VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
_________________________________

FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Topic: A research into the difficulties Vietnamese learners of English

encounter in producing the English vowel and consonant sounds that
are subject to change or modification in normal speech.

Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Dai Quang

Name: Nong Thi Hong Ngoc
ID: 21045277
Email: hongngoc4499.ulis@gmail.com

Hanoi, April 2022

 Table of Contents

Acknowledgments .................................................................................................... 3
Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 4
I. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4
1. Rationale for choosing the topic ............................................................................. 4
2. Aim and objectives ................................................................................................. 4
3. Research question ................................................................................................... 5
4. Scope of research .................................................................................................... 5
5. Theoretical/practical significance of the assignment .............................................. 5
II. Development ......................................................................................................... 5
1. Literature Review & Theoretical background ................................................... 5
1.1. Vietnamese final consonants ................................................................................ 5
1.2. English final consonants ....................................................................................... 6
1.3. Similarity and difference between Vietnamese and English final consonants ..... 9
2. Research Methodology .......................................................................................... 10
2.1. Stating research questions ..................................................................................... 11
2.2. Specifying the population and drawing a sample from the population ................. 11
2.3. Deciding methods of data collection ..................................................................... 12
2.4. Analyzing data ....................................................................................................... 12
2.5. Addressing non-response ....................................................................................... 14
III. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 14
1. Findings and implications for teaching ..................................................................... 14
2. Recapitulation ............................................................................................................ 14
3. Concluding remarks ................................................................................................... 14
4. Suggestions for further research ................................................................................. 14
References ..................................................................................................................... 15

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 Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks and deep gratitude are due to my honorable lecturer, Assoc. Prof. Dr.
Vo Dai Quang or having been a real guiding force to me through his worthy, continuous
assistance, and his invaluable pieces of valuable learning material.
For the constructive data they have supplied through questionnaires, I acknowledge with
many thanks and a lot of gratitude to my classmates and coworkers.
I am equally indebted to the Internet because I cannot complete my study without access
to a huge number of research and studies.
Last but not least, I should express my deep appreciation to my family for having been a
most valuable psychological support to carry out this work, and for encouraging me to
seek further knowledge.

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Abstract
Teaching a foreign language is challenging in that people tend to be affected by their
mother tongue when producing the sound, which causes diverse dialects. Different
pronunciations can lead to misunderstandings when communicating in intercultural
communication. Educators of second language teaching are required to understand
students’ pronunciation variations in an attempt to help students gain improvement in
learning English. Vietnamese learners are facing up with some pronunciation mistakes in
which final consonants pronunciation is the most difficult problem to deal with.
Therefore, This study examined the pronunciation of final consonants /z/, /s/, /∫/,
/ʒ/, /dʒ/, /ʧ/ by Vietnamese learners of English by analyzing the audiotape and figured out
the reasons for the pronunciation problems. This article will suggest some possible
solutions to enhance students’ pronunciation.
Keywords: final consonants, pronunciation variations, pronunciation mistakes, English as
a second language
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for choosing the topic
Due to integration and globalization, the English language is spoken in a lot of countries
and is widely used for communication on a global scale. In Vietnam’s context, the
English language is the most popular foreign language taught in most schools. In other
words, it is vital that the world in general and Vietnam, in particular, has to practice
English speaking for socio-economic development.
However, very few Vietnamese learners are concerned about pronunciation mistakes in
spite of the widespread emphasis on the acquisition and use of English. They pay less
attention to pronunciation mistakes or even ignore these. For example, the word
determine is sometimes mispronounced as /dɪˈtɜːmain/ instead of /dɪˈtɜːmɪn/ due to the
lack of acknowledgment and proper attitude to pronunciation, which may cause
difficulty for comprehension. The failure of Vietnamese learners to pronounce English
word-