Learn the Vietnamese Alphabet and 6 Tones: 24 Flashcards from ă to ngh

Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet, which makes it look easy. It isn't, because the letters stack two layers of marks: vowel diacritics that change the vowel itself, and tone marks that change the pitch. The Flip It deck Vietnamese Alphabet & Tones (code BB6669, 24 cards) covers both layers plus the consonant digraphs, with IPA on every back. It is short, accurate, and worth learning before any vocabulary deck.

The deck in eight cards

What you will learn

Seven modified letters (ă, â, ê, ô, ơ, ư, đ); the contrasts ê /e/ vs e /ɛ/ and ô /o/ vs o /ɔ/; all six tones with their Chao numbers and marks: ngang (unmarked), sắc (acute), huyền (grave), hỏi (hook above), ngã (tilde), nặng (dot below), shown on one syllable as ma, má, mà, mả, mã, mạ; and the digraphs ch, kh, nh, ph, th, tr, gi, ng, qu and the trigraph ngh, with North/South splits for ch, tr and gi.

How to study it

Drill the six ma's as a set, then as minimal pairs. Tones are the reason Vietnamese words fail, so never review cards 8-13 one at a time. Say ma-má-mà-mả-mã-mạ in one breath until each contour feels different, then quiz yourself on pairs that beginners merge: hỏi vs ngã (most Southern speakers actually pronounce them the same, so learn the spelling even if you hear one tone) and huyền vs nặng (both low; nặng is cut short by a glottal stop).

Add the plain letters the deck leaves out. The deck teaches the letters that look strange but skips the plain ones that sound strange, which is where English speakers make mistakes. Write five extra cards: d = /z/ (North) or /j/ (South); x = /s/; s = /ʂ/ in careful Northern speech, often /s/; r = /z/ (North); and the spelling rule c / k / q, which all mean /k/ (k before i, e, ê, y; q only in qu). Also add gh, the twin of ngh: like ngh it appears only before i, e, ê, as in ghế (chair). With those, you can read any word aloud correctly.

A final habit: when a tone and a vowel diacritic sit on the same letter (ấ, ộ, ữ), say the vowel first, then the tone. Vowel quality and pitch are separate decisions.

Next step

Once the sounds are automatic, move to real words with our guide to the top 100 Vietnamese words, where every tone mark you learned here starts doing work. Find BB6669 in the Flip It library at flip-it.app.