Basic Vietnamese for Travel: 50 Phrases That Land

Q: What are the most useful Vietnamese phrases for a traveler?

**Five carry most of the load.** *Xin chào* (sin chow) for hello, *cảm ơn* (kahm uhn) for thank you, *anh ơi* or *chị ơi* (ahn oy, chee oy) to get someone's attention, *bao nhiêu tiền?* (bao nyew tee-en) for how much, and *không* (khome) for no. Those five cover greeting a host, thanking a vendor, calling a server, asking a market price, and declining a tout. Everything else in this guide is a refinement on top of them. If you only memorise one more, make it *xin lỗi* (sin loy), which works as both sorry and excuse me.

Q: Why does Vietnamese have no word for you?

**Because Vietnamese addresses people by kinship position rather than by a neutral pronoun.** Instead of one word for you, speakers choose *em*, *anh*, *chị*, *cô*, *chú*, *bác*, *ông* or *bà* according to the other person's apparent age and gender relative to their own, and the word for I changes to match. Per the [Wikipedia overview of Vietnamese pronouns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_pronouns?utm_source=daytripsvietnam.com), these terms are literally family words — older brother, older sister, aunt, uncle, grandmother — extended to strangers. There is a formal neutral *tôi* for I, but it reads distant, and there is no comfortable neutral equivalent for you in everyday speech.

Q: How do I know whether to say anh, chị, cô or chú?

**Guess from apparent age, then correct from the reply.** Someone who looks close to your own age or a little older: *anh* for a man, *chị* for a woman. Someone around your parents' age: *chú* for a man, *cô* for a woman. Clearly older than your parents: *bác* for either. Elderly: *ông* and *bà*. If you call someone *anh* or *chị* you call yourself *em*; if you call them *cô*, *chú* or *bác* you call yourself *cháu*. The recovery trick native speakers use: listen to the term the other person uses back for you and adjust in your next sentence. Nobody expects a visitor to get this right first time, and the attempt itself reads as respect.

Q: Is Vietnamese hard to pronounce for English speakers?

**The tones are the hard part, not the alphabet.** Vietnamese uses Latin script with diacritics, so you can read it on sight, but it is tonal: the northern standard distinguishes six tones — *ngang*, *huyền*, *sắc*, *nặng*, *hỏi* and *ngã* — and changing the tone changes the word entirely. Southern Vietnamese merges *hỏi* and *ngã* into one falling-rising tone, so southern speech effectively runs on five distinct tones. Written pronunciation hints in English, including the ones in this guide, cannot encode tone. Treat them as a starting shape and correct by ear.

Q: What is the difference between northern and southern Vietnamese pronunciation?

**Enough to notice, not enough to block you.** Beyond the tone merger, northern speech renders *r* closer to a z sound and southern speech closer to an English r; *d* and *gi* also diverge. Vocabulary splits too: turn left is *rẽ trái* in the north and *quẹo trái* in the south, thousand is *nghìn* in the north and *ngàn* in the south, too expensive is *đắt quá* in the north and *mắc quá* in the south, and the polite yes is *vâng* in the north against *dạ* in the south. Both are understood nationwide. The pronunciation hints in this guide lean northern, with the southern variant noted where it differs materially.

Q: Do I really need Vietnamese, or is English enough in Vietnam?

**English is workable in tourist zones and thin outside them.** Hotel desks, cruise crews, tour operators and city-centre cafes generally manage English. Market stalls, xe om drivers, rural guesthouses and neighbourhood eateries often do not. The practical case for learning fifty phrases is not comprehension, though, so much as tone of exchange: a greeting and a thank-you in Vietnamese visibly changes how you are treated, especially outside Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. It also gives you an independent check on numbers, which is useful when a price is being quoted quickly.

Q: How are Vietnamese prices spoken, and why do the numbers sound too small?

**Because vendors routinely drop the word for thousand.** With notes running to 500,000 dong, everyday prices are quoted in shorthand: hai mươi means twenty and almost always means 20,000 dong, not twenty dong. Một trăm means one hundred and usually means 100,000. Learn the numbers one to ten and the words *nghìn* (north) or *ngàn* (south) for thousand, and *triệu* for million, then assume any bare small number in a market or on a xe om is thousands. If in doubt, ask the vendor to key the figure into a phone calculator, which is normal practice and not considered rude.

Fifty Vietnamese travel phrases with correct diacritics and plain-English pronunciation, plus the pronoun rules most phrasebooks skip entirely.

By Joy NguyenAugust 20, 2026

A weathered brick-and-tile lane in Duong Lam ancient village near Hanoi, the kind of everyday Vietnamese village street where a few words of Vietnamese change the whole exchange — Duong Lam ancient village, about 45 km west of Hanoi — everyday village Vietnam, where English is rare and a greeting goes a long way.

