Learn Vietnamese
Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, which makes it look like a soft start, and then it turns out that the marks above and below the letters are half the language. Six tones, and a set of vowels English does not have. iLexiBox teaches the tones as part of the alphabet rather than after it, because a Vietnamese syllable said on the wrong pitch is not an accent, it is a different word.
Start at the alphabet and the tones
The Vietnamese on-ramp is written by hand, not generated, and it is 199 cards long. Every card is spoken in a recorded Vietnamese voice, and what you get right is scheduled for review rather than shown again at random.
- 29letters
- 10digits
- 20pronunciation rules
- 100core words
- 20everyday phrases
- 20sentences
Three of the pronunciation cards, exactly as the course teaches them:
- a — ngang — the level tone. No mark at all: hold the voice flat and mid, like humming one notema — ghost
- à — huyền — the falling tone. The mark leans down to the left; let the voice sag low and breathymà — but
- á — sắc — the rising tone. The mark leans up to the right; push the voice sharply upwardmá — mother (southern) / cheek
Then material that does not run out
Once you are reading, the level is the point. The Text Generator writes Vietnamese at the CEFR level, length, topic and format you ask for, so the step up is a setting rather than a new book. Speaking scores you word by word as you read aloud. The Conversation Partner talks back. The Translator explains a sentence instead of replacing it, and the Corrector marks what you wrote and says why.
Above the on-ramp sits the Path — a station map from A1 to C2 with grammar, vocabulary and checkpoint stations — and Words & Notes, where everything you save comes back on a spaced-repetition schedule in seven quiz styles.
2,373 photographs, 2,337 of them captioned in Vietnamese
The album is a photograph for every word, shelved by category, each caption written in Vietnamese and spoken in a real recorded voice rather than synthesised on the fly. It doubles as a game: see the picture, spell the word. Free to replay.
What Vietnamese actually costs a beginner
ma, mà, má, mả, mã and mạ are six words, and the difference between them is nothing but melody. The marks are a good notation for it — the huyền leans down and the voice sags, the sắc leans up and the voice pushes — but the sound itself has to be copied off a recording, which is why every card carries one. Underneath the tones sit the vowel triples, where a, ă and â are three distinct vowels rather than one letter decorated, and a set of final consonants that the mouth forms but never releases.
54 languages in the app, CEFR A1–C2.