One of the most interesting and sometimes very frustrating things about the Vietnamese language is all the different Vietnamese accents. People in the north speak differently from people in the south, who don’t sound anything like people from Central Vietnam. Even in Da Nang, you can tell which side of the river people are from by their accent. So what is different exactly? Well, accents are usually based on phoneme substitution. If that sounds confusing, it just means that certain sounds are replaced with other sounds to create different accents. I’m from California, and when I meet someone from the Midwest, I’m always surprised to hear them pronounce ‘mom’ as ‘mam’. So for those very ambitious learners out there, here’s a quick overview of Vietnamese accents.

Vietnamese Accents – North

Cao Bang

North of Hanoi, almost near the Chinese border, lies the city of Cao Bang. The accent here is like Hanoi, but everyone seems to talk much faster. When I asked a local about this, they just smiled and said “Zes!”

Hanoi

birdie golf at Hoan Kiem Lake

Ah, Hanoi, the phổ thông, or ‘popular’ accent, is widely accepted as being THE standard of Vietnamese accents. But it has quite a few unusual features that make it stand out.

N becomes L

That’s right, hard to imagine, but it’s true. So you’ll sometimes hear ‘Hanoi’ pronounced as ‘HaLoi’. Go figure.

Chinese Tones

The one feature of Northern Vietnamese no one likes to talk about: the relative pitches of tones here are VERY similar to Mandarin. Consider:

• very high flat tone (compared to the Central and Southern relatively lower flat tone) = Chinese 1st tone

• gradually rising sắc tone (compared to the much higher spiking in Central and South) = Chinese 2nd tone

• low, dipping hỏi tone (compared to Southern dip & smooth rise) = Chinese 3rd tone

ZZZZZ…..

The Vietnamese D (pronounced like an English Y) becomes a Z in the northern accent. Oh, and so does the R for some reason.

Vietnamese Accents – Central

North-Central

rice paddy in Quang Tri

The North-Central region includes Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri & Hue. This a big range of skinny provinces with lots of smaller differences, but in general these accents are notoriously difficult to understand, even for Vietnamese people. Here’s why:

Crazy Tones

All the tones get reinterpreted; it goes something like this: ‘No tone’ becomes sắc, sắc becomes Southern hỏi, hỏi gets really flat, nặng becomes hỏi, ngã becomes hỏi… Basically all the tones get squashed down, so nothing spikes too high and nothing drops too low. Everything is very flat and, in a tonal language where tone gives meaning, it can make listening very difficult.

This feature is so distinctive that people from these regions also text with the mixed-up tones. For example, Em đã nói…(“I just said”) would become: Em đạ nói…

So when you read it out load, it still sounds like the accent from that region. Mind blown!

New, Fun-to-say Vocab

The word mô gets used a lot in Central. It is closest in meaning to ‘where’ but get used pretty liberally for things like:

• gì = what

• khi nào – khi mô = when

• cái nào – cái mô = which

Also the word đó (over there) gets changed to rứa, and other fun stuff like using ri in place of vậy (which is just a particle that gets attached at the end of phrases to make them sound ‘complete’).

The classic way to imitate the North-Central accent and make Vietnamese people laugh, which  works every single time is the question Đi mô rứa? = Where are you going?

Da Nang

Tuân & Hiếu, two of my best Da Nang buddies

I swear there’s no Da Nang accent; everyone hear is perfectly intelligible all the time. OK not quite…

Ă becomes E

That little smiley face above the A makes it a short A. In addition to six tones and lots of new sounds, Vietnamese also has vowel length, which means you have to say this Ă quicker than a normal A. But fear not, because in Da Nang you can differentiate your A sounds be turning this one into an E. See how much easier that is? So đi thẳng (‘go straight’) becomes đi thẻng. And best of all, Đà Nẵng becomes Đà Nẽng.

O becomes Ô

This one is subtle but it’s there. The O with no hat is pronounced like ‘dog’. Put a hat on it, and it sounds like go*. Words like món (food) change to mốn.

*Unlike Vietnamese, English doesn’t have a monopthong O sound, that is, a phoneme that is pure, single vowel sound. The vowel sound in ‘go’ is actually a dipthong, a combination of two vowel sounds, but it’s close for this example.

Quang Nam & Quang Ngai

lovely ladies of Quang Ngai

Convergence towards Ô

Like Da Nang, the O moves towards the Ô sound. But south of Da Nang, the A also moves to Ô. Vietnamese people’s favorite example of this is đạp xe đạp (ride a bicycle), which becomes độp xe độp. After hearing it every day for 9 years, the joke has worn a bit thin, but it’s still a good illustration.

Binh Dinh & Phu Yen

A becomes E

There’s lots of features to this accent as well, but this is by far the most obvious. Counting to three just got a bit more interesting: một, hai, ba! is now một, hai, be!

Vietnamese Accents – South

Saigon

Cheo Leo, the longest-running coffee shop in Saigon

V becomes D (which is pronounced like Y)

I went to get by bike painted when I was living in Saigon, and I wanted it yellow (màu vàng) but the guy at the shop kept telling me he was gonna paint it màu dàng. I had no idea what color THAT was, but I was sure it wasn’t a color I wanted. In the end, the bike turned out OK.

Bouncy nặng Tones

Normally the nặng tone goes down hard and stays down. But it Saigon it seems to bounce back up. It’s not quite a hỏi, but sometimes it sounds close.

Ê becomes Ơ

The Ê is normally similar to an English E, but in Saigon it is pronounced like a nasally short U. Hết rồi (finished) sounds like hớt rồi.

Mekong Delta Region (Miền Tây)

Bus Coffee in Ben Tre

Keep all the Saigon rules, plus add in this stumper:

R becomes G

Good luck ordering that Larue beer in the West Vietnam. It’s now called LaGue. Or Vietnamese people’s favorite example, a fish called cá rô is now cá gô.

Conclusion

So there you have it, my guide to Vietnamese accents. Armed with these tools, your ready to imitate anyone from anywhere and really impress the locals! Want to practice your best Da Nang accent at some local restaurants? Come on a food tour!