamese, after falling apart, after the destructions, the devastated attempts, the separations, the reconnections. I have to reside in this language, as in a flying dream, as in a sinking down, a self-bound, burdensome and still there, a little fire.

February, 2021

Nhã Thuyên has recently published bất\ \tuẫn: những hiện diện [tự-] vắng trong thơ Việt (self-published with support from the Goethe Institut, Vietnam) and its English edition: un\ \martyred: [self-]vanishing presences in Vietnamese poetry (Roofbook, USA, 2019), and moon fevers (Tilted Axis Press, UK, 2019).  With Kaitlin Rees, she founded AJAR in 2014, a micro bilingual literary journal-press, a precariously online, printed space for poetic exchange. She’s been talking to walls and soliloquies some nonsense when having no other emergencies of life to deal with. 

NT’s blog: www.nhathuyen.com  

Các sách mới của Nhã Thuyên bao gồm bản tiếng Việt tập tiểu luận bất\ \tuẫn: những hiện diện [tự-] vắng trong thơ Việt (tự xuất bản với hỗ trợ của viện Goethe Hà Nội) với bản dịch tiếng Anh un\ \martyred: [self-]vanishing presences in Vietnamese poetry (Roof Books, Hoa Kỳ, 2019) và tập mỏng gồm những bài thơ cũ moon fevers (Tilted Axis Press, UK, 2019). Cùng Kaitlin Rees, cô sáng lập và biên tập AJAR, một tạp chí văn chương song ngữ siêu vi, một không gian trồi sụt cho những hão huyền thơ ca. Độc thoại lảm nhảm với tường và làm những thứ vô tích sự khi không phải bận bịu những chuyện cấp bách khác của đời sống.

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Home » Articles » “Hello” in Vietnamese: 10 Vietnamese Greetings You Can Start Using Today

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Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. ?

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written by George Julian

Language: Vietnamese

Reading time: 11 minutes

Published: Dec 27, 2019

Updated: Sep 17, 2021

“Hello” in Vietnamese: 10 Vietnamese Greetings You Can Start Using Today

Hello Vietnam – or as the locals would say, xin chao!

When you arrive in Việt Nam , as the native speakers of Vietnamese call it, the first thing you'll want to do is greet your new hosts. That means knowing how to say all the basic pleasantries such as “hello”, “nice to meet you”, and “how are you?”

On the surface, Vietnamese greetings are actually a pretty simple topic. There aren't a lot of different ways to say “hello” in Vietnamese.

What complicates things is that, in order to know how to say “hello” in Vietnamese correctly, you often need to include the right pronoun (he/she/you) – and in Vietnamese, there are a lot of potential pronouns to choose from.

In this article, I'll teach you all the basic Vietnamese words you need to know to successfully greet people and exchange niceties. I'll also cover the basics of Vietnam's pronoun system, as it's essential for Vietnamese greetings and much else.

Let's start with the most basic Vietnamese greeting that every textbook will teach you first:

“Hello” in Vietnamese – Xin chào

Xin chào is the safest, most polite way of saying “hello” in Vietnamese. You can use it to greet anybody.

It's easy to remember because chào sounds just like the Italian greeting “ciao”, which is often used in English. The accent on chào tells you that it's pronounced using the “falling tone”. (A full explanation of Vietnamese tones is beyond the scope of this article.)

With chào in our arsenal, it's time to take a brief detour into the bizarre world of Vietnamese pronouns.

Vietnamese Pronouns – a Basic Introduction

One of the strangest things about Vietnamese is that it doesn't really have a word for “you”. Yes, really. You'd think that this is quite an important word to have, but somehow the Vietnamese manage without it.

Instead, you address people (and refer to yourself) using familial words like “uncle”, “brother”, or “grandpa”.

These words aren't restricted to your actual family: you use them with everyone , even a stranger on the street. The specific word to use depends on the age, gender, and social status of the person you’re talking to.

So for example, if I want to ask you how you are, and you're a girl slightly younger than me, I could say em có khỏe không? , where em means “younger sibling”. To an old man, I would instead say ông có khỏe không? – “how are you, grandpa?” There are many other words to learn.

