Vietnamese Alphabet: All 29 Letters, Tones, and Pronunciation

The Vietnamese alphabet uses Latin letters, just like English, but with a twist. It has 29 letters instead of 26, uses diacritics to mark extra vowels and tones, and drops four letters that English uses. Once you understand how the letters and tone marks work, you can read any Vietnamese word out loud, even if you do not know what it means. This guide walks you through every letter, vowel, consonant, and tone mark in the Vietnamese alphabet.

The 29 Letters

The Vietnamese alphabet is called chữ Quốc ngữ, meaning "script of the national language". It was developed by Portuguese and Italian missionaries in the 1600s to write Vietnamese using Latin letters. Today it is the only writing system used in Vietnam.

Vietnamese takes 22 letters from the standard Latin alphabet and adds 7 more with diacritics: ă, â, đ, ê, ô, ơ, and ư. The four letters f, j, w, and z are not part of the Vietnamese alphabet, though they sometimes appear in loanwords and foreign names.

Of these 29 letters, 12 are vowels and 17 are consonants. The alphabet also has 10 two-letter combinations called digraphs and one three-letter combination called a trigraph. These represent sounds that a single letter cannot capture on its own.

The 12 Vowels

Vietnamese has 12 vowel letters. Six of them look like standard Latin vowels, and six have diacritics that change the sound. Getting the vowels right is essential because Vietnamese words are often distinguished only by their vowel sounds. Unlike consonants, vowels sound largely the same across Northern and Southern Vietnamese, so the descriptions below apply to all speakers.

The 17 Consonants

Most Vietnamese consonants will feel familiar to English speakers, but several have surprising pronunciations. The biggest traps are d, r, and x, which all sound very different from their English counterparts.

Digraphs and Trigraphs

Vietnamese combines two or three letters to represent sounds that a single letter cannot. There are 10 digraphs and 1 trigraph. These are not optional combinations. They are fixed parts of the alphabet that you need to learn as single sounds.

The 6 Tone Marks

Vietnamese is a tonal language. Every syllable is spoken with one of six tones, and the tone changes the meaning of the word. Five tones are written with diacritics placed above or below the vowel. The sixth tone has no mark at all.

The classic example uses the syllable ma. Depending on the tone, it becomes six completely different words.

How to Type Vietnamese

You do not need a special keyboard to type Vietnamese. Modern phones and computers let you type diacritics using a standard keyboard with an input method. The two most popular input methods are Telex and VNI.

Northern vs. Southern Pronunciation

The Vietnamese alphabet is written the same everywhere, but several letters sound different depending on the region. The biggest differences are in the consonants. Vowels are more consistent across dialects.

Tones also differ: Northern Vietnamese has 6 distinct tones, while Southern Vietnamese effectively has 5 because the hỏi (hook) and ngã (tilde) tones merge.

Neither dialect is more "correct" than the other. Most textbooks and language courses teach Northern pronunciation because it preserves all six tones and follows the spelling more closely. For a deeper look at each dialect, see our Northern Vietnamese guide and Southern Vietnamese guide.

Quick Reference Table

A complete overview of the Vietnamese alphabet with pronunciation for each letter. Bookmark this page and come back whenever you need a refresher.

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