Welcome you all to the very first lesson. In today’s lesson, we’re going to take a look at the first component in the Vietnamese alphabet, the vowels. In the Vietnamese alphabet, there are 12 vowels in total, which are divided into 4 different groups.
Today, we’re going to learn the first group of vowels. Are you excited? Let’s grab your notebook and pen. And Don’t forget to check out the student’s notebook we have prepared for you so that you can take notes more easily. Please print out your student’s note, which is attached to this lesson.
Before I introduce each vowel in this group. Please listen to me carefully and look closely at my mouth when I pronounce the first group of vowels.
U, Ô, O (x3)
Can you notice any similarity when I pronounce these 3 vowels? You’re right! When I make the sound of these vowels, my mouth forms a round shape. It’s because this group of vowels is the round shape vowels. Now let’s see how these vowels are pronounced differently.
Let’s begin with the first vowel “U”.
When you pronounce it, your mouth makes a small round shape. This vowel is written and pronounced exactly like the letter U in English as in Shoes, boots. Some example words that you can see the letter U in them are mũ – hat, cũ – old.
As you may notice, there are some marks above the letter U, they are the tones in Vietnamese. Some of you guys might have heard about it already, but if you haven’t, don’t worry, we will get to that part later. So in this lesson, just focus on the vowel and try to pronounce it correctly.
The second vowel is “Ô”.
The hat above the letter o is a part of the letter, it is not a tone, please remember it. When you pronounce the letter “ô”, your mouth also forms a round shape, but this time, the round shape is a bit bigger than when you pronounce “u”.
There are many people who pronounce this letter as the “o” letter in English. But if you observe carefully, you might see that when you pronounce “o” in English, your mouth opens big at first and then slowly closes. But with the “ô” in Vietnamese your mouth remains the same form. “ô”. If you want to sound like a native, please pay attention to that.
2 examples of this letter are: ô tô – car, ô – an umbrella
The last vowel in this group is “O”. When pronouncing this vowel, you also have to form a round shape and open your mouth the biggest of all 3 vowels. This vowel might sound a bit similar as in the word “saw”, “law” in English. Alright, let’s look at some examples: we have bò – cow, chó – dog.
Awesome, everyone! That’s it for the very first lesson, I hope it has been a great warm-up for you. Now before we move on to the next part, let’s review again the 3 vowels that we have learned.