Lesson 1: Vietnamese Alphabet

I. Aims of lesson: After the lesson you will learn: 1. The Vietnamese alphabet system and its pronunciation 2. Learn more detail vowels, consonants, diphthongs, etc. 3. Tones II. Content: 1. Vietnamese alphabet system There are 29 letters in the Vietnamese alphabet system which consists of 12 vowels and 17 consonants. See the list below: Table 1 Aa Hh Qq Ii Rr Kk Ss Bb Ll Tt Cc Mm Uu Dd Nn Oo Vv Ee Xx Yy Gg Pp

2. Vowels As mentioned above, there are 12 vowels in the Vietnamese alphabet system. They are including: Table 2 a o e u i y

How to pronoun these vowels is to follow the below Table 3

Front High Upper mid Lower mid Low i, y [i] [e]

Central []

Back u [u] [o]

[] / [] e [ ] [a] / a [a] o [ ]

Front, central, and low vowels (i, , e, , , , , a) are unrounded, whereas the back vowels (u, , o) are rounded. The vowels [] and [a] are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Thus, and are basically pronounced the same except that [] is long while [] is short the same applies to the low vowels long a [a] and short [a]. - Now turn back to the list, (table 2) listen and repeat * Diphthongs and Tripthongs In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs), Vietnamese has diphthongs and triphthongs. The diphthongs consist of a main vowel component followed by a shorter semivowel offglide to either a high front position [], a high back position [], or a central position []. See the table below: Table 4

Vowel nucleus

Diphthong with front offglide -

Diphthong Tripthong Diphthong with with back with front centering offglide offglide offglide iu~yu [i] ~ ia~i~y~ya [i] ~ ~ ~ -

Tripthong with back offglide iu [i]

u [e]

eo []

i []

u []

a~ [] ~

i []

u []

y []

u []

i []

ay [a]

au [a]

ai [a]

ao [a]

ui [u]

ua~u [u] ~

ui [u]

i [o]

oi []

The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i, , u) as the main vowel. They are generally spelled as ia, a, ua when they end a word and are spelled i, , u, respectively, when they are followed by a consonant. There are also restrictions on the high offglides: the high front offglide cannot occur after a front vowel (i, , e) nucleus and the high back offglide cannot occur after a back vowel (u, , o) nucleus. The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For

example, the offglide [] is usually written as i however, it may also be represented with y. In addition, in the diphthongs [a] and [a] the letters y and i also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay = + [], ai = a + []. Thus, tay "hand" is [ta] while tai "ear" is [ta]. Similarly, u and o indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au = + [], ao = a + []. The four triphthongs are formed by adding front and back offglides to the centering diphthongs. Similarly to the restrictions involving diphthongs, a triphthong with front nucleus cannot have a front offglide (after the centering glide) and a triphthong with a back nucleus cannot have a back offglide. With regards to the front and back offglides [, ], many phonological descriptions analyze these as consonant glides /j, w/. Thus, a word such as u "where" [] would be /w/. It is difficult to pronoun these sounds, you must listen and repeat carefully (table 4), then pronoun these words. (Practice and then click the sounds to check whether you do it right or not)

Liu xiu

m khuya

ma

lao xao

mi hai

chai ru

tay

tai

lu bu

hiu hiu

3. Consonant The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right. Table 5

Labial Alveolar Retroflex palatal voiceless p[p] Stop aspirated voiced b [] t [t] th [t] [ ] x [s] s [] d [] tr [~] ch [c~t]

Velar c/k [k]

Glottal

Fricative voiceless ph [f]

kh [x]

h [h]

voiced Nasal Approximant

v [v] m [m] u/o [w]

gi [z] n [n] l [l]

r [ ~ ]

g/gh [] nh [] ng/ngh [] y/i [j]

Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a two-letter disgrah (like "ph"), and others are written with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as "c", "k", or "q"). The tables below show detail and it may help you easier to understand * There are 17 single consonants as listed below: Table 6 Consonants b c d g h k l m n

Sound

Phoneme /b/ /k/ /z/ /d/ /g/ /h/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/

English equivalent sounds but, bike car, clean zoo, do, does go, get hat, house keep, leaf, lose meet, mouse not, no

p q r s t v x

/p/ /k/ /r/ /sh/ /t/ /v/ /s/

pipe, people queen run, road show, shower tea, top video, vowel see, sea

* There are 11 consonants clusters: Table 7 Consonants ch gh gi kh nh ng ngh ph th