Learn five things before you fly: xin chào (hello), cảm ơn (thank you), anh ơi or chị ơi (excuse me, to get attention), bao nhiêu tiền? (how much), and không (no). That is the greeting, the thanks, the summons, the price and the refusal — most of what a traveler says aloud in Vietnam.

Underneath them sits the thing most phrasebooks skip: Vietnamese has no neutral word for "you". Every sentence forces a choice about who the other person is relative to you. Get it roughly right and the rest lands warmer than your vocabulary deserves.

The five phrases that matter most

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
Xin chào	sin chow	Hello
Cảm ơn	kahm uhn	Thank you
Anh ơi / Chị ơi	ahn oy / chee oy	Excuse me (man / woman)
Bao nhiêu tiền?	bao nyew tee-en	How much is it?
Không	khome	No, not

The pronoun problem, and why it comes first

English has one word for the person you are addressing. Vietnamese has about a dozen, all family words extended to strangers — older brother, aunt, uncle, grandmother. You pick by apparent age and gender relative to your own, and your word for "I" changes to match. A neutral tôi exists, but leaning on it sounds stiff.

Term	Sounds like	Who it is for
em	em	Anyone clearly younger, most young staff
anh	ahn	A man your age or a little older
chị	chee	A woman your age or a little older
cô	koh	A woman around your parents' age
chú	choo	A man around your parents' age
bác	bahk	Anyone older than your parents
ông	ohm	An elderly man
bà	bah	An elderly woman
cháu	chow	"I" to a cô, chú, bác, ông or bà
tôi	toy	Neutral "I" — safe but distant

Two rules make this manageable. Reciprocity: call someone anh or chị and you are em; call them cô, chú or bác and you are cháu. Recovery: guess, then listen to the term they use back and switch. If you say cô and she calls you em, she would rather be chị. Usage varies by household and region, so treat this as the common pattern — and erring older is safer past about forty.

Greetings and getting someone's attention

The workhorse is ơi. Attach it to a kinship term and you have the Vietnamese way of flagging someone down: em ơi to a young server, chị ơi to a stallholder. Friendly, not impolite.

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
Xin chào	sin chow	Hello (polite, universal)
Chào anh / Chào chị	chow ahn / chow chee	Hello (man / woman)
Anh ơi / Chị ơi / Em ơi	ahn oy / chee oy / em oy	Excuse me — hailing someone
Anh khỏe không?	ahn kwair khome	How are you?
Tạm biệt	tahm bee-et	Goodbye

Thank you, please and sorry

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
Cảm ơn	kahm uhn	Thank you
Không có gì	khome kaw zee	You're welcome
Làm ơn	lahm uhn	Please
Xin lỗi	sin loy	Sorry / excuse me
Dạ	yah (S) / zah (N)	Polite yes, respectful "mm-hmm"
Có / Không	kaw / khome	Yes / no

Làm ơn is rarer than English "please": politeness rides on the kinship term and the sentence-final ạ instead. Dạ opening an answer to anyone older does more social work than any other syllable.

Numbers, money and the missing thousand

Numbers one to ten: một (moat), hai (hi), ba (bah), bốn (bone), năm (nam), sáu (sao), bảy (buy), tám (tahm), chín (cheen), mười (muh-uh-ee).

The trap is the shorthand. Notes run to 500,000 dong, so vendors drop the word for thousand: hai mươi means twenty and almost certainly means 20,000. Thousand is nghìn in the north, ngàn in the south; million is triệu. Assume any bare small number at a stall is thousands, and ask the vendor to key it into a phone if unsure. Our card versus cash guide covers how much to carry.

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
Bao nhiêu tiền?	bao nyew tee-en	How much?
Một trăm nghìn	moat chum ngin	100,000 dong
Một triệu	moat chee-oh	One million
Tiền lẻ	tee-en leh	Small change
Đắt quá / Mắc quá	daht kwah / mahk kwah	Too expensive (N / S)

Ordering food, including allergies and dietary limits

Vietnamese kitchens season hard and assume fish sauce, so instruct before the food is cooked, not after.

