Northern vs Southern Vietnamese: hear the difference
How Hanoi and Saigon Vietnamese differ: tones, consonants, words like bố/ba and vâng/dạ, pronouns, and which accent to learn. With real native clips.
Chief Language Pedagogy Geek @ Reelang
Northern vs Southern Vietnamese is a choice you face as soon as you start learning. Hanoi and Saigon write exactly the same language, but they don't sound the same: a different number of tones, different consonants, and a few dozen everyday words that change completely. They are not two seperate languages. A Hanoian and a Saigonese understand each other without effort, roughly the way a Londoner and a Texan do.
Here are the main differences:
| Northern (Hanoi) | Southern (Saigon) | |
|---|---|---|
| Tones | 6 | 5 (hỏi and ngã sound the same) |
| d, gi | z: dạ sounds like "zạ" | y: dạ sounds like "yạ" |
| r | z: rồi sounds like "zồi" | r: rồi |
| v | v: về | often y: về sounds like "yề" |
| s / x, tr / ch | s = x, tr = ch | s and tr are often kept apart |
| final -n / -ng, -t / -c | kept apart | merge: bạn sounds like "bạng" |
| dad, mom | bố, mẹ | ba, má |
| polite "yes" | vâng | dạ |
| "so?", "then?" (end of a question) | thế | vậy |
| corn, pig | ngô, lợn | bắp, heo |
| "he", "she" | anh ấy, chị ấy | ảnh, chỉ |
Below, each difference with real clips of native speakers. When two clips sit side by side, the Northern one is on the left and the Southern one on the right. Tap any word in the subtitles to see what it means.
The two main Vietnamese accents (and the central one)
When people talk about Vietnamese dialects, they usually mean three regions. Northern Vietnamese is the speech of Hanoi and the Red River delta. Southern Vietnamese is the speech of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and the Mekong delta. Between them is a central band, with cities like Huế, Đà Nẵng and Vinh. Some central accents, especially around Vinh, Quảng Bình and Huế, are the hardest to follow for everyone, Vietnamese people included. Central speech has its own words too: mô for "where" (đâu), răng for "why" (sao), rứa for "so" (vậy, thế) and chi for "what" (gì).
For a learner the two main Vietnamese accents are Northern and Southern. Hanoi speech is the base of the standard you find in most textbooks and on national TV news. Saigon is the biggest city in the country, and Southern speech dominates a lot of entertainment, comedy and YouTube. It is also what you hear in most Vietnamese families in the United States and Australia, because most of those families came from the south after 1975.
In this sketch, a young man comes home from studying in Hanoi talking with a Northern accent, and his Southern family can't believe it. Listen to the difference between his voice and theirs:
He explains that his ba sent him to study in Hanoi, "so wherever you live, you have to speak the accent of that place" (sống ở đâu thì mình phải là giọng ở đấy chứ). Note the Northern đấy at the end, where a Southerner would say đó.
Vietnamese tones: six in the north, five in the south
Vietnamese has six tones in the written language, one for each tone mark plus the unmarked one: ngang (a), huyền (à), sắc (á), hỏi (ả), ngã (ã) and nặng (ạ). Northern speakers pronounce all six differently.
Southern speakers pronounce hỏi and ngã the same way, as one tone that dips and then rises. So Southern Vietnamese has five tones in speech, while still writing six. A Southerner writes cũng (also) with ngã and phải (must) with hỏi, and says both with the same melody. It is also why many Southerners find hỏi and ngã the hardest part of spelling.
In the north the two are clearly different. Hỏi falls low and comes back up a little. Ngã rises, with a short break or creak in the voice in the middle, as if the vowel catches for a moment. Southern nặng is softer too: low, without the abrupt stop in the throat that cuts a Northern nặng short.
Listen for cũng and the sẽ of sạch sẽ (both ngã) on the left, from a TV cooking show with the Northern singers Hòa Minzy and Đức Phúc, and for phải and cũng on the right, from a Southern comedy sketch:
If you learn Southern Vietnamese, you still have to learn which words take hỏi and which take ngã, for spelling. You just won't need to say them differently.
