Learn Vietnamese for kids through short, spoken games where every word is heard clearly, tones and all. Vietnamese is written in Latin letters (chữ Quốc ngữ) with extra marks for special vowels and six tones, so the page looks familiar to English speakers but sounds wonderfully musical. Young children are the best tone learners in the world: they hear pitch naturally, long before an adult would. Below your child can explore the 29-letter alphabet, numbers 1 to 100, and picture words for animals, fruits, vegetables, colours and body parts, each spoken in Vietnamese and English.
What your child learns here
- Vietnamese alphabet: all 29 letters, from A áo (shirt) and Ă ăn (eat) to Đ đèn (lamp) and Y y tá (nurse).
- Numbers in Vietnamese: một, hai, ba up to một trăm (100), with a "Count with me" button.
- Animals in Vietnamese: 60 animals such as con mèo, con trâu and con voi.
- Fruits and vegetables: 30 of each, including quả xoài, quả vải, bắp cải and củ cà rốt.
- Colours and body parts: 12 colours (màu đỏ, màu vàng) and 30 body words (mắt, mũi, tay).
Each game has Listen (tap and hear), Find it (Golu asks for a picture in Vietnamese) and Memory (pairs). A wrong tap never says "wrong": your child hears what they tapped, and the right card glows. Every finished game adds a marble to the Goli Jar.
How young children learn in Vietnam
Vietnamese children attend mầm non (preschool) from toddlerhood to age 6. The kindergarten years are named after a growing plant: lớp Mầm ("sprout", 3-4), lớp Chồi ("bud", 4-5) and lớp Lá ("leaf", 5-6). The national preschool programme is play-based. In lớp Lá children làm quen với chữ cái, "get to know the letters", by recognising and saying them in games and songs, but formal reading and writing start in Grade 1. The Ministry of Education discourages teaching Grade 1 content early, so there is no need to rush.
In Grade 1, children learn letter sounds (bờ, cờ, dờ), put them with vowels, then add tone marks. The classic tone drill is ma, mà, má, mả, mã, mạ, six different words from one syllable.
The six tones, simply explained
| Tone | Mark | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| ngang (level) | none | ma | ghost |
| huyền (falling) | à | mà | but |
| sắc (rising) | á | má | mum (in the South), cheek |
| hỏi (dipping) | ả | mả | tomb |
| ngã (broken rising) | ã | mã | horse (in old words) |
| nặng (heavy) | ạ | mạ | rice seedling |
You do not need to teach tones as a rule. Let your child copy the audio, sing, and play. Tones come with listening.
Ten minutes of Vietnamese a day
- One routine. Use Vietnamese at breakfast or bath time every day.
- Sing bài hát thiếu nhi. Children's songs such as "Một con vịt" (One duck) and "Cả nhà thương nhau" (The whole family loves each other) are known to almost every Vietnamese child.
- Market words. Name xoài, chuối and cá at the market or the Asian grocery.
- Short and happy. Stop after five minutes while your child still wants more.
- English as a bridge. Our animals name page and colours for kids help if English is still new.
Play together. Sit beside your child, repeat the words and point to real things. Under-2s learn most from a grown-up and real objects, so keep screen time short and shared.
Northern and southern words
The audio here uses the standard northern (Hà Nội) voice and vocabulary. Many families, especially in the South and in the diaspora, use different everyday words: lợn/heo (pig), dứa/thơm (pineapple), ngô/bắp (corn), quả/trái (fruit). Both are correct. Teach the words your family uses and treat the others as a fun "two ways to say it" game.
Tips for Vietnamese families abroad
In the US, Australia, Canada, France or Germany, a child may soon prefer English. Keep one daily Vietnamese moment, call ông bà (grandparents) on video, and use festivals: at Tết children say "Chúc mừng năm mới" and receive lì xì red envelopes, and at Tết Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn Festival) they carry star lanterns and share mooncakes. Many community centres and pagodas run weekend Vietnamese classes too.
Bé học tiếng Việt
Trang này giúp ba mẹ cho bé làm quen với tiếng Việt qua trò chơi. Bé chỉ cần chạm vào hình để nghe từ bằng tiếng Việt và tiếng Anh: bảng chữ cái, số đếm từ 1 đến 100, con vật, các loại quả, rau củ, màu sắc và các bộ phận cơ thể.
Mỗi ngày chỉ cần chơi năm đến mười phút. Ba mẹ hãy cùng bé gọi tên đồ vật trong nhà, hát những bài hát thiếu nhi quen thuộc và khen bé khi bé cố gắng. Đừng ép bé học chữ quá sớm, vì ở tuổi mầm non, bé học tốt nhất qua vui chơi.
Với các gia đình Việt ở nước ngoài, hãy chọn một khoảng thời gian mỗi ngày chỉ nói tiếng Việt, ví dụ bữa sáng. Gọi video cho ông bà và cùng đón Tết, Trung Thu để bé luôn gần gũi với tiếng mẹ đẻ.
How to use this page at home
Say it, then find it
Play for a few minutes, then look for the same thing away from the screen: vietnamese words on the shelf, in the kitchen, on the way to school. A child learns a word properly when they meet it twice, once on the screen and once in their hand.
Ten minutes is enough
Short and happy beats long and tired. Stop while your child still wants more, and come back tomorrow: the same page on five short days teaches far more than one long sitting. Nothing here is scored, so there is no reason to push.
Use both languages
Tap the language button at the top to hear the words in your home language first and the second language after. Hearing the same picture named in two languages is one of the few things research agrees builds attention as well as vocabulary.