Here are a few you should know:

  • em – “younger sibling”; said to someone slightly younger than you
  • bạn – “friend”; said to someone around the same age as you.
  • anh – “older brother”; said to a male slightly older than you
  • chị – “older sister”; said to a female slightly older than you
  • chú – “uncle”; said to an adult man
  • cô – “aunt”; said to an adult woman
  • ông – “grandpa”; said to an elderly man or someone much older than you
  • bà – “grandma”; said to an elderly woman or someone much older than you

Those are just a few of the most common Vietnamese pronouns, and there are a few more dialectal variations.

If this sounds complicated, that's because it is. But don't worry too much. Vietnamese people won't get offended if you use the wrong word. They know that foreigners struggle with this stuff, and calling someone “grandpa” or asking them their age isn't considered impolite like the way it can be in Western culture.

In fact, if you spend time in Vietnam you'll notice that Vietnamese people tend to ask you bao nhiêu tuổi? (“how old are you?”) all the time. They don't mean to be rude; this question is extremely common in Vietnam because people need to know how old you are in order to know which pronoun to use for you.

Another quick note about pronouns: just as Vietnamese has no real word for “you”, it also has no real word for “I”. Once again, the word you use for “I” depends on who is speaking to you; you use the same word for “I” that they use for “you”.

So for example, a young man might say to his girlfriend: anh yêu em (“I love you”), literally “older brother loves younger sibling.” The girlfriend might then say back to him em yêu anh – “younger sibling loves older brother”. Note how anh means “I” in the first sentence but “you” in the second one.

There are some other ways of saying “I”, but we'll worry about them later.

Here's another fun fact about Vietnamese pronouns. You know how in English, we typically refer to people by their title and last name in formal situations? For example, in some situations you might be addressed as “Benny”, but in others, you might be called “Mr. Lewis”.

Vietnam isn't like this, and they don't really have “titles” in the same way we'd think of them in English. In fact, Vietnamese people don't really use each other's family names at all.

Like in many Asian cultures, Vietnamese names put the family name first and the given name last. So what Westerners call a “last name” is actually a “first name”, if you catch my drift. For the avoidance of doubt, I’ll refer to “family names” and “given names” instead of “first” and “last”.

So, if someone's given name is “Hiển”, others might refer to him as “Anh Hiển” – brother Hiển. This is roughly analogous to calling someone “Mr. (Family name)” in English.

I’ve only scratched the surface. The topic of Vietnamese pronouns goes much deeper. But the above should be enough to get started. Let's get back to chào and the question of how to say “hi” in Vietnamese.

“Hello” in Vietnamese Chào bạn/anh/chị

In general, xin chào can sound more formal than necessary. It's more casual to say chào followed by the appropriate pronoun, e.g.:

  • chào bạn – “hello (person same age as me)”
  • chào anh – “hello (young man, boy slightly older than me)”
  • chào chị – “hello (young woman, girl older than me)”

If you want to greet a group of people, you can say chào các bạn – “hello all (my) friends”.

By the way, if you're not sure what all those weird accent marks mean on or under words like chị , or why Vietnamese sometimes has twố ằccents ọn the sẩme letter, you need to go back and learn the Vietnamese alphabet. While Vietnamese is difficult to pronounce, the writing system is actually fairly easy to learn. I’ll be publishing an article soon explaining how to read the Vietnamese alphabet .

“Good Morning”, “Good Afternoon” and “Good Evening” in Vietnamese

If your brain needs a break from juggling all these pronouns, you might want to play it safe with one of these options:

  • chào buổi sáng means “good morning” in Vietnamese
  • chào buổi chiều means “good afternoon” in Vietnamese
  • chào buổi tối means “good evening” in Vietnamese

These greetings aren't as commonly used as a simple chào bạn , but they're still something you should know.

“Hello” (on the phone) in Vietnamese – Á-lô

I can only assume the Vietnamese got this one from the French. When you answer the phone in Vietnamese, you don't say chào but á-lô , just like how in Portuguese you say alô and in French you say allô , all of which are of course derived originally from the English “hello”?

Á-lô is also the kind of thing you might say if the line is patchy and you're not sure if the other person is there. Á-lô , can you hear me?

“Hey!” in Vietnamese – Ơi

Ơi sounds uncomfortably like the British “oi!”, which would be a rude way to address a stranger in English.

But in Vietnam, ơi is an extremely common and perfectly polite way to get someone's attention – on the street, in a shop, across the dinner table, or anywhere.

You'd usually preface it with the correct pronoun. For example, you might say anh ơi! to beckon the (male) waiter over in a restaurant.

