Learn Vietnamese online with our self study language courses
Here you will be able to find the interactive online self study courses that we are designing. Studies have shown that well designed interactive courses are up to 6 times more effective than online lecture courses, and we aim to give you the best education available. Our courses are focused on northern Vietnamese, but we intend to add southern Vietnamese content in the future. As you work your way through the content we recommend that you get a notebook to write down new vocabulary and structures. You can then use this as a reference when doing the various activities.
These courses have been formatted so that you can view them both on a PC and on a mobile device, but be aware that not all page elements fit well on smaller screens so sometimes they may overlap each other slightly when viewed on a mobile device. On a PC you should view these pages at 100% zoom for all elements to fit properly. If you don't know what that means then don't worry your browser should handle it fine. However if you're accustomed to altering the size of the text on a page by changing the zoom of the page then this may need to be adjusted on some course pages for everything to fit correctly.
We are working hard to make sure that these will be the best self study courses you can find online, they will contain all the grammar, vocabulary and listening content you could need.
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We will start with a guide on the basic aspects of Vietnamese. Common phrases, numbers, the alphabet, pronunciation and information about Vietnamese tones.
We also recommend that you find a way to use a Vietnamese keyboard. We have a small guide you can follow to do that on a PC by clicking on the keyboard info button below.
While it may be tempting to jump straight into learning common phrases or numbers first we recommend that you start with the alphabet and move onto tones next. Not as exciting perhaps, but Vietnamese is a tonal language very different to any Western language you may know. Learning to hear and pronounce tones can be very difficult for Western language speakers and should be tackled as soon as possible so that you can develop this skill as quickly as possible.
If you have already signed up for a course click on the course menu below to see the lesson menus.
Basic Vietnamese: words and phrases for beginners
You can download and install a new language pack for Windows 10-11 using this method here. To swap between installed languages you can use the windows key (⊞) + spacebar.
Or if you do not have Windows 10-11 you can download and use a separate application. We recommend UniKey, which you can find here. To swap between languages you can press CTRL + SHIFT,
or you can change this setting to ALT + Z, which may be more convenient if you need to use SHIFT and CTRL a lot.
To type in Vietnamese there are 2 main methods, although other options are available. You can use Telex, which is the default setting on UniKey, or VNI / Vietnamese Number Key Based.
We recommend learning to use Telex, as with practice it is more comfortable to type on the keyboard, but may be more confusing to start with. You can find a guide to typing with each below.
To type in Vietnamese using Telex you add another character after the character you wish to alter to a Vietnamese language version.
So:
as = á
af = à
ar = ả
ax = ã
aj = ạ
aa = â, oo = ô, ee = ê
uw = ư, ow = ơ
aw = ă
dd = đ
In order to write "Tiếng Việt" you would type "Tieengs Vieetj", although the special character doesn't have to be added immediately after the character you want to change, just in the same word. So you could also type "Tienges Vietej" and achieve the same result.
To type using VNI you add a number after the character you wish to alter.
So:
a1 = á
a2 = à
a3 = ả
a4 = ã
a5 = ạ
a6 = â, o6 = ô, e6 = ê
u7 = ư, o7 = ơ
a8 = ă
d9 = đ
In order to write "Tiếng Việt" you would type "Tie6ng1 Vie6t5" or "Tieng61 Viet65".