Vietnamese Alphabet - Consonants

Consonants

Most of the consonants are pronounced approximately as in the International Phonetic Alphabet, with the following clarifications:

• Both D and GI are pronounced either in the northern dialects (including Hanoi), or in the central and Saigon dialects. In Middle Vietnamese, D was, also one of the pronunciations of Portuguese d; and GI was, vaguely reminiscent of Italian, spelled gi.
• Đ is an implosive, similar to a /d/ sound in many languages.
• S is pronounced for most speakers; however, it is sometimes pronounced in southern Vietnam. is the Middle Vietnamese pronunciation.
• V is pronounced in the northern dialects, or and in the southern dialects.
• X is pronounced (at the beginning of a word). This sound was in Middle Vietnamese, resembling the Portuguese sound /ʃ/, spelled x.
• CH is a voiceless palatal stop (IPA: ) or affricate (IPA: ). Pronounced as in the final position.
• KH is a voiceless velar fricative (IPA: ) or aspirated k (IPA : ).
• NG is a velar nasal (IPA: ) and always pronounced like that.
• NH is a palatal nasal (IPA: ), similar to Spanish ñ or Portuguese nh. Pronounced as or in the final position, depending on dialects.
• PH is pronounced . It is never pronounced or . It is used instead of F (e-phờ ) because it developed from an earlier (like Greek phi).
• TH is an aspirated t (IPA: ).
• TR is uniformly pronounced like Vietnamese CH in northern dialects (~, ), and preserved as "T + R" by some southern speakers.

The digraph GH and the trigraph NGH are basically variants of g and ng used before i, in order to avoid confusion with the digraph GI. For historical reasons, gh and ngh are also used before e or ê, as in Italian.