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
Cho tôi cái này	chaw toy kai nai	I'll have this
Tôi ăn chay	toy an chai	I'm vegetarian
Tôi không ăn thịt	toy khome an tit	I don't eat meat
Không cho nước mắm	khome chaw nuck mum	No fish sauce
Không cay	khome kai	Not spicy
Tôi bị dị ứng với đậu phộng	toy bee zee ung vuh-ee dow fung	Allergic to peanuts
Tôi bị dị ứng với hải sản	toy bee zee ung vuh-ee high sahn	Allergic to seafood
Ngon quá	ngon kwah	Delicious
Tính tiền	ting tee-en	The bill
Một, hai, ba, dzô	moat hi ba, yo	Cheers (a toast)

Three caveats. Ăn chay reads as Buddhist vegetarian, so places signed chay are the reliable option — broths elsewhere are often meat- or fish-based even when the visible ingredients are not. Peanut is đậu phộng in the south, lạc in the north. For a severe allergy, carry a written card in Vietnamese too. Our food guide covers what to order; is street food safe covers the stall.

Directions and transport

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
...ở đâu?	uh dow	Where is...?
Nhà vệ sinh ở đâu?	nyah veh sing uh dow	Where's the toilet?
Đi thẳng	dee tahng	Go straight
Rẽ trái / Quẹo trái	zeh chai / kweo chai	Turn left (N / S)
Rẽ phải / Quẹo phải	zeh fai / kweo fai	Turn right (N / S)
Dừng ở đây	zung uh day	Stop here
Cho tôi xuống đây	chaw toy soong day	Let me off here
Bật đồng hồ nhé	but dome haw nyeh	Turn the meter on

Memorise the last one before your first taxi: showing you know the meter exists is the cheapest scam deterrent going. See hidden costs and scams and the first 24 hours.

Shopping and bargaining

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
Giảm giá được không?	zahm zah duhk khome	Lower the price?
Bớt chút được không?	but choot duhk khome	Take a little off?
Tôi chỉ xem thôi	toy chee sem toy	Just looking
Không, cảm ơn	khome, kahm uhn	No thanks

Bargain at market stalls and street vendors; do not bother in supermarkets, malls or restaurants with printed menus. Tone beats wording — a smile and đắt quá outperform a hard number.

Emergencies and the pharmacy

Pharmacies — nhà thuốc, green cross — are dense in Vietnamese cities, and staff often dispense directly for minor complaints. Name the symptom rather than a drug.

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
Giúp tôi với	zoop toy vuh-ee	Help me
Gọi bác sĩ	goy bahk see	Call a doctor
Gọi công an	goy kome ahn	Call the police
Bệnh viện	ben vee-en	Hospital
Nhà thuốc	nyah twok	Pharmacy
Tôi bị đau bụng	toy bee dow boom	Stomach ache
Thuốc giảm đau	twok zahm dow	Painkiller

Polite fillers that soften everything

These make a beginner sound considerate rather than blunt. Ạ closing a sentence is the highest-value syllable a visitor can add: cảm ơn ạ lands warmer than cảm ơn.

Vietnamese	Sounds like	Meaning
...ạ	ah	Sentence-final politeness particle
...nhé	nyeh	Friendly softener, "okay?"
Tôi không hiểu	toy khome hyew	I don't understand
Nói chậm lại được không?	noy chum lai duhk khome	Speak more slowly?
Anh nói tiếng Anh được không?	ahn noy tyeng ahn duhk khome	Speak English?
Không sao	khome sao	It's fine

What the tones actually do

Vietnamese is tonal. The northern standard distinguishes six tones — ngang (level), huyền (low falling), sắc (rising), nặng (low, cut short), hỏi (dipping) and ngã (rising with a throat catch) — and tone is part of the word, not decoration. Southern Vietnamese merges hỏi and ngã, running on five in practice, per the Wikipedia summary of Vietnamese phonology.

So the "sounds like" column approximates consonants and vowels only. No English respelling encodes tone. Use it for the shape, then copy the melody from a native speaker. The Wikivoyage Vietnamese phrasebook is a good free companion.

Limitations

Tones cannot be learned from a page. Every hint here approximates consonants and vowels in English spelling and drops tone, the part that changes meaning. If a phrase is not understood, tone is the likeliest culprit.

Regional variation is real and this guide leans northern. Southern variants are flagged where they diverge materially (quẹo against rẽ, ngàn against nghìn, mắc against đắt, đậu phộng against lạc). Central Vietnamese, especially around Hue, differs further and is widely considered hardest for outsiders.

Kinship-term guidance is a convention, not a law. Age-based address varies by family, region and setting, and edge cases — a young manager, someone ambiguous in age, a formal meeting — resolve poorly from a table. When unsure, xin chào with no term attached plus a neutral tôi is safe, if formal.

Medical phrasing has hard limits. A spoken phrase is no substitute for a written allergy card in Vietnamese, and pharmacy staff may not read English drug names. Beyond a stomach ache, use a hospital with an international department. See our trip planning checklist.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most useful Vietnamese phrases for a traveler?

