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. Make a text 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. Lexi talks back. The Translator fixes your mistakes as it translates and can give a simpler version at your level, and Writing marks what you wrote and says why.
Above the on-ramp sits the Course — a map of practice steps from A1 to C2 with grammar, vocabulary and a level test at the top of each level — and My words, where everything you save comes back on a spaced-repetition schedule in eight quiz styles.
2,720 photographs, 2,707 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.
Full courses in English and German (A1–C1); Norwegian growing level by level; first lessons in Spanish; picture album in 37 languages; tools and AI practice in 54.