Learn About Vietnamese
Tiếng Việt • 86 million speakers worldwide
"Xin chào, bạn khỏe không?"
Pronunciation: Sin chow, ban khweh khong?
Translation: Hello, how are you?
Speakers
86 million
Language Family
Austroasiatic (Vietic)
Writing System
Latin script with diacritics (Quốc Ngữ)
Official Status
Official language of Vietnam
Regions (5 countries)
Vietnamese developed from the Austroasiatic languages, influenced by Chinese for vocabulary over centuries. The Latin-based Quốc Ngữ script was developed in the 17th century and became standardized during French colonization.
Tonal language with 6 distinct tones
Subject-Verb-Object word order
No grammatical gender
Extensive use of classifiers
Modifiers follow nouns
Northern (Hanoi) dialect
Central (Hue) dialect
Southern (Ho Chi Minh City) dialect
Focus on tones, they change word meanings
Practice listening to native speakers for tone accuracy
Learn common classifiers used in counting
Immerse in Vietnamese media for pronunciation
Start with simple SVO sentence patterns
Vietnamese culture emphasizes respect for elders and hierarchy
Tet (Lunar New Year) is the most important holiday
Cuisine and family meals are central cultural elements
Vietnamese literature and poetry have rich historical roots
Vietnamese uses diacritics to indicate tone and vowel quality
It is the only Austroasiatic language with a Latin-based script
Vietnamese has borrowed many words from Chinese and French
Tones change the meaning of words entirely