You can also use ơi with someone's given name. So when Anh Hiển walks into the room, try getting his attention with a Hiển ơi!

“How are you?” in Vietnamese – Khỏe không?

In Vietnamese, to ask someone how they are, what you’re really asking is if they're khỏe – “healthy”.

So “how are you?” is khỏe không? (“are you healthy?”).

You can also use a slightly longer sentence with a pronoun. For example, you could ask an elderly man ông có khỏe không? (“are you (grandpa) healthy?”).

Vietnamese has no exact word for “yes”, so in order to reply to a question in the affirmative, you simply repeat the word from the question. So the positive response to khỏe không? is just khỏe! (“(I'm) healthy.”).

Không by itself just means “no”, so if “grandpa” is not feeling good, the conversation might look like this:

  • Ông có khỏe không?

“What’s your name?” in Vietnamese – Tên của bạn là gì? / Bạn tên gì?

An important early step when getting to know someone is learning their name! “Name” in Vietnamese is tên , and to ask for it say tên của bạn là gì? (“name of friend is what?”), or the simpler bạn tên gì?

As I hope you've figured out by now, you'll need to replace bạn in the above examples with the appropriate pronoun for whom you're talking to. So you might instead ask tên của cô là gì? or bà tên gì?

Once you and your conversation partner know each other's names, it might be time to drop this pronoun malarkey altogether. It's common in Vietnamese to refer to yourself and others in the third person, even when it would sound strange to do so in English.

Phưc: Phưc là ngừơi Việt. George là ngừơi Mỹ, phải không? George: Không phãi, George là ngừơi Anh.

Translation:

Phưc: Phưc is Vietnamese. Is George American? George: No, George is English.

This style of speech sounds weird to an English speaker, but in Vietnam it's considered friendly and respectful. Plus it means you can take a break from worrying about which pronoun to use.

“Nice to Meet You” in Vietnamese – Rất vui được gặp bạn

After greeting someone, and learning their name (and age), the next thing you might want to do is say rất vui được gặp bạn . This means “nice to meet you!”

Once again, replace bạn with the right pronoun.

“Goodbye” in Vietnamese: Tạm biệt / Hẹn gặp lại

We've covered how to say “hello”, but what if you want to say “goodbye” in Vietnamese? The most important phrase to know here is tạm biệt , which means, well, “goodbye”!

Another phrase you might say hẹn gặp lại , which literally means “(I) hope (we) meet again!”

More Ways to Say “I” in Vietnamese

Since knowledge of Vietnamese pronouns is so essential to a knowledge of Vietnamese greetings, I feel it's helpful to end on another quick pronoun-related point.

A ubiquitous pronoun that you absolutely must know is tôi , pronounced “toy”. Most “learn Vietnamese” books will tell you that this word means “I”, although its literal meaning is something more like “servant”.

As you speak with Vietnamese people, however, you'll quickly learn that tôi is considered a bit too formal for everyday speech. Really, you should refer to yourself as em/anh/chi etc. as described above.

Tôi is the kind of word you use in abstract situations with no specific audience, e.g. writing a newspaper article or addressing a camera.

It's also a word you could use in a crowd if you want to be absolutely clear that you're talking about yourself and not, say, someone else in the room who could conceivably be an em .

của ai? – “whose is this?” của tôi! – “It’s mine!”

But tôi can still show up in greetings. For example, tôi rất vui được gặp anh (“I'm very pleased to meet you”).

Cảm ơn các bạn for reading! (That means “thank you, friends!”)

What are the other essential words and phrases for when you first meet someone in Vietnamese? Is there anything I've missed?

And do you have any tips for remembering the vast array of Vietnamese pronouns and knowing which ones to use? (The pronoun topic is much deeper than what I scratched upon here. It really is one of the unusual things about the language.)

George Julian

Content Writer, Fluent in 3 Months

George is a polyglot, linguistics nerd and travel enthusiast from the U.K. He speaks four languages and has dabbled in another five, and has been to more than forty countries. He currently lives in London.