Consonants: d, gi, r and v
The biggest sound difference is a group of consonants at the start of a word.
In the north, d, gi and r are all pronounced like an English z. Dạ, gì and rồi sound like "zạ", "zì" and "zồi". In the south, d and gi are pronounced like an English y: "yạ", "yì". R stays an r in the south, a rolled or English-like r, and in relaxed speech some people make it closer to a g.
Bây giờ (now) and rồi (already) are in almost every conversation, so they make a good test. On the left, a Hanoi street vlogger says it's 11 o'clock already. On the right, a Southern comedy sketch:
V works the same way. In the north v is a v. In casual Southern speech it often turns into a y, so về (to go home, to come back) sounds like "yề" and vợ (wife) like "yợ". Some Southern speakers keep the v, especially when they speak carefully. Listen for về nhà, "go home", at a market in Hà Giang in the far north and at a market in Trà Vinh in the Mekong delta:
Two more pairs go the other way. The north merges them, and careful Southern speech keeps them apart:
- S and x. In Hanoi both are a plain s, so sinh (to be born) and xinh (pretty) sound the same. Many Southerners pronounce s further back, close to an English "sh".
- Tr and ch. In Hanoi both sound like ch, so trà (tea) and chà (to scrub) sound alike. Many Southerners keep tr as a separate sound, made with the tongue curled back.
The south has one more well-known shift: qu and ho- at the start of a word often sound like w. Quá (very) sounds like "wá", and the surname Hoàng like "Wàng".
Endings: -n and -ng, -t and -c
At the end of a syllable, Southern speech merges sounds that the north keeps apart. Final -n sounds like -ng after most vowels, so bạn (friend, you) sounds like "bạng" and ơn in cảm ơn sounds like "ơng". Final -t sounds like -c, so hát (to sing) sounds like "hác". The endings -nh and -ch move the other way: anh sounds close to "an", and sách (book) close to "sát".
Cảm ơn bạn, "thank you", has the -n ending twice. Compare the end of two YouTube videos, a Northern tech channel on the left and a Southern storyteller on the right:
These endings matter most when you listen. If a Southerner says "bạng", you need to know that the word is bạn, because "bạng" is not a word you will hear in everyday speech. When you speak, either way is understood.
Everyday words that change
Most vocabulary is the same in both regions. A few dozen common words are not, and they are the words you hear every day: family, food, yes and no.
| Meaning | Northern | Southern |
|---|---|---|
| dad | bố | ba |
| mom | mẹ | má (also mẹ) |
| yes (polite) | vâng | dạ |
| no, not | không | không, hông, hổng (casual) |
| "so?", "then?" (end of a question) | thế | vậy |
| "okay?" (end of a sentence) | nhé | nha |
| group of us, them | bọn, chúng | tụi |
| corn | ngô | bắp |
| pig, pork | lợn | heo |
| bowl | bát | chén |
| spoon | thìa | muỗng |
| umbrella | ô | dù |
| fruit (before a fruit name) | quả | trái |
| peanut | lạc | đậu phộng |
| sesame | vừng | mè |
| flower | hoa | bông |
| to fall over | ngã | té |
| to be sick | ốm | bệnh |
| thin | gầy | ốm |
| fat | béo | mập |
| to pick someone up | đón | rước |
Watch out for ốm. In the north it means "sick". In the south it means "thin", and "sick" is bệnh. Telling a Hanoian friend she looks ốm sounds like you are worried about her health.
Bố and ba, mẹ and má
The words for dad and mom are the pair you will hear first. The north says bố and mẹ, the south ba and má. Many Northern families today also use ba, so ba is understood everywhere. Má also means "cheek", and in the north, where mothers are mẹ, that is the meaning people hear first. We have a short page on whether dad is ba or bố in Vietnamese.
