Good news for your very first day of Vietnamese: the letters already look familiar. Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet, so you are reading shapes you have known your whole life. The surprises are only in how a few of them sound.
A familiar alphabet with a few new faces
The Vietnamese writing system is called chữ Quốc ngữ (the national script). It has 29 letters, plus diacritics — the small marks above and below letters that carry real meaning.
Two things tend to surprise beginners right away:
- There is no f, j, w, or z in the alphabet.
- There are extra letters you may not have seen: ă, â, đ, ê, ô, ơ, ư.
So instead of an f, Vietnamese writes that sound a different way (more on this in a moment). And those extra letters are not decorations — each one is its own distinct letter with its own sound.
The sounds that surprise beginners
This is where a little guidance saves you a lot of confusion. Some letters and letter pairs do not sound the way English would suggest:
- đ sounds like the English "d" in "dog."
- The plain letter d (and gi) sound like "z" in the North and "y" in the South.
- ph sounds like "f" — so it does the job that "f" does in English.
- kh is a throaty "k," made further back in the throat.
- ng and ngh are the "ng" sound in "sing."
- nh is like the Spanish "ñ" in "señor."
- tr and ch are both close to the English "ch."
- x sounds like "s," while s is a softer "sh."
You do not need to master all of these today. Just knowing they exist means you will not be thrown when a word looks one way and sounds another.
Vowels do a lot of work
In Vietnamese, vowels carry meaning, and small differences are not optional. These are separate letters, not the same letter dressed up:
- a / ă / â
- o / ô / ơ
- u / ư
- e / ê
Swapping one for another can change the word entirely, so it is worth slowing down on vowels early. A helpful habit: when you learn a new word, notice the exact vowel and its mark, not just the rough shape.
Two kinds of marks — don't mix them up
Here is a point that quietly confuses many learners. Marks that sit on top of vowels come from two different systems:
- Marks that make a different vowel letter, like the hat on â and ê, or the hook on ơ and ư.
- The six tone marks, which change the pitch and melody of a syllable.
These are not the same thing, even though both can appear above a vowel. Tones are their own topic with their own logic, and they deserve a calm, separate look in our guide to Vietnamese tones explained.
A gentler way to start
Please do not try to memorize the alphabet cold, like a spelling list. It rarely sticks, and it skips the part that matters: how words actually sound.
Instead, learn sounds through whole words you will really use. Start with a friendly greeting — see how to say hello in Vietnamese — and let the letters teach themselves through real speech. One thing to keep in mind: pronunciation differs between the North and the South, so if two sources disagree, both can be right.
When you are ready to build a steady routine, our first-week Vietnamese plan walks you through it one small step at a time — and we would love to learn right alongside you.