Speaks: English, French, Spanish, German, Vietnamese, Portuguese

Have a 15-minute conversation in your new language after 90 days

Đánh Tiếng Việt

  • English (Anh)
  • France (Pháp)
  • Japanese (Nhật)
  • German (Đức)

Cách đánh Tiếng Việt có dấu

Câu ví dụ: Em tập đánh Tiếng Việt

Telex (hay TELEX) là một kiểu gõ tiếng Việt theo hình thức bỏ dấu của tín hiệu điện tín tiếng Việt, khi nhập văn bản vào máy tính từ bàn phím quốc tế. Kiểu gõ này dựa trên quy ước thể hiện tiếng Việt trên máy telex, gọi là quy ước telex. Wikipedia

VIQR (viết tắt của tiếng Anh Vietnamese Quoted-Readable), còn gọi là Vietnet là một quy ước để viết chữ tiếng Việt dùng bảng mã ASCII 7 bit. Vì tính tiện lợi của nó, quy ước này được sử dụng phổ biến trên Internet, nhất là khi bảng mã Unicode chưa được áp dụng rộng rãi. Hiện nay quy ước VIQR vẫn còn được một số người hay nhóm thư sử dụng. Wikipedia

VNI là một trong số các quy ước nhập tiếng Việt từ bàn phím quốc tế vào văn bản trên máy tính theo kiểu nhập số sau chữ cái. Wikipedia

Anna Marie Datinguinoo-Goco

  • , February 3, 2023

Greetings In Vietnamese: 6 Phrases You Need To Know

Greetings In Vietnamese Ling App Girl Hand Sign

Last updated on March 22nd, 2023 at 07:59 am

Vietnamese is a beautiful language with unique sounds that can be difficult for learners to master. But hey, no worries! We’re here to help you learn greetings in Vietnamese so you can talk to native speakers and make new friends.

As you know, the Vietnamese language can be challenging to learn. It’s full of tones, has different writing systems, and relies heavily on context for meaning.

So, if you want to make a good impression on Vietnamese speakers, it’s important to know some basic greetings. Read more to find out how to greet people in Vietnam and learn some useful phrases that will help you get around.

Basics Of Vietnamese Greetings

Vietnamese greetings are relatively simple and direct. However, it can be tricky to know how to say “hello” in Vietnamese correctly since you must choose the correct pronoun. And the  Vietnamese language  has a lot of pronouns that can be used in different ways.

Xin chào is perhaps the most proper and courteous way to say “hello” in Vietnamese. It can be used to greet anybody. Moreover,  chào  sounds quite similar to the Italian salutation “ ciao ,” making it simple to recall. The emphasis on the word “chào” indicates that it should be spoken with a “falling tone.”

Now that we have  chào  at our disposal, it’s time to explore the crazy realm of pronouns briefly to learn Vietnamese thoroughly.

writing in vietnamese

Using Vietnamese Pronouns

One of the most interesting things about the Vietnamese language is it doesn’t have a word equivalent for “you.” Though you’d believe it would be helpful to have it, the Vietnamese people live without it.

Alternatively, they use familial pronouns like “aunt,” “sister,” or “grandpa” to greet others and refer to themselves. These phrases don’t just pertain to their biological family. They like using them with everyone, including complete strangers.

This can be confusing for a foreigner from the western culture, who may not know how to respond.

But don’t worry! We’re here to help you with some handy translations.

Here are a few examples:

Just as Vietnamese has no exact word for “you” that can be used in all situations, it also lacks a word for “I”. The word you use for “I” depends on who is speaking to you. If a person uses the same word for “you” that they use for themselves, then “I” and “you” are also interchangeable when referring to this individual.

This may sound complicated, but don’t worry. Most Vietnamese people won’t take offense if you use the wrong word. In fact, they might even be impressed that you’re trying to speak their language!

Greetings In Vietnamese ling app eye contact

Greetings You Should Learn In Vietnamese

Learning to greet people in a new language can be one of the most intimidating parts of learning a new tongue. In Vietnamese, there are many different ways to say hello and goodbye, depending on the person’s gender, age, social status, and the time of day. Here are some of the most common Vietnamese greetings you should learn:

Vietnamese people use chào or xin chào to say hello . However, they never greet someone by saying just chào . There’s always a pronoun or noun added to it, like what we’ve learned earlier.

Once you’ve learned the right pronouns to address people in Vietnamese, all you have to do is add chào in front of their title to say hello.

writing in vietnamese

For example:

Xin chào  is a polite greeting used in formal situations, especially when meeting complete strangers. For example, you can use it when greeting someone you don’t know very well, like a waiter or someone working at the reception desk of your hotel. 

You can also greet someone with respect by saying, “Xin Chào,” if you do not remember how to say the appropriate pronoun.

