Hello my fellow nguoi Viet.


What are the most pleasing sounding Vietnamese accents? Sometimes I hear some Viets walking by talking and I'm like, "did a pack of wolves just cross me??"

Sometimes I hear some lovely accent with rolling "r"s, and it lulls me to sleep.

It sounds ridiculous, but I don't know what Vietnamese really sounds like. Even though I am quite alittle fluent in the language, I only hear Vietnamese with a Chinese accent I suppose.

I remember someone telling me, "Listen to how stiff he sounds, like a Chinese man."


What are the different regional accents and what do they sound like?? What is the most beautiful sounding one in your opinion? Sound clips would be perfect for this thread.

I don't like the use of roll R so I'll stick with northern accent

Hanoian accent is best
It is the standard accent of Vietnam, pronounce the written words more correct than most regional accents. It is also the original accent of Vietnamese.

(see the weather forecast clip here)
http://tv.vietnamnet.vn/#mms://203.162.168...lanhdautien.wmv

(if the clip does not play, click any other clip)

Image how deep shiet Vietnamese music would be like without the "ch" or "z" sound of Hanoi/Northern accent

^^ that link doesn't work

mms://203.162.168.211/vnntv/thongtintonghop/Nam2006/thang9/ngay2_9/bt1_TuantoiMBcodotlanhdautien.wmv

Yeah, I like the Hanoian accent too.


It sounds very noble and more "correct" to me.

Hanoi accent sounds very sweet but i have to disagree with the idea that its the most accurate accent.

why you pronounce "s" and "x" the same?
why you pronounce "tr" and "ch" the same?
why you pronounce "r" and "d" and "gi" the same?

That makes our language lose its variation. just an opinion though. I personally find it is very pleased to hear "r" in any language.


the most accurate accent to me is Da Nang one. their people pronounce everything very clearly and correctly.

I wouldnt say that Hanoian accent is the most correct accent of Vietnam, but it is near there.

It sounds nice to me because:

- The heavy 'tr' sound was ignored and made to be same as 'ch'. However, most hanoians, i think, can still produce the sounds differently if they are asked to do so.

- The 'd', 'gi' are all made "z", make it sound more foreign and noble.

- The heavy 's' sound was ignored.

- The heavy 'r' sound was ignored also.

- All 6 tones are perfectly preserved and clearly distinguishable.

- Hanoi was the cradle of Vietnamese culture since the beginning of the nation (yes, i know ), so it has been less influenced by surrounding regions as the country expands.

Despite that, i still think some regional accents are quite cute depending on situation and the people saying it.

's', 'x', 'r', 'g', 'gi', 'nh', 'ngh', 'ch', 'tr', 'ph', 'q', etc ...are all consonants. I think they could easily be changed depending on the writing system being used. If for example, we suddenly decide to use 'chữ nôm' as the writing system, those consonants will naturally become much less important.

What is more important, i believe, is "tone". Tone can only be developed over a long period of time. Some Southern accents only produce 5 tones instead of 6 tones. That is even more serious than using the same sound to make heavy consonants become less heavy. I dont even count in how some consonants like 'v' is ignored in the South also.

It is also funny how when southern accent is sang, it start to approach the northern accent. There you go, that is why i think it is originally from the northern accent.

oooh, i want clips.

High quality WMA here:
http://s19.quicksharing.com/v/293488/Duong..._ta_di.wma.html

not sure if they are DRM-ed, but just try if you like.

thank you. i'll download them after i get back from work.

Huế, dammm cute L)
The worst one is Quang Tri i think......i cant understand the deep voice @_@

Most people would agreed Hue accent is the most romantic one.

Hue Definitely its the accent of royalty( nguyen dynasty)

If you live in south Vietnam and you speak with heavy north Vietnam accent, people will look down on you because they will think you are just one of the monkeys from north Vietnam Truong Son jungle fumbling down to the south to rob their stuff. If you live in the oversea and you want to stop oversea Vietnamese people from watching cheap Chinese movies, you just need to release those movies with north accent Vietnamese dubbed audios. All I want to say is that the north accent is not really nice sounding to hear because north Vietnam people usually emphasize the sounding of each word when they speak, making other people feel like they are being threatened. I only agree that north people's pronunciation is the correct Vietnamese pronunciation.

in my opinion the south vietnamese accent is most soothing to the ear when pronounced elegantly, but sometimes it can be pronounced very coarse in which case it sounds okay to me, but sounds bad to non-vietnamese who don't understand the language. the north vietnamese accent as pronounced by the 1954 immigrants to the south and overseas sounds decent too, but I think the north vietnamese accent today in which they overpronounce stuff and try to sound fancy is the most horrible.

nguoi bac has very annoying accents, sounds like a screaming chicken dieing getting fu-ked up the @$$

North sounds sweet on girls.

it sounds annoying to you b/c you're not "nguoi bac". Nguoi bac say the same about nguoi nam, the pronounciation sounds like $hit too...

Hue rule all!!!

If you take the question "what language sounds most beautifully to you?" to Chinese forum, I'll bet most Chinese members would say: Chinese! In Korean forum, Korean members would say: Korean! so on and so on....If you ask Chinese members "which Chinese dialect sounds most pleasant to the ears?", Chinese who speak mandarin would say mandarin, HongKong people would say cantonese, and so on and on.....

