VIETNAMESE VS ENGLISH: TONE OR INTONATION

In response to my students’ complaint about the fact that Vietnamese tones are so difficult, I say: Yes, they are, but you still make them every day in English.

Vietnamese has six tones from low to high: low constricted tone (nặng), falling tone (huyền), level tone (ngang), rising tone (sắc), falling rising tone (hỏi) and high rising tone (ngã).

The tones are different from but actually similar to intonation in English.

VIETNAMESE VS ENGLISH: SHORT VOWELS AND LONG VOWELS.

Vietnamese doesn't have "Short vowels" like foot and "Long vowels" like food which is different from English. That's why many new English Vietnamese learners usually say "foot" and "food" the same.

Need /niːd/ was one of the words that I was struggled with. If I didn't really pay attention to my pronunciation, the sound I made would be knit /nɪt/

VIETNAMESE VS ENGLISH: ENDING SOUNDS

Do you know that when you say "Vietnamese"? We pay more attention on how your voice goes up or down to recognize the intonation than the "ese" sound at the end.

This occurs because we don't have ending sounds such as the "s" sound at the end of cats, "d" of God, "sh" of cash, "kst" of text or "ng" of "sing". So don't be surprised when you can hear different ending sounds from the same word said by different Vietnamese people. My advice is "Ignore the ending sounds".