Vietnamese/Consonants
Appearance
- There are 17 single consonants:
Vowels | Phoneme | English equivalent sounds |
b | /ɓ/ | but |
c | /k/ | sky |
d | /z/ | zoo (Northern) |
d | /j/ | yes (Southern & Central) |
đ | /ɗ/ | do |
g | /ɣ/ | go |
h | /h/ | hat |
k | /k/ | sky |
l | /l/ | long |
m | /m/ | me |
n | /n/ | no |
p | /p/ | sport (cannot occur initially, except in loan words) |
q | /k/ | square |
r | /z/ | zoo (Northern) |
r | /ɹ/ | run (Southern & Central) |
s | /s/ | stay (Northern) |
s | /∫/ | show (Southern & Central) |
t | /t/ | stop |
v | /v/ | video |
x | /s/ | see |
- There are 10 consonant digraphs:
Vowels | Phoneme | English equivalent sounds |
ch | /c/ | cha-cha |
gh | /ɣ/ | go |
gi | /z/ | zoo (Northern) |
gi | /j/ | yes (Southern & Central) |
kh | /x/ | loch |
nh | /ɲ/ | canyon |
ng | /ŋ/ | sing, but can occur initially. |
ph | /f/ | Philip |
th | /tʰ/ | as in top (aspirated "t"), not as in thin |
tr | /c/ | cha-cha (Northern) |
tr | /ʈʂ/ | straw (Southern and Central) |
qu | /kw/ | square (Northern & Central) |
qu | /w/ | world (Southern) |
There is one consonant trigraph: ngh /ŋ/: nghỉ, nghiêm, nghiêng
- There are 8 final consonants:
Vowels | Phoneme | English equivalent sounds |
c | /k/ | rack |
ch | /k/ | sick (cut in the South) |
m | /m/ | gym |
n | /n/ | ban |
nh | /ɲ/ | canyon |
ng | /ŋ/ | sing |
p | /p/ | tap |
t | /t/ | pat |