Vietnamese/Consonants
Appearance
- There are 17 single consonants:
| Consonant | Phoneme | English equivalent sound |
| b | /ɓ/ | but |
| c | /k/ | sky |
| d | /z/ | zoo (Northern) |
| d | /j/ | yes (Southern & Central) |
| đ | /ɗ/ | do |
| g | /ɣ/ | go |
| h | /h/ | hat |
| k | /k/ | sky |
| l | /l/ | long |
| m | /m/ | me |
| n | /n/ | no |
| p | /p/ | sport (cannot occur initially, except in loan words) |
| q | /k/ | square |
| r | /z/ | zoo (Northern) |
| r | /ɹ/ | run (Southern & Central) |
| s | /s/ | stay (Northern) |
| s | /∫/ | show (Southern & Central) |
| t | /t/ | stop |
| v | /v/ | video |
| x | /s/ | see |
- There are 10 consonant digraphs:
| Digraph | Phoneme | English equivalent sound |
| ch | /c/ | cha-cha |
| gh | /ɣ/ | go |
| gi | /z/ | zoo (Northern) |
| gi | /j/ | yes (Southern & Central) |
| kh | /x/ | loch |
| nh | /ɲ/ | canyon |
| ng | /ŋ/ | sing, but can occur initially. |
| ph | /f/ | Philip |
| th | /tʰ/ | as in top (aspirated "t"), not as in thin |
| tr | /c/ | cha-cha (Northern) |
| tr | /ʈʂ/ | straw (Southern and Central) |
| qu | /kw/ | square (Northern & Central) |
| qu | /w/ | world (Southern) |
There is one consonant trigraph: ngh /ŋ/: nghỉ, nghiêm, nghiêng
- There are 8 final consonants:
| Consonant | Phoneme | English equivalent sound |
| c | /k/ | rack |
| ch | /k/ | sick (cut in the South) |
| m | /m/ | gym |
| n | /n/ | ban |
| nh | /ɲ/ | canyon |
| ng | /ŋ/ | sing |
| p | /p/ | tap |
| t | /t/ | pat |