Syllable structure

A syllable consists of three parts:

• An initial — phụ âm đầu — or initial consonant
• A final — vần — or rime
• A tone — thanh điệu

The initial is optional, whereas the rime and tone are mandatory. The rime can further be broken down into three smaller parts:

• A medial — âm đệm, lit. “padding sound”
• A nucleus — âm chính — or main vowel
• A coda — phụ âm cuối — or final consonant

The medial and coda are optional, whereas the nucleus is mandatory.

For the sake of simplicity and consistency, we will use the more layman-friendly terms, which are initial consonant, rime, tone, medial, main vowel and final consonant, to refer to the components.

Pronunciation

The pronunciation of a syllable is equal to the combination of those of its components, with one exception. First the initial consonant, then the rime, and finally the tone, done. Remember that what a component looks like doesn’t always indicate what it really is, due to the spelling rules.

We mentioned above that there is one exception: the syllable/word/morpheme quốc, borrowed from Chinese 國 (“state”, “country”). This word has an unusual spelling, making it impossible to figure out its pronunciation based on the rules like a normal word, but rather it depends on the spoken dialect:

• The Northern dialect pronounces it like cuốc
• The Southern dialect pronounces it like quấc

A detailed look at this exception is given in the article about the writing system.

Pronouncing a rime is also simple, but with a little more complication. Similar to syllables, the pronunciation of a rime is also equal to the combination of those of its components, but for 90% of the time. However, the other 10% are not really bizarre exceptions either, but rather they follow a different pattern compared to the norm. The rime table provides a look at those exceptions.