Radio and television stations need to read Vietnamese letters correctly.

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Minh Thuyet

In some cases, announcers confuse the letter names with the sounds that the letters represent. For example, the announcement should have read the abbreviation of the Group of Seven (G7) as “GIỀ BẤY”, but the announcement should have read it as “GỌ BẤY”. Or the registration number of the Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed on March 8, 2014, MH370, should have been “EM-MO HÁT BA BAY MUỀI”, but the announcement should have read it as “MO HÁT BA BAY MUỀI”. In fact, “GỌ” and “MO” are just ways of writing sounds in the previous Beginner’s book or the current Grade 1 Vietnamese book to make it easier to guide children in spelling.

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 we read:

- Read “G7” as “GỌ BAY” but read “GDP” (Gross Domestic Product) as “GIỆ DÊ PÊ”.

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

In other cases, the announcer is confused or uncertain about whether to read the French, English or Vietnamese letter names. 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 acronym, not an English one. For the acronym TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement), each person reads it differently: Some say “TI PI PI” (according to the English letter names), others say “TÊ PÊ PÊ” (according to the Vietnamese letter names).

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 that is 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 mispronunciation that is quite widespread among the public today.

According to Infonet