On the left, a Northern boy asks where his parents are going: "Bố mẹ đi đâu thế?" On the right, a Southern son answers his father on the phone with dạ, ba and vậy:
The left clip also has the Northern đấy ("Gì đấy?", what is it?), and a few seconds later you hear "Vào với ba" (come in to dad): a Northern family that uses both bố and ba. On the right you hear the Southern equivalents: "Dạ, gì vậy ba?" (Yes, what is it, dad?). Thế and vậy do the same job at the end of a question, a bit like "then" or "so" in English. The pair also works elsewhere in a sentence: như thế / như vậy (like that), thế thì / vậy thì (in that case). "Sao thế?" and "sao vậy?" both mean "what's wrong?". Our page on có sao nói vậy shows vậy in a saying used all over the country.
Vâng and dạ
Both mean a polite "yes" to someone older or higher in rank. In the north the usual word is vâng, often followed by ạ, the Northern politeness particle. Dạ exists in the north too: it is what you say when an older person calls your name, and it often comes before vâng ("dạ, vâng ạ"). In the south dạ does all of this alone, and vâng sounds Northern or bookish.
On the left, a speaker in a Northern school report answers an interviewer with "Vâng ạ". On the right, in a Southern sketch at a bánh mì stand, both sides start their lines with dạ:
Dạ is also a polite way to say "pardon?" when you didn't hear someone. In the south you will hear dạ so often in a single conversation that it starts to sound like a rhythm.
Không and hông
Không means "no" and "not", and it ends many yes/no questions. Casual Southern speech shortens it to hông or hổng. Subtitles often write không even when the speaker says hông, so trust your ears more than the text. In this Southern comedy, a man complains about his wedding photos with tui (the casual Southern "I") and hổng:
Ngô and bắp, lợn and heo
Food words change a lot between the regions. Corn is ngô in the north and bắp in the south. A Southern boy in this clip is nicknamed Bắp, and he insists on his real name, which happens to start with Ngô:
Pig is lợn in the north and heo in the south. Heo is understood everywhere and shows up in the north too, for example in cá heo (dolphin), the word everywhere, but at a Hanoi market the meat is thịt lợn. Here a Northern mother practices animal sounds with her baby and asks how the pig goes. Thế nào (how) is Northern as well. A Southerner would more often ask "kêu sao?":
When the words become the joke
Vietnamese comedians love these differences. In this sketch, a fortune-teller born in Hanoi keeps correcting his Southern customer. She says ốm, meaning thin in the south. He hears "sick" and tells her the right word is gầy:
The same sketch also has mập vs béo (fat) and đui vs mù (blind).
Even on a cooking show the regions have to agree on a name. The plant stem that goes into sour soup is dọc mùng in the north and bạc hà in the south. Everywhere else, bạc hà means mint, as in kẹo bạc hà (mint candy):
Pronouns and address in the north and south
The core of the Vietnamese pronoun system is shared. Both regions use family words as pronouns: anh (older brother) for a slightly older man, chị (older sister) for a slightly older woman, em (younger sibling) for someone younger, cô, chú, bác, ông and bà for older people. So a waiter in Hanoi and a waiter in Saigon will both call you anh or chị, and call themselves em. Our page on why Vietnamese strangers call each other em and chị explains the system.
The differences are in the details:
- "I" in casual speech. The north says tôi. The south often says tui, which you heard in the wedding photo clip above.
- Friends of the same age. Young Northerners say tớ (I) and cậu (you) to each other. In the south that sounds Northern, and friends use tui with ông and bà, or mình and bạn. Among close friends mày and tao (you, me) are used in both regions, and they are rude to anyone else.
- "He", "she" and "they". The north says anh ấy, chị ấy, ông ấy, bà ấy, cô ấy. The south often drops ấy and gives the word a hỏi tone instead: ảnh (he), chỉ (she), ổng and bả (he and she, for an older man or woman), cổ (cô ấy). You heard ổng in the ba clip above: "chắc ông xỉn, ổng xỉn", he must be drunk. Chỉ (she) is spelled and said like chỉ (only), so context does the work.
- Groups. The north says bọn mình or chúng mình for "we", the south tụi mình. Tụi also makes groups of other people: tụi nó (them), tụi con (you kids, or us kids when children talk to a parent).
- Birth order. In Southern families the eldest child is called Hai (two), not Một (one), and the next one Ba (three). So anh Hai is the eldest brother. The north starts at Cả: anh Cả. The youngest is Út in both.