Five carry most of the load. *Xin chào* (sin chow) for hello, *cảm ơn* (kahm uhn) for thank you, *anh ơi* or *chị ơi* (ahn oy, chee oy) to get someone's attention, *bao nhiêu tiền?* (bao nyew tee-en) for how much, and *không* (khome) for no. Those five cover greeting a host, thanking a vendor, calling a server, asking a market price, and declining a tout. Everything else in this guide is a refinement on top of them. If you only memorise one more, make it *xin lỗi* (sin loy), which works as both sorry and excuse me.

Why does Vietnamese have no word for you?

Because Vietnamese addresses people by kinship position rather than by a neutral pronoun. Instead of one word for you, speakers choose *em*, *anh*, *chị*, *cô*, *chú*, *bác*, *ông* or *bà* according to the other person's apparent age and gender relative to their own, and the word for I changes to match. Per the Wikipedia overview of Vietnamese pronouns, these terms are literally family words — older brother, older sister, aunt, uncle, grandmother — extended to strangers. There is a formal neutral *tôi* for I, but it reads distant, and there is no comfortable neutral equivalent for you in everyday speech.

How do I know whether to say anh, chị, cô or chú?

Guess from apparent age, then correct from the reply. Someone who looks close to your own age or a little older: *anh* for a man, *chị* for a woman. Someone around your parents' age: *chú* for a man, *cô* for a woman. Clearly older than your parents: *bác* for either. Elderly: *ông* and *bà*. If you call someone *anh* or *chị* you call yourself *em*; if you call them *cô*, *chú* or *bác* you call yourself *cháu*. The recovery trick native speakers use: listen to the term the other person uses back for you and adjust in your next sentence. Nobody expects a visitor to get this right first time, and the attempt itself reads as respect.

Is Vietnamese hard to pronounce for English speakers?

The tones are the hard part, not the alphabet. Vietnamese uses Latin script with diacritics, so you can read it on sight, but it is tonal: the northern standard distinguishes six tones — *ngang*, *huyền*, *sắc*, *nặng*, *hỏi* and *ngã* — and changing the tone changes the word entirely. Southern Vietnamese merges *hỏi* and *ngã* into one falling-rising tone, so southern speech effectively runs on five distinct tones. Written pronunciation hints in English, including the ones in this guide, cannot encode tone. Treat them as a starting shape and correct by ear.

How do I say I am vegetarian or that I have a food allergy in Vietnamese?

**Vegetarian is *tôi ăn chay* (toy an chai)**, which in Vietnam usually implies Buddhist vegetarian and is well understood — look for restaurants signed *chay*. For a stricter instruction, *tôi không ăn thịt* (toy khome an tit) means I do not eat meat. Fish sauce is the common hidden ingredient: *không cho nước mắm* (khome chaw nuck mum) asks for it to be left out, though broths and pre-made sauces may already contain it. For allergies, *tôi bị dị ứng với...* (toy bee zee ung vuh-ee) means I am allergic to, followed by *đậu phộng* for peanuts in the south or *lạc* in the north, or *hải sản* for seafood. For a severe allergy, carry a written translation card as well as the spoken phrase.

What is the difference between northern and southern Vietnamese pronunciation?

Enough to notice, not enough to block you. Beyond the tone merger, northern speech renders *r* closer to a z sound and southern speech closer to an English r; *d* and *gi* also diverge. Vocabulary splits too: turn left is *rẽ trái* in the north and *quẹo trái* in the south, thousand is *nghìn* in the north and *ngàn* in the south, too expensive is *đắt quá* in the north and *mắc quá* in the south, and the polite yes is *vâng* in the north against *dạ* in the south. Both are understood nationwide. The pronunciation hints in this guide lean northern, with the southern variant noted where it differs materially.

Do I really need Vietnamese, or is English enough in Vietnam?

English is workable in tourist zones and thin outside them. Hotel desks, cruise crews, tour operators and city-centre cafes generally manage English. Market stalls, xe om drivers, rural guesthouses and neighbourhood eateries often do not. The practical case for learning fifty phrases is not comprehension, though, so much as tone of exchange: a greeting and a thank-you in Vietnamese visibly changes how you are treated, especially outside Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. It also gives you an independent check on numbers, which is useful when a price is being quoted quickly.

How are Vietnamese prices spoken, and why do the numbers sound too small?

Because vendors routinely drop the word for thousand. With notes running to 500,000 dong, everyday prices are quoted in shorthand: hai mươi means twenty and almost always means 20,000 dong, not twenty dong. Một trăm means one hundred and usually means 100,000. Learn the numbers one to ten and the words *nghìn* (north) or *ngàn* (south) for thousand, and *triệu* for million, then assume any bare small number in a market or on a xe om is thousands. If in doubt, ask the vendor to key the figure into a phone calculator, which is normal practice and not considered rude.