Script guide › Latin

How to recognize Vietnamese

Vietnamese is one of 35 languages in Grafle's Latin group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.

Spot it fast

Stacked diacritics — tone marks on top of vowel marks (ề, ỏ, ắ) — nothing else looks like it.
Every word is short (one syllable).

What Vietnamese looks like

Tất cả mọi người sinh ra đều tự do và bình đẳng.

Xin chào, bạn có khỏe không?

Có công mài sắt, có ngày nên kim.

Latin scripts: The alphabet you're reading now. Each language gives itself away by its own special letters and accent marks.

Where you'll see it on signs

Vietnam

Easy to confuse with

Tagalog (Filipino) — Vietnamese stacks tone marks on its vowels (ề, ỏ, ắ) on one-syllable words; Tagalog is accent-free with ng/mga.
Indonesian / Malay — Vietnamese is instantly recognizable by stacked diacritics; Indonesian/Malay has none at all.