Here are bọn mình and tụi mình side by side, from a Northern vlogger on the left and a Southern kids' sketch on the right:
The little word at the end of a friendly sentence also changes. The north says nhé ("so let's all start now, okay?"), the south nha. Both soften a suggestion or a request:
Can Northerners and Southerners understand each other?
Yes, easily. Vietnamese people hear both accents on TV, in music and online, and the written language is the same. A Southerner may joke about a Northern word, or the other way round, but nobody needs subtitles. The hard case for Vietnamese people themselves is a strong rural central accent, not north vs south.
For a learner it is a little harder at first. If you learn one accent and then meet the other, the first few conversations take effort: "zồi" and "rồi" need to become the same word in your head. That passes quickly. The host of this Vietnamese listening channel was born and raised in the north and lived in Ho Chi Minh City for about a year and in Cần Thơ for about seven months. The host can hear and understand the Southern accent, but can't speak it:
Should you learn Northern or Southern Vietnamese?
Pick the accent of the people you will talk to most.
- If you have Vietnamese family, a partner or friends, learn their accent. If they are from the south, or from a family that left Vietnam after 1975, that is almost always Southern.
- If you will live in or travel mostly to one city, learn that city's accent: Northern for Hanoi, Southern for Saigon and the Mekong delta. For Đà Nẵng or Huế, either works. People there understand both, and you will probably understand the locals only after some practice in any case.
- If you have no tie to either, choose by what you want to watch. Northern is what most textbooks and courses teach and what you hear on the national news. A lot of comedy, vlogs and overseas Vietnamese media is Southern.
Pick one, speak it, and listen to both. Don't mix them in your own speech untill one feels natural. Northern learners meet Southern words as soon as they watch comedy or vlogs, and Southern learners meet Northern words in textbooks and on the news.
In this clip, a foreign learner tells a Southern comedy show what people in Hanoi asked: why not learn the Northern accent. The answer is the rule above: in the south you learn Southern, and in the north you learn Northern. In Huế, the learner jokes, it would probably be body language.
Questions and answers
What is the difference between Northern and Southern Vietnamese?
Northern Vietnamese (Hanoi) and Southern Vietnamese (Saigon) are written the same way and are mutually intelligible. They differ in sound and in some everyday words. The north has six spoken tones and the south five. In the north d, gi and r sound like z, in the south d and gi sound like y. Common words also change, such as bố and ba for dad, vâng and dạ for a polite yes, and ngô and bắp for corn.
How many tones does Southern Vietnamese have?
Southern Vietnamese has five spoken tones. Southern speakers pronounce the hỏi tone (ả) and the ngã tone (ã) the same way, as one dipping and rising tone, although both are still written differently. Northern Vietnamese keeps all six tones apart.
What do ba and má mean in Vietnamese?
In Southern Vietnamese, ba means dad and má means mom. Northern Vietnamese usually says bố for dad and mẹ for mom, although many Northern families also say ba. Má also means cheek, and in the north, where mothers are mẹ, that is the meaning people hear first.
Should I learn Northern or Southern Vietnamese?
Learn the accent of the people you will talk to most. If your family, partner or friends are from the south, or from a family that left Vietnam after 1975, learn Southern. If you will live in Hanoi, learn Northern, and for Saigon, Southern. With no personal tie, Northern matches most textbooks and the national news, while a lot of comedy, vlogs and overseas Vietnamese media is Southern. Once you speak one, understanding the other comes with listening to it.
How to learn to understand both accents
A table of sounds and words helps you recognize the differences. Understanding a fast conversation in Hanoi or in Saigon comes from hearing both accents many times in real speech. That is what Reelang is for: short videos of native Vietnamese speakers, with subtitles you can tap, at your level.
Our Vietnamese catalog has more than 2,000 clips in each of the two accents. Start with Vietnamese videos at your level, or pick an accent: Northern Vietnamese or Southern Vietnamese. Listen for dạ, rồi and bây giờ while you watch, and you will soon hear which side of the country a speaker is from.
Start watching
Real Vietnamese videos, graded by how hard they are to follow. No placement quiz, no signup.
Watch Vietnamese