Section 8: Combined consonants 1

Beside the single consonants, Vietnamese has a range of combined consonants. They are:

CH – GH – GI – KH

NH – NG – NGH

PH – QU – TH – TR

These consonants are important in terms of both phonetics and spelling/writing.

We will deal with them in the next two sections.

First, let’s start with some simple consonants:

1/ CH vs. TR

a/ CH

Pronunciation:

Raise your tongue to the roof of your mouth, with the tip of the tongue staying just behind the upper teeth.
Curve the middle and tip of the tongue down a bit, while making the air flow out of your mouth quickly.
Control the explosiveness of the air when flowing out. Unlike the English /tʃ/ sound (as in Change, Check), the Vietnamese CH does not sound explosive.
If the CH stands at the end of a word, the air is not released. The position of the tongue remains the same.

Examples:

b/ TR

Pronunciation:

The TR sound is the equivalent of the /tʃ/ sound in English, with the same level of explosiveness when pronounced. Don’t confuse it with the /tr/ sound in English.
In the North, however, most people turn the TR sound to the CH sound for ease of pronunciation

Examples:

Trai – Trú – Trang – Trị

2/ GH

This sound is another variation of the G sound. However, they are used for different spelling rules:

Examples:

3/ GI

Pronunciation:

This is the equivalent of the /dʒ/ sound in English (as in Join, Just).
Don’t confuse this sound with GHI. GI is an entirely different sound with a separate pronunciation.
In the North, people tend to turn this sound into the D sound for ease of pronunciation.
Meanwhile, in the South, people tend to turn this into the /j/ sound in English (as in Yard, Year)

Examples:

Giỏi – Giang – Giàu – Giải