Phonetic annotation is used on this website to offer an alternative description of pronunciations besides Quốc Ngữ. While learning Chữ nôm you can use this method to record the pronunciation of a character without immediately revealing it as Quốc ngữ would do. That way you can put it directly on a flash card without having to cover the pronunciation while learning it.
A brief explanation
A syllable is split into four components: initial, nucleus, final, tone. For example thuyền is split into: TH, UYÊ, N, and the huyền tone. For each component you can lookup the corresponding shape in the table below.
Note:
kem → ký e ke tam kem → 己㇑三
bơm → bóc ơ bơ tam bơm → 卜㇉三
A㇞ | E㇑ | Ia'㇑ | O㇕ | Ua㇎ | Ưa㇎ | Ă'㇞ |
Ơ㇉ | Ê㇚ | I'㇚ | Ô㇆ | U㇡ | Ư'㇡ | Â'㇉ |
Oa㇐㇞ | Ue㇐㇑ | Uya㇐'㇑ | Uă㇐'㇞ | |||
Uơ㇐㇉ | Oê㇐㇚ | Uy㇐'㇚ | Uâ㇐'㇉ |
N千︁thiên | M三︁tam | Nh/Ng〇︁linh | U/O九︁cửu |
T一︁nhất | P十︁thập | C/Ch六︁lục | I/Y二︁nhi |
㇞́sắc | ㇞̀huyền | ㇞̉hỏi |
㇞̃ngã | ㇞̇nặng |
Any unambiguous character can be used for initials.
The following list is just a suggestion.
- 乙︁ ắt | B/P 卜︁ bóc | C 己︁ kỷ | Ch 匕︁ chuỷ | Đ 大︁ đại | D 廴︁ dẫn |
Ph 乁︁ phiết | Gh 几︁ ghế | Gi 之︁ gì | H 又︁ hựu | Kh 厶︁ khư | L 立︁ lập |
M 木︁ mộc | N 乃︁ nải | Ng 乂︁ nghệ | Nh 人︁ nhân | R 了︁ riêu | S 彡︁ sam |
T 夕︁ tịch | Th 寸︁ thốn | Tr 夂︁ truy | V 习︁ vũ | X 彳︁ xích | |