Radio and television stations need to read Vietnamese letters correctly.

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Minh Thuyet

There are some cases where announcers confuse the letter names with the sounds they represent. For example, the abbreviation of the Group of Seven (G7) should be read as “GIỀ BẠY”, but the announcer reads it as “GỀ BẠY”. Or the registration number of the Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed on March 8, 2014, MH370, should be read as “EM-MO HÁT BA BẠY MUỀI”, but the announcer reads it as “MO HÁT BA BẠY MUỀI”. In fact, “GỀ” and “MO” are just ways of writing sounds in the old Preschool books or the current Grade 1 Vietnamese books to help children easily spell.

When reading symbols or abbreviations, we need to read the correct letter names in the Vietnamese alphabet as “GIÊ”, “EM-MO” (or pronounce the second part of the name as: “EM”). Not reading the letter names correctly not only sounds unpleasant but also leads to contradictions in the way they are read:

- Read "G7" as "G7" but read "GDP" (Gross Domestic Product) as "GIEDEPHE".

- Read "M" by sound as "MO" but read "H" by letter name as "HÁT" (not read by sound as "HỘ").

In other cases, the announcer is confused or unsure whether to read the French, English or Vietnamese letters. For example, APF (Assemb lée Parlementair de la Francophonie – Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophone Organization) is read as “AY PI ÉP”, while this is a French abbreviation, not English. For the abbreviation TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement), each person reads it differently: Some say “TI PI PI” (according to the English letter name), others say “TÊ PÊ PÊ” (according to the Vietnamese letter name).

Actually, reading TPP as “TI PI PI” is not wrong because TPP is the abbreviation of the English phrase Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. But in Vietnamese text, it needs to be read according to the Vietnamese letter name “Tê Pê Pê”. This rule helps us have a unified reading for all abbreviations originating from foreign languages, regardless of whether they are English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese or any other language transcribed and transliterated into Latin letters. If the regulation requires pronunciation to be exactly the same as the original language, it is not feasible because no one can know and pronounce correctly dozens or hundreds of languages.

The press has a great influence. The pronunciation in radio and television programs is often considered exemplary. Therefore, I really hope that domestic radio and television stations will study and adjust the correct pronunciation of Vietnamese letters to correct the habit of misreading that is quite widespread among the public today.

According to Infonet