There are 23 (not including semivowels) or 24 (including semivowels) consonants in Vietnamese. Almost all of them can serve as initial consonants while only a third can serve as final consonants. Note that a consonant can have multiple spellings due to the spelling rules.
Initial consonants
There are 22 initial consonants in Vietnamese, represented by 16 monographs, nine digraphs and one trigraph. Among them, the monograph g is the special one, doing two jobs at once: it can represent either the hard g sound or the soft g sound depending on what follows, as governed by the spelling rules.
| Consonant | IPA | English | Other languages |
|---|---|---|---|
| b | /ɓ/ ~ /b/ | be | |
| c/k/q | /k/ | cat | |
| ch | /c/ | ||
| d | /j/ | yes | |
| đ | /ɗ/ ~ /d/ | do | |
| (hard) g/gh | /ɣ/ | Spanish & European Portuguese amigo | |
| (soft) g/gi | /z/ | zoo | |
| h | /h/ | hat | |
| kh | /x/ | German Buch, Spanish gente, Mandarin 河 hé | |
| l | /l/ | long | |
| m | /m/ | man | |
| n | /n/ | no | |
| ng/ngh | /ŋ/ | sing | |
| nh | /ɲ/ | French & Italian gn, Spanish ñ, Portuguese nh | |
| ph | /f/ | film | |
| r | /r/ | raw | |
| s | /ʂ/ | Mandarin 是 shì, Russian ш | |
| t | /t/ | still | |
| th | /tʰ/ | Mandarin 他 tā, Korean ㅌ | |
| tr | /ʈ/ | ||
| v | /v/ | van | |
| x | /s/ | see |
Final consonants
There are eight final consonants in Vietnamese, divided into three categories: semivowels, nasals and stops.
| Consonant | IPA | English | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semivowel | i/y | /j/ | boy |
| u/o | /w/ | cow | |
| Nasal | m | /m/ | ham |
| n | /n/ | can | |
| ng/nh | /ŋ/ | sing | |
| Stop | p | /p/ | cap |
| t | /t/ | hat | |
| c/ch | /k/ | lock | |
Consonants in dialects
The Northern dialect
Major features
The Northern dialect (Hanoi) pronounces:
- r and d like gi (a.k.a. soft g)
- s like x
- tr like ch
Note that ch is pronounced /t͡ɕ/ (approximately English chalk) instead of the standard /c/, and so is tr.
Examples:
| Syllable | Standard IPA | Northern dialect respelling | Northern dialect IPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| rồi | /roj/ | giồi | /zoj/ |
| dân | /jə̆n/ | giân | /zə̆n/ |
| sẽ | /ʂɛ/ | xẽ | /sɛ/ |
| trước | /ʈɨək/ | chước | /t͡ɕɨək/ |
| chợp | /cəp/ | ∅ | /t͡ɕəp/ |
Minor features
Many speakers in the North of the country (generally and traditionally not including Hanoi, but nowadays it does happen and is not uncommon) have trouble pronouncing l and n correctly. In general, we can divide the phenomenon into three categories:
- Some people pronounce all ns as l (can’t pronounce n)
- Some people pronounce all ls as n (can’t pronounce l)
- Some people pronounce some ls as n and/or some ls as n (can pronounce both but not distinguish correctly)
For a comparison, in many regions in Southern China, we can also experience this phenomenon. They call it “NL不分”. It also only happens in Northern Vietnam but not in the South (maybe it has something to do with geography?).
In Vietnamese culture, the consensus is that this phenomenon is very bad. In Vietnamese, we call it nói ngọng, a word that means “speech impediment”. Neither an accent, nor a dialect, but a speech impediment. That is enough to see how bad it is. It is so bad that people often don’t want to talk about how bad it is because they don’t want to make the other person feel guilty. It makes you appear unserious, unprofessional and poorly educated. It gets you mocked and laughed at. It confuses the listener badly.
To top it all, maybe the most ironic thing is that the country used to have a Minister of Education and Training (in the late 2010s) who also speaks like this, which, of course, is ultimate meme material.
The Southern dialect
Major features
The Southern dialect (Saigon a.k.a. HCM city) is more conservative than its Northern counterpart when it comes to consonants.
- v and gi (a.k.a. soft g) pronounced like d.
- When the medial /w/ is present, /k/, /h/ and the null initial (/ʔ/) disappears, so the syllable starts with /w/.
Examples:
| Syllable | Standard IPA | Southern dialect respelling | Southern dialect IPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| vì | /vi/ | dì | /ji/ |
| giảm | /zam/ | dảm | /jam/ |
| quang | /kwaŋ/ | unworkable (wang if need be, but non-standard) |
/waŋ/ |
| hoang | /hwaŋ/ | ||
| oang | /ʔwaŋ/ |
Note that people in the South may practice code-switching in formal and semi-formal speech by pronouncing /v/, /kw/, /hw/ and /ʔw/.
Minor features
The Southwestern accents (Mekong River Delta, not including Saigon) pronounce r like g or a guttural r.