To take the matter even farther, imagine yourself going in front of the United Nations general assembly, in the presence of representatives from more than 150 member countries, and asking:"which language do you think is the most beautiful?" I would want to bet 1 million dollars you would get more than 150 different answers!

It all depends on who you are, from what angles or point of views you look at things, the same thing would look different for people at different points of time and places. It's a matter of relativity, just like Albert Einstein said: " Everything is relative, the only thing absolute is relativity itself."


Click Here

My dad is from the south and I like the Bac accent.

The Hue accent doesn't sound Vietnamese to me... it sounds so much like Cambodian or Lao/Thai to me. I don't like it. I like the Bac '54 accent. Is that Hanoian?

hehe i've always thought that the viet accent sounded kinda strong. i don't understand it though. =[ so there's more than one type of viet accent?

IM BAC AND I NEVER KNEW THAT OUR ACCENT SOUNDED...BAD? FOR ME I THINK ITS NORMAL VIETNAMESE COMPARED TO HUE *NO OFFENSE NO OFFENSE HAHA



BAC RULES OVERALL! >:D HAHA SORRY I JUST HAD TO DO THAT

High quality music video here

"Dem dong" (winter night) -vietnamese classic song
http://s19.quicksharing.com/v/2179265/dem_dong.avi.html

The female singer is Hanoian
The old song writer is a native of Hue

Yes, the Bac Ky '54 are Hanoians. Nowadays, the new inhabitants of Hanoi are predominantly from the countryside and they have really messed up accents. If you're ever in VN, just check out the TV channel from Hanoi.

I think that only a very small portion of them were Hanoians. If you know history, you will know that most of them are Catholics and came from the areas that were Catholic-dominated, which was certainly not Hanoi. The Hanoian intellectuals often moved to Europe.

Google will prove my opinion, i believe.

Oh really? I thought they were mostly in the US.

Typical. I remember one time when this kid asked if I was a true 100% Vietnamese. I asked him what do you mean by that. He said "If you're I from Mien Nam, then you are a pure Vietnamese." Typical arrogance and ignorance from our southern brothers. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA

Hehe and that's why khmers and viets in here don't get along either

Tieng bac would be the equivalent of the Queen's English, tieng nam would be American English. And I say that a Hue girl talking would get my undivided attention everytime.

cool. my viet friend said my vietnamese sounds like tieng bac the most.

Every white girl i've dated always tells me i speak beautifully. They think i'm speaking french/italian leaning more with italian. Even though all the girls i date generally tend to be completely ignorant to the asian culture... they do say when they notice someone who is vietnamese like me, it sounds as if they are "donkeys" wailing with their weird pitch laugh. And all of these people they speak of have the southern accent.

I'm not taking sides, just giving a verbatim of what others tell me.

My family is from the North, Phuoc Thanh to be exact. I speak vietnamese fluently even though I grew up around whites. I know I do not have any english accents in my Vietnamese since I am proud to be vietnamese.

One must be really delusional to think that one accent sounds "the same" as the other.

Ever wonder why the Texan accent does not make it to the American national media?

my friend described my Vietnamese as either American accent, kinda like the Bac accent, or Chinese accent.

I think i sound better than alot of Viets that do sound like donkeys whaling. lol.

wow. ignorance. truely does not know what he is talking about.

I wonder if any Bac people in here say "stainless steel coffee filter" in Vietnamese as "cai noi ngoi tren cai coc" or "marine soldier" as "linh thuy danh bo."

You must not have heard a true Hue had you?


It is a poetic accent.

Quang Le sing chuyen chiec cau da gay

He have the same name as me

Nhu Quynh screw up on hue accent

hey! i just met him in person a few weeks back. he's very easy to talk to, very funny as well.

my mom always says nguoi bac's the best sounding. we're nam but i call her me instead of ma. i never understand them though. maybe that's why it's so nice

The prettiest and sweetest Viet accent is spoken by those kids who belong to the Bac Ky families and live in Saigon. There is difference in between tieng bac Ha Noi and tieng bac Saigon.

not a native speaker of vietanmese, the northern accent people keep saying is smooth, but is actually still harsh to me, while the southern accent is less voiced. speaking basically, vietnamese have no regular standard way of accent, hanoian does not resemble khmer nor thai or lao.

i think that standard accent is where the language starts, which is Hanoi (4 thousand years ago). The southern accent only starts to form in the last few hundred years. No denial about that. BTW, can you tell me Who said the northern accent smooth?
Some likes the Northern accent, some dont. I like it because i speak it. .

many people have said so, i'm tired of the steryotype that just because its northern its smooth.

north or south vietnamese, i don't give a dam, as long as you are not a VC.

what? our language started from hanoi????

I agree that Northern accent sounds very sweet but please.. i hate the way people defend their homeland accent to be "standard". OMG

lolz i preferr myself as a human so wat ever i speak on earth is the human language lolz

Hanoi accent is best. It sounds beautiful. I listen to VTV news channel in Vietnam and I really like the way reporters speak.

However, I think the letter "D" is originally "Y" (like in Saigon accent). Old Hanoi people might have pronounced it like "Y" too...but due to the highly aspirated nature of Hanoi accent, the "Y" sound has been aspirated to become the "Z" sound in modern Hanoi accent.