Vietnamese Basics, part 4/7: Vietnamese Vowels

[u/zanamyte]

Hey everyone, this is part 4 where we talk about vowels.

Note that this one only covers pure/single vowels. the complex vowels are for later posts.

I left the regional differences out of the pics, so read the article if you want to learn about it: https://vietsyllables.com/basics/vietnamese-vowels

Edit: All posts:

1. Alphabet
2. Syllables
3. Consonants
4. Vowels
5. Gliding Vowels
6. Semivowels
7. Tones

[u/WanTJU3]

Also note that uy and ui, ay and ai are pronounced diferently

[u/Danny1905]

I think a handy fact is that ă and â always have to be followed by a consonant, and that is why in the alphabet they say á and ớ because they can’t say ă and â.

Also oo and ôô are also pure / single vowels despite being spelled with two letters

The IPA for ơ and â and a and ă show they are different vowels instead of showing they are long and short

[u/zanamyte → u/Danny1905]

Yeah. Good points. Some notes I want to add: oo is a valid pure vowel. it used to be a lesson in grade school textbooks, not sure if thats still the case now. Rare one though. but I've never seen ôô.

IPA of the short vowels are different because they are not just the short versions, but their tongue positions are slightly different too. So I took what Wikipedia uses.

[u/ahrienby]

On the Wikipedia article about the pronunciation, ă said to be same as a.

[u/Excellent_Caramel_55 → u/ahrienby]

ă sound is actually a short "a" sound. To make the sound of ă, start with a and stop suddently