[haosac]

I understand that bros here may face difficulties in pronunciation of VNmese words. 1 year ago, I tried to teach a PRC a little Vietnamese. I used some tips from the Internet and things seemed a bit easier for her. Here goes..

We have 29 letters in the 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

And eight consonants that can be finals:
c ch m n ng nh p t

Nguyên âm - Vowels

a - as in scar
ă - as English a, but use your tongue tip to touch the top of your palate
â - as in e, with high-rising tone
ai - as in buy
ao - as in now
au - as in a-oo
âu - as in go
ay - as aye
ây - as in hey
e - as in Claire
ê - as in café
i - as in see
ia - as ee-a
ie - as in yes
o - as in door
oa - as in French moi
oă - almost as in luck
oai - as in y
oay - as in Uruguay
oe - as in where
oi - as in choice
ô - as in Bordeaux
ôi - as in toy
ơ - as in teacher
ơi - as in oy
u - as in zoo
ư - almost similar to Mandarin nü
ua - as in Ecuador
ưo - almost similar to Mandarin duo
uê - almost similar to Mandarin jüe
ui - almost similar to Mandarin rui
uôi - almost similar to Mandarin kuai
ươ - no idea , maybe just combine ư and ơ above
uy - as in we
uya - as in we-a
uyen - as we-en or Mandarin jüan
uyu - as in new
y - as in see (same as VNmese "i" in many cases)
ye - as in Mandarin mie
yeu - as in Mandarin miou

Phụ âm - Consonants

d - as in Mandarin zui
đ - as English d
gh - as in go
gi - as English j
kh - no idea
nh - as in French gn
ng, ngh - as English ng
ph - as in physic
tr - as in try

Now you can try to pronounce some words by combining the above, Ví Dụ: tomorrow = mai = m-ai = m-buy

Tone

We have 6 tones, some are similar to that of Mandarin. Following is an example similar to the well known "horse" example in teaching/learning Mandarin:

ma (ghost) -- Netural
má (mother) -- High rising
mà (but) -- Low falling
mã (horse, this word is very close to Mandarin, right) -- High broken
mả (tomb) -- Low rising
mạ (rice seedling) -- Low broken

Cheers