I just started a vietnamese course, and of course, as someone who uses a computer every day, I want to learn how to type those new letters and tones!
It’s actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be, once you have the proper input language set up on your computer.
To enable vietnamese input on OSX, here are the steps to follow:
- Open System Preferences
- Open Language & Text
- Click on Input Sources
- Scroll down to Vietnamese UniKey and select Telex
If you want to be able to quickly switch between your input sources with a keyboard shortcut, you will need to follow the following steps, as the shortcuts are disabled by default, and Spotlight has one similar shortcut. I’m only using one of the 2 Spotlight shortcuts so I reassigned the other for this:
- From the Language & Text window, and Input Sources tab, if the shortcuts on the right hand side are greyed out, click on the Keyboard Shortcuts button
- Select Spotlight
- Uncheck Show Spotlight Window
- Select Keyboard & Text Input
- Check Select next source in input menu
- Click on the right hand side to assign a new shortcut, and assign the one you want (I use alt+cmd+space)
That’s all you need to get started with OSX, if you are running Windows or Linux, I’m afraid I can’t help you.
Now, let’s start with the new letters found in the vietnamese alphabet, you will have to type the base letter, plus a second letter to create the new one which I’ll designate as the modifier:
| Letter | Base | Modifier |
| Ă ă | A a | w |
| Â â | A a | a |
| Đ đ | D d | d |
| Ê ê | E e | e |
| Ô ô | O o | o |
| Ơ ơ | O o | w |
| Ư ư | U u | w |
As you will notice, it’s quite simple.
Now, there are also 6 tones in the vietnamese language, these tones apply to the whole word, so they are not tied to a specific letter, therefore, you will first type the word you want, and then apply the tone by hitting another letter (modifier):
| Tone name | Example | Base | Modifier |
| ngang | ba | ba | |
| huyền | bà | ba | f |
| ngã | bã | ba | x |
| hỏi | bả | ba | r |
| sắc | bá | ba | s |
| nặng | bạ | ba | j |
I will not even try to explain how these tones are pronounced, that’s out of the scope of this post.
Thế thôi !
This rule for adding tones to a word is also the same in using a vietnamese keyboard, such as Unikey or vietkey in windows. Unikey is free software and among the most popular keyboard for vietnamese :x
ă = a w
â = a a
á = a s
à = a f
ã = a x
ạ = a j
ả = a r
\o/ I’m so happy u installed a keyboard on ur mac, when will u have one for ur iphone ;;)