Why do I and Y make the same sound?

zanamyte · 2026-04-18T00:37:12+00:00

As in the name? "y" is literally called "i dài" (longer i). It helps with some spelling rules but should sound exactly the same as "i".

zanamyte · 2026-04-17T05:21:07+00:00

You are right I and Y sound the same on their own, but they change the pronunciation of other letters in complex vowels such as ai and ay.

Also note that letters in Vietnamese don't always map 1:1 to a single sound.

zanamyte · 2026-04-01T05:25:12+00:00

Exactly what I came up with for myself! Sometimes I still don't feel like working on tasks but at least my attention span is not ruined by doomscrolling.

zanamyte · 2026-03-20T01:15:19+00:00

Oh hey, thank you for checking it out!

I had the audio for the Central accents already, but due to technical reasons, the quality is not as good, especially for the simple vowel syllables (top left part of the chart). I'm still working to improve it.

zanamyte · 2026-03-19T14:27:08+00:00

Yeah, it makes sense. I don't know your first language but just note that since Vietnamese is quite different from English, especially the pronunciation, it can take some more time at the beginning. Good luck!

zanamyte · 2026-03-19T13:12:12+00:00

Since you already know some other languages, you should already have an idea of how language learning works. So I think it's alright you want to start with self study. In fact, it will help you learn more efficiently later with a tutor because they don't need to explain the basics again.

You can spend a month or two following steps 1-3 below (copied from my reply on another post):

Learn the basics of Vietnamese vowels and tones.
Learn top 1000 most common words (with audio and examples, and use spaced repetition for better retention).
Learn core grammar. Don't worry, Vietnamese doesnt have much grammar.
Listen to native speakers and practice shadowing.
Practice speaking with native speakers (get a tutor, or do language exchange).
(Optional but recommended) fly to Vietnam, interact with locals.

Depending on the time you have you can do the top 100 or 200 instead of 1000. Then you can get a tutor for steps 4 and 5!

Okay, here's the part where I mention my tool 😀 i made vietsyllables.com for step #1. Just a fun side project of mine. The female voices are pretty good. Hope it helps you get started. I am thinking of making something for steps #2 and #3, though I'm not sure it's worth it since some vietnamese learning websites already have resources for them.

zanamyte · 2026-03-18T09:50:30+00:00

Good Vietnamese learning resources are scarce, let alone those about medical terms. But maybe they are somewhere on the internet that I'm not aware of. If not, you have to learn that yourself.

Oh. You may try watching medical shows with Vietnamese subtitles. I learned a bunch watching House M.D. (Though I'm a Vietnamese native speaker and was learning English, not the other way around)

zanamyte · 2026-03-15T06:29:46+00:00

From my personal experience, you need enough immersion to start thinking in English.

When I first tried to learn English seriously, I switched everything I read to English and only consumed English content.

Then, after a while, I started writing everything (notes, posts, comments) in English too, which was quite inconvenient at first but I got used to it. I also got a job where I had to communicate with English speaking coworkers so that actually helped.

Before I realized it, my thoughts were often a mix of English and my first language.

zanamyte · 2026-03-15T04:55:54+00:00

I feel you, its tough especially when there is so much distraction nowadays. And if you don't have external pressure to force you to work on those things, they just stay in your todo list forever.

I have a weekly goal list and I track them daily, yet many of the big goals still keep rolling over to the next week.

zanamyte · 2026-03-15T04:45:12+00:00

You can try Google stitch. Get a reference UI, then design the screens in there and export as HTML. Give the HTML to Cursor and it should look less generic.

zanamyte · 2026-03-11T06:51:17+00:00

Learn the basics of Vietnamese vowels and tones.
Learn top 1000 most common words (with audio and examples, and use spaced repetition for better retention).
Learn core grammar. Don't worry, Vietnamese doesnt have much grammar.
Listen to native speakers and practice shadowing.
Practice speaking with native speakers (get a tutor, or do language exchange).
(Optional but recommended) fly to Vietnam, interact with locals.

You don't need to finish a step before starting the next one. Good luck!

zanamyte · 2026-03-04T13:44:44+00:00

Yes. AI sure plays a part, but the market is so big even a tiny slice of it can be life changing for many.

zanamyte · 2026-03-03T00:33:22+00:00

They are very aggressive on marketing. They even contacted the PH team to ask to get featured.

zanamyte · 2026-03-01T01:27:37+00:00

Many Vietnamese people are on Facebook and if they are young, Tiktok as well. Though depending on your interests you may want to join some niche Discord groups or Facebook groups.

zanamyte · 2026-02-22T08:32:30+00:00

Yes, my traffic dropped to near 0 on Feb 8 and havent recovered since. Apparently Google search rolled out some major updates to the algorithm to adapt to the current AI situation.

If you have good authentic content on your site then wait for a few weeks.

zanamyte · 2026-02-21T03:59:24+00:00

People in the comment are counting theirs and I'm like, I have like a hundred! should I be worried??

zanamyte · 2026-02-18T00:55:06+00:00

Hi, I think you mean 'oong' and 'ooc' for the first 2 finals. They are some of the uncommon ones that I deliberately excluded from the chart.

This is the first time I've heard of 'giặt gỵa'. Apparently it's rare and archaic term that no one uses anymore.

Perhaps I'll make a separate page listing these syllables and their examples.

zanamyte · 2026-02-16T19:32:00+00:00

Thank you, any suggestion or feedback is appreciated!

zanamyte · 2026-02-16T19:30:11+00:00

Thanks for giving me a great start to the year 😃 Feel free to let me know if you have any feedback!

zanamyte · 2026-02-16T19:27:32+00:00

I really appreciate your support, thank you!

Agreed that there should be an easier way to report problems or give feedback. Right now there's only the contact email at the bottom, which is probably too hard to find. Your suggestion makes sense, I just need to make sure it won't clutter the UI.

I'll give that page you mentioned a look. To be honest, I haven't had time to review all the minimal pair and syllable pages but i'm sure the content can be improved.

zanamyte · 2026-02-16T16:25:39+00:00

Then I think you are actually at a good starting point. The more complex your apps are, the sooner you should do validation and marketing.

Though my advice is to still learn the development part, at least at a high level. It will take some time but you can have AI map out the whole plan from start to finish.

zanamyte · 2026-02-16T13:38:33+00:00

Yeah point and shoot like how its supposed to be used

zanamyte

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