If you’re thinking about learning Vietnamese, you’re probably wondering: is it actually hard to learn?

The short answer is that Vietnamese is hard at first, but gets much easier later on.

The pronunciation and tones are a big challenge for English speakers. However, you’ll be surprised to learn that Vietnamese grammar is incredibly simple! In fact, it’s much easier than Spanish, French, or German grammar.

In this guide, I’ll break down exactly what makes Vietnamese difficult, what makes it easy, and what you need to know as a beginner.

The hardest part: Vietnamese tones

Vietnamese is a tonal language. This means that the pitch of your voice completely changes the meaning of a word.

In English, we only use tone to show emotion or ask a question. In Vietnamese, tone is a built-in part of every single word.

Northern Vietnamese has 6 tones, while Southern Vietnamese has 5 tones.

To see why this is challenging, let’s look at the classic example of the word ma. Depending on the tone mark (the little symbol above the letter), the meaning changes completely:

If you use the wrong tone, you might accidentally call your mother a ghost! This takes time for your ears and mouth to get used to.

The pronunciation and vowels

Aside from tones, Vietnamese has a lot of vowel sounds. English has 5 main vowels (a, e, i, o, u), but Vietnamese has 11 single vowels.

You’ll notice special “hats” or marks on letters. These are called diacritics, and they change the pronunciation of the vowel.

For example, o, ô, and ơ are three completely different letters with different sounds:

• o sounds like the “aw” in law
• ô sounds like the “o” in go
• ơ sounds like the “u” in fur

Getting these vowels right is crucial for making yourself understood.

The easiest part: Vietnamese grammar

Here’s the best news you’ll hear today: Vietnamese grammar is amazingly simple.

If you’ve ever studied Spanish or French, you know the pain of memorizing verb conjugations. In Vietnamese, verbs never change. There are no past, present, or future tense changes to the word itself.

To change the tense, you just add a simple time marker word in front of the verb!

• đã = past
• đang = present (happening right now)
• sẽ = future

Let’s look at the verb ăn (to eat):

It’s that easy! Furthermore, Vietnamese has:

• No genders: Nouns aren’t masculine or feminine.
• No plurals to memorize: You don’t add “s” to the end of words. You just add a plural marker word like những or các before the noun.
• No articles: There’s no strict equivalent to “a” or “the” that changes based on the word.

The Vietnamese alphabet

Unlike other Asian languages like Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, Vietnamese doesn’t use a character-based writing system.

Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet!

This system is called Chữ Quốc Ngữ. Because it uses the exact same ABCs that English uses (plus a few extra marks), you can learn to read and write Vietnamese very quickly. Once you learn the alphabet rules, you can pronounce any word you read.

Regional variations: Northern vs. Southern Vietnamese

Before you start learning, you need to know that there are major regional differences in Vietnamese.

The two main dialects are Northern (spoken around the capital, Hanoi) and Southern (spoken around Ho Chi Minh City).

They sound very different from each other.

• In the North, the letter d is pronounced like a “z”. In the South, it’s pronounced like a “y”.
• In the North, the letter v sounds like a “v”. In the South, it often sounds like a “y”.
• They also use different vocabulary words.

Here are a few common vocabulary differences:

My top tip: Pick one dialect from the very beginning and stick with it. Don’t mix them up, or you’ll confuse yourself and the people you speak with!

Vocabulary: logical word building

Vietnamese vocabulary is very fun to learn because it’s incredibly logical.

Many Vietnamese words are compound words made by combining two simple words together. Once you know some basic vocabulary, you can easily guess the meaning of new words.

Look at how logical this is:

Because words are built like little puzzle pieces, building your vocabulary becomes very fast once you get the hang of it.

Summary: is Vietnamese hard to learn?

So, is Vietnamese hard?

Yes, the speaking and listening parts are difficult for beginners. The tones will take patience and practice. You’ll make mistakes, and people might not understand you at first.

But if you can push past the initial hurdle of pronunciation, the language opens up. You’ll fly through the grammar, and you never have to spend years memorizing complex verb tables like you would in Spanish or Russian.