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, And Good Evening

If you’re confused by the many pronouns in this language, here are some safer options:

  • Chào buổi sáng means “good morning”
  • Chào buổi chiều means “good afternoon”
  • Chào buổi tối means “good evening”

Although chào bạn is the more common greeting, these are still worth knowing.

Greetings In Vietnamese ling app friends

How Are You?

In Vietnamese, the way to ask someone how they are is by saying “ Khỏe không? ” which literally means “Are you healthy?” You can also add a pronoun to be more polite. For example, you could ask an older man, “ anh khỏe không? ” or brother, are you healthy?

In Vietnamese, there is no exact word that precisely corresponds to the English “yes.” To answer a question affirmatively, simply repeat the word from that question. 

Hence, the positive reply to “khỏe không?” is simply  khỏe!  “(I’m) healthy.”

Không  by itself just means “no.” So, if you’re feeling well, your reply might be:  Không!

What Is Your Name

When meeting someone for the first time, learning their name is an important social gesture. “Name” in Vietnamese is  tên . So, to ask for it say  tên của bạn là gì? , or the simpler  bạn tên gì?

When you have introduced yourselves and learned each other’s names, dropping the pronoun might be a good idea. In Vietnamese culture, it is considered polite to refer to yourself in the third person, even when this would sound odd if translated literally into English.

For Example:

Phưc: Phưc là ngừơi Việt. John là ngừơi Mỹ, phải không?

George: Không phãi, John là ngừơi Anh.

Translation:

Phưc: Phưc is Vietnamese. Is John American?

George: No, John is English.

writing in vietnamese

We’ve learned to say “hello” in Vietnamese, but what about saying “goodbye”?  Tạm biệt , which translates to “goodbye,” is the key term to grasp in this context.

Tạm sounds similar to tam, with a brief down-tone on the ạ. This indicates that the pitch is rapid and low, almost aggressive. Biệt has two double-syllables, similar to “bee-et,” but is spoken quickly.

The trick for English speakers whenever saying Tạm biệ t is to avoid using a joyous high-pitch tone, as you would when saying goodbye to a friend. Doing so would erroneously alter the word’s meaning.

Ace Your Vietnamese Greetings With Ease

So there you have it, a quick rundown of some of the most important greetings in Vietnamese and how to use them correctly. Now that you’ve got a handle on the basics, it’s time to practice what you’ve learned.

Learn Vietnamese Language With Ling CTA

Learn Vietnamese With The Ling App

It’s time to put all these new words and phrases into practice. But if you still need help with your pronunciation, we’ve got you covered.

Ling is an app that can help you learn Vietnamese from the ground up. With over 200 lessons, you’ll be able to master the basics of Vietnamese in no time.

Check out the Ling app at the Play Store or App Store . With Ling, you’ll learn to speak Vietnamese like a native. The app will teach you the basics of pronunciation and grammar in an easy-to-follow format that’s fun and engaging.

Anna Marie Datinguinoo-Goco

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Kristin Hannah wanted to write about Vietnam for years. Why ‘The Women’ was her way in

Kristin Hannah's latest novel is called "The Women," but the title rings true for all of her novels. From ”The Nightingale” to “ The Four Winds,” a Read With Jenna pick , Hannah has become known for writing epics focused on women characters caught up in the swell of history.

“What I’ve learned is what I should have known, and what I should have been taught: Women are incredibly resilient, courageous and daring,” Hannah tells TODAY.com. “They’ve done amazing things throughout history to keep their children alive and against forces trying to take things away from them or hurt them.”

"The Women" is different in that its character signs up for difficulty, rather than having those situations thrust on her.

Kristin Hannah's "The Women"

Whereas past characters have found themselves in turmoil through circumstances such as cancer diagnoses ("Firefly Lane") or abrupt moves to Alaska ("The Great Alone"), Francesca “Frankie” McGrath walks — or, rather, flies — directly there.

Frankie is a 20-year-old girl raised to believe that nursing school is a holding period between her real task: Getting married and starting a family. But it's the 1960s, and all the men she knows are being drafted to fight in Vietnam, including her brother.

Soon, due to a surprising twist that happens early in the story, Frankie feels compelled to go to Vietnam herself. She becomes one of Army’s women nurses, who have been largely forgotten from the narrative of the Vietnam War. More than 265,000 women served in the military during Vietnam, and 11,000 actually served in Vietnam, per the VA . Of those 11,000 women, 90% were nurses like Frankie.

