Hi,
In the previous post, I talked about Learning Vietnamese by speaking slowly: In this post, I continue to talk about Vietnamese alphabet. And the difference between it and English alphabet.
There is a funny story about Vietnamese alphabet. A European is learning Vietnamese who want to move to station ("ga" in Vietnamese) by taxi. She asked the taxi driver with 5 different words:
- Gà (chicken)
- Gá (to harbor gamblers)
- Gả(married)
4.Gã(young chap)
5.Gạ(seduce)
Finally, she remembered it's "ga" (station)
http://dtinews.vn/en/news/027/18407/flat-lining-on-vietnamese-tones.html
Vietnamese alphabet has 29 letters. In that, there are 11 vowels and 18 consonants and semi-vowel Y. There aren't F,J,W,Z in the English alphabet.
Some letters have more diacritics: ă, â, ô, ơ, ư, đ. Some letters have the same pronunciation ways like i-y, r-d-gi, s-x, c-k-qu
When you start to learn Vietnamese, you should learn the alphabet. Read it, listen and repeat.
There is some different things between the same pronunciation letters: i-y, r-d-gi, s-x, c-k-qu, ch-tr. It depends on the locals in Vietnam. Between i and y, there are some different things: ai-ay, ui-uy...
Hanaspeak is a Vietnamese teaching program. They have a series about pronunciation. You can watch YouTube channel here:
In next post, I will talk to you about 6 tones. See you soon!