Essential Vietnamese

Essential Vietnamese is a small paperback reference book from Tuttle for beginners, travelers, and anyone who wants a quick way to look up useful Vietnamese. It is not a full textbook. Instead, it gives you ready-to-use phrases, a compact dictionary, and short notes on grammar and pronunciation. You can see the current edition on Tuttle's site.

The 2018 paperback is 192 pages and is built for fast use rather than step-by-step study. Tuttle says it includes more than 1,500 everyday sentences, over 2,000 terms and expressions, and coverage for topics like meeting people, transport, dining, accommodations, emergencies, smartphones, and social media. That makes it handy if you want one small book to keep in a bag or use before a trip.

Where it helps most is survival Vietnamese. You can quickly find common expressions and basic vocabulary without working through long lessons. It also includes short pronunciation and grammar support, which is useful if you are starting from zero.

The tradeoff is that it will not take you very far on its own. It is more of a phrasebook-reference than a structured course, so you do not get deep explanations, exercises, or much support for building real conversation skills over time. A Goodreads review also notes that the book is useful for tourist situations but limited as a speaking guide because it does not give enough pronunciation support for full sentences.