Nothing can prepare Frankie for the brutality she finds in Vietnam, far from the glory of the battlefield her father spoke about.

As a writer, Hannah says she's driven by asking: "What would I do in this instance? How would I rise to this challenge?" In the case of "The Women," Hannah doubts that she would have been able to handle what her characters did.

“I would not have been tough enough and strong enough to do this. That’s what I admire so much about them,” she says. "But history is full of women who don't think they'e tough enough and resilient enough, until they're placed in that environment."

“I would not have been tough enough and strong enough to do this. That’s what I admire so much about them.”

Kristin Hannah

The novel is split into two parts: During the war and after. The segments in Vietnam are grisly and raw, where the "life or death" is skewed, often, to the latter — and the paradigm also applies to the people doing the operating.

"It's intense reading it and it's intense writing it," she says. "In my head I sometimes think I'm a doctor because I've watch 'Grey's Anatomy' for so long. But this was different because this I had to actually describe them in a way that the reader felt they were there. They were some really difficult bloody, horrific moments."

A doctor and surgical nurses read through the sequences and helped take them to the "next level" of accuracy, she says.

Like other veterans, Frankie returns to the United States and finds that people don't want to acknowledge what she saw and did abroad. While she’s become an excellent nurse, she doesn’t have the proper professional experience to get a hospital job.

Frankie's experiences are directly informed by conversation that Hannah had with some women who served in Vietnam. There aren't many left. Hannah says many have since died from cancer, believed to be linked to Agent Orange exposure .

Hannah was invited to the Vietnam Women's Memorial on Veterans Day for the 30th anniversary of the memorial. She says meeting them, face-to-face, is when "everything changed" for her, and she realized the impact of her book.

"These women were so inspirational, powerful and honest. They had accomplished so much and survived so much. That's when I understood that before, the book had been important for me to write, because I wanted to tell this story. But I really began to understand, when I met them, how important this story was from their perspective," she says.

The book, and the real women’s experiences, has made her passionate about care for veterans.

“If we are going to ask men and women to sacrifice on our behalf and serve their country, we really have to take care of them when they come home,” she says.

"The Women" rounds out of a two-book exploration of the 1970s. Born in the 1960s, Hannah had long wanted to write about Vietnam, since her own formative memories are of the era. She remembered how her friend’s father had been shot down and never returned. They wore a POW bracelet with his name for “years and years,” she says. “It was always a reminder.”

Her previous book, "The Great Alone," followed an addled Vietnam veteran who moves his family to remote Alaska. But "The Women" addresses the topic more directly, which she only felt ready to do now.

i'm not “I think I finally got old enough to feel confident enough to take on such such a big, complex issue,” she says.

She hasn't started writing her next book, but she is reflecting on the "seven-year phases" her career has had so far, and says one is coming to a close.

Hannah began writing her first published book, a work of contemporary fiction, while she was on maternity leave from her law firm. Seven years after that was "Firefly Lane," and seven years after was "The Nightingale," a historical epic. That's when Hannah went from writing about the "resilient women she was surrounded with" to women in history.

"I was so surprised — and angry — to realize how much of our place in the historical landscape had been diminished, forgotten, marginalized," she says. "There were amazing stories of women who had done remarkable things. Shown great courage at great personal expense. And had many ways changed the way history unfolded."

These books, like "The Women", were written so women could "feel the collective power of all of us and reach for more, and demand more."

Still, while her characters are admirable, they're not meant to be one-note heroes. With all her questionable decisions, Frankie, she says, is an example of that.

"I don't intend my characters to be role models. I intend them to be full-blooded humans that maybe teach you something and entertain you. The point of being someone to emulate is that you are the kind of person who doesn't give up. No matter what mistakes you make, you do your very best to rectify them and to get back on the right path," she says.

As for what’s next? Her next chapter is unwritten, literally. "I'm in search of that magic idea at the moment," she says.

Elena Nicolaou is a senior entertainment editor at Today.com, where she covers the latest in TV, pop culture, movies and all things streaming. Previously, she covered culture at Refinery29 and Oprah Daily. Her superpower is matching people up with the perfect book, which she does on her podcast, Blind Date With a Book.

Reuters

Vietnam's VinFast confident of achieving sales goals in all markets in 2024 - chairwoman

H ANOI, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Vietnamese electric vehicle (EV) maker VinFast is confident of achieving its 2024 sales guidance for all of its vehicles in all markets, VinFast chairwoman Le Thi Thu Thuy told Reuters on Thursday.