Sound

Phoneme /ts/ /g/ /j/ /x/ // // // /f/ //

English equivalent sounds cheap ghost yes loch canyon sing single fine thin, theory

tr qu * There are 8 final consonants: Table 8 Consonants c ch m n nh ng p t

// /kw/

try queen

Sound

Phoneme /k/ /ts/ /m/ /n/ // // /p/ /t/

English equivalent sounds car lunch them then canyon sing stop top

Now click the sounds again, listen and repeat carefully. It is necessray to make a difference between these two sounds: +) K vs. Kh K & kh are two of the consonant symbols in the Vietnamese language. K is produced fortis and unaspirated. It is similar to the c in cat. In Vietnamese language it is similar to c and q. Perhaps one of the most common words beginning with k is kem which means ice cream and ko which means candy. 'Kh' is produced lenis voiceless dorsorelar spirant. The most common 'kh' word is khng which means no or not though there are less common meanings as well. Khe which means strong and healthy is another common word. To place khe khng after a personal referent is to enquire as to another's health - literally: you well no? as in bn khe khng? Also in these times of fast food, the ubiquitous french fry is known as khoai ty chin meaning potato fry.

+) Ng and Ngh The sound that ng and ngh make in Vietnamese is by far the hardest sound for Westerners to make. Ng and ngh simply make the last sound in "king" or "running (as long as you don't make the hard /g/ sound at the end). The problem arises when ng or ngh come at the beginning of a word, as the common family name Nguyn clearly demonstrates. Here, the speaker has to isolate the // sound, which even many Western dictionaries don't recognize in their pronunciation guides. (Those that do tend to represent it as /ng/.) This lesson will help you to at least pronounce the // sound well enough for a native listener. One thing you have to take a notice of is the combination of these above consonants Ng/ ngh with vowels. See below for detail:

a Ngh Ng nga

nghe ngh nghi ngo ng ng ngu ng

1. Ngh can only combine with the vowels which are started with i, e, . 2. Ng can combine with vowels started with a, o, , , u, . Besides, Vietnamese has another pair of sound (g/ gh) which are all pronouned as /g/, for these consonants, there is also rule in combining with vowels.

a g gh ga

i gi*

o go

u gu

ghe

gh

ghi

- gh can only combine with vowel started with e, , i. -g can go with vowel started with a, o, , , u, . * g can also go with i but in this case it will be pronoun as /j/, e.g. ci g. 3. Tones Vietnamese is a tonal language, It means that different voice inflections on any word will change the meaning of that word. For example, if you say ban with a rising tone, it means "sell," but if you say it with a falling tone, it means "table." Tone is the central part of a word There are five tones in Vietnamese, plus a mid-level non-tone. Press each symbol button below to hear what each tone sounds like, and the name of the tone. Then press the word buttons to hear how one word can be pronounced with all six tones. Underneath is the English translation of each word.

Description

Name of tones Ngang

Symbol

Sample word & meaning

Midrange voice goes flat and level.

three

High rising

Sc

b to hug

Low falling

Huyn

grandmother

Start in a low tone, go down and gently back up

Hi

bane

Start high, bring voice down, cut off, Ng and go back up

residue

Bring voice down and cut off abruptly.

Nng

haphazardly

Hnh minh ha It is time to practice. Now listen and repeat carefully

Ba

Ma

Be

Me

Le

* How to type Vietnamese on computer: To use Vietnamese on your computer, you need to download Unikey and then choose vietnamese. You also need to follow this rule: Letters Tones =aw =aa =dd =ee =oo =ow =uw Huyn = F Sc = S Hi = R Ng = X Nng = J

- The rest is to follow the normal rule. Example: Ting Vit = t i e e n g s v i e e t j 4. Further practice Exercise 1: Listen and repeat with vowels

ao

iu

ui

eo

ai

ua

ia

oai

iu

oe

au

uy

uya

ay

ui

uyu

Exercise 2: Practice with consonants. Listen and repeat.

xn xao

ng ngh

lu luyn

nu na nu nng

rc rch

khuya khot

xo xc

ghi chp

lu bu

thiu thiu

r rch

khng khiu

chm chp

cy kh

ly by

thn thc

ngay ngn

kin tr

chan cht

khoai lang

lp rp

thnh thong ngoan ngon

trung thc

Exercise 3: Matching the consonants with vowels and then pronoun

a Ngh Ng Gh G

uy

ai

ay

Exercise 4: Practice with tones, listen and repeat.

Bo

To

Go

Mo

Lo

Ban

Bn

Bn

Bn

Bn

Bn

Ve

Tu

10

Mu