Thuy also said the company's investor base had increased, the firm was seeking to lower production costs and that its Vietnam plant had capacity to supply all cars to all markets in the next 2 years. The firm's fundraising process would start from Feb. 26, she said, when a blackout period ends.

(Reporting by Phuong Nguyen and Francesco Guarascio; Writing by Martin Petty)

IMAGES

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  2. Learn The Vietnamese Alphabet

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  3. Learning Vietnamese Lesson 1 Vietnamese alphabet

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  4. Vietnamese Alphabet: How to Write and Pronounce Correctly

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  5. The Vietnamese Alphabet: Learning the Basics

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  6. Vietnamese language and alphabet

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  1. [ How to Write in Vietnamese ]

  2. Viết vần “ât”

  3. One word, loads of meanings #1: CŨNG

  4. Learn Vietnamese: Week 1 [Day 2]

  5. Chapter 19

  6. Learn Vietnamese: 40 useful Vietnamese phrases

COMMENTS

  1. Type Vietnamese characters

    This page allows you to easily type Vietnamese characters without a Vietnamese keyboard. You can edit your text in the box and then copy it to your document, e-mail message, etc. Type Vietnamese characters without a Vietnamese keyboard?

  2. Vietnamese alphabet

    [1] The Vietnamese alphabet contains 29 letters, including seven letters using four diacritics: ă , â , ê , ô , ơ , ư , and đ . There are an additional five diacritics used to designate tone (as in à , á , ả , ã , and ạ ).

  3. Vietnamese language and alphabet

    Native name: tiếng việt [tĭəŋ vìəˀt] / [tǐəŋ jìək] Language family: Austroasiatic, Vietic, Viet-Muong Number of speakers: c. 76 million Spoken in: Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Laos First written: 13th century Writing system: Chữ-nôm script, Latin script Status: official language in Vietnam. Recognised minority language in the Czech Republic

  4. Vietnamese Alphabet & How to write Vietnamese

    Learn the fundamental and useful knowledge about Vietnamese words, such as the 29-letter alphabet, the 12 vowels and 17 consonants, and the word structure. The web page explains how to type Vietnamese words with the đ letter and the special marks on or over the vowels.

  5. History of writing in Vietnam

    Current and past writing systems for Vietnamese in the Vietnamese alphabet and in chữ Hán Nôm Spoken and written Vietnamese today uses the Latin script-based Vietnamese alphabet to represent native Vietnamese words ( thuần Việt ), Vietnamese words which are of Chinese origin ( Hán-Việt, or Sino-Vietnamese), and other foreign loanwords.

  6. How to Learn the Vietnamese Alphabet: An In-Depth Guide

    Vietnamese used to be written using a pictorial system called chữ nôm that's similar to modern Chinese characters. These days, chữ nôm is all but dead. Modern Vietnamese uses a Latin-based alphabet called chữ Quốc ngữ ("national language script") which was originally devised by Portuguese and Italian missionaries in the 16th century.

  7. Quoc-ngu

    Quoc-ngu is now universally used in Vietnam and is the official writing system. Home Literature Novels & Short Stories Novelists A-K Arts & Culture Paulus Cua Vietnamese scholar Also known as: Huynh Tinh Cua Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

  8. Vietnamese Language: an Introduction

    The Vietnamese Language (in Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt, or Tieng Viet without accent marks) has existed for millenia but only in spoken form for most of the earlier periods. The writing system used in Vietnam was classical Chinese (~9 th → 13 th Century), Chữ Nôm (13 th → 17 th) and Romanized script (17 th → Present) [1], [2].

  9. Vietnamese Writing System

    Modern Vietnamese is written with the Latin alphabet, known as quoc ngu ( quốc ngữ) in Vietnamese. Quoc ngu consists of 29 letters. These are: The 26 letters of the English alphabet minus f, j, w , and z. ̣ (These letters are, however, found in foreign loanwords.) Seven modified letters using diacritics: đ, ă, â, ê, ô, ơ, and ư.

  10. Vietnamese Chu Nom script

    The earliest known example of writing in the Chữ-nôm script, an inscription on a stele at the Bảo Ân temple in Yên Lãng, Vĩnh Phúc province, dates from 1209 AD (Lý dynasty). It was during the Trần dynasty (家陳) in the 13th-14th centuries that the script was systematized and started to be used in literature. Famous Vietnamese ...

  11. How to type Vietnamese: a complete guide

    Telex: type the underlying letter + w. For exaple, to get ư, your typing sequence is "uw". Similarly, "ow" for ơ and "aw" for ă. Typing the 5 diacritics The Telex and Vni conventions for typing the 5 diacritics are summarised in the following table: Type diacritics (or accent marks):

  12. Vietnamese Keyboard

    Use your computer keyboard or mouse to type Vietnamese letters with this online keyboard. You can also switch between virtual QWERTY keyboard and virtual Vietnamese keyboard, and copy and paste the text in any app.

  13. Reading & Writing Vietnamese: A Workbook for Self-Study: Learn to Read

    Reading & Writing Vietnamese is an easy way to learn how to pronounce, read and write all the complicated sounds of Vietnamese-- including the difficult-to-pronounce consonants, vowels and tones. It is specifically designed for beginners with no previous experience in studying or speaking the language.

  14. Chữ Nôm

    Chữ Nôm ( 𡨸喃, IPA: [t͡ɕɨ˦ˀ˥ nom˧˧]) [5] is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language.

  15. The Beginner's Guide to Vietnamese tones and accent marks

    Vietnamese has a unique writing system that can look a little confusing for beginners. However, with a little practice, you will be able to read, write and pronounce Vietnamese with ease. If you want to pronounce Vietnamese well, you should practice repeating the sounds and use lots of audio material like Pimsleur* or VPod101*.

  16. How to Write an Email or Letter in Vietnamese: the complete guide

    Thư mời: "invitation" If necessary, add these words in your subject line to indicate that you need a quick response from the recipients: Khẩn: "urgent" Gấp: "urgent" Quan trọng: "important" Once you have a clear and concise email subject line, the next step is to start writing the body of your Vietnamese email.

  17. tôi viết (tiếng Việt)

    tôi viết (tiếng Việt) nối dài chuỗi thảo luận nhiều cảm hứng đó, và/để đối diện câu chuyện khó và khó san sẻ hơn. Những mặt và mặt nạ dần thân thuộc và thêm đôi ba mặt xa lạ thân thuộc khác nữa, nghe và nói qua màn hình Zoom, lúc mau lúc thưa, lúc hào hứng lúc vô vọng, lúc kéo dài tới khuya, lúc ngắt giữa chừng.

  18. Vietnamese Keyboard Online LEXILOGOS

    Online Vietnamese keyboard to type a text with the special characters of the Vietnamese alphabet. Vietnamese - Tiếng Việt. Vietnamese dictionary Instructions. To type directly with the computer keyboard: Type dd > đ; Type aa > ă | oo > ơ | uu > ư; Type aaa > â ...

  19. Numbers in Vietnamese

    Notes. 1 is pronounced mốt in numbers from 21 to 91. 5 is usually pronunced lăm in numbers from 15-95 to avoid confusion with homophones. 10 is pronounced mươi in numbers from 20 to 99. 1-100 in Vietnamese by Greg Vanderford. An introduction to Vietnamese numbers by Greg Vanderford. Information and recordings by Greg Vanderford.

  20. "Hello" in Vietnamese: 10 Vietnamese Greetings You Can Start Using Today

    Xin chào is the safest, most polite way of saying "hello" in Vietnamese. You can use it to greet anybody. It's easy to remember because chào sounds just like the Italian greeting "ciao", which is often used in English. The accent on chào tells you that it's pronounced using the "falling tone". (A full explanation of Vietnamese ...

  21. Vietnamese language

    Vietnamese (Vietnamese: tiếng Việt) is an Austroasiatic language spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the national and official language.Vietnamese is spoken natively by around 85 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of the Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a second or first language for other ethnic groups ...

  22. Vietnamese Typing

    Em ta65p d9a1nh Tie61ng Vie65t. Vietnamese unicode typing, danh tieng viet, go tieng viet co dau, đánh tiếng việt, gõ tiếng việt.

  23. Greetings In Vietnamese: 6 Phrases You Need To Know

    It's full of tones, has different writing systems, and relies heavily on context for meaning. So, if you want to make a good impression on Vietnamese speakers, it's important to know some basic greetings. Read more to find out how to greet people in Vietnam and learn some useful phrases that will help you get around. Basics Of Vietnamese ...

  24. Kristin Hannah On 'The Women' And Writing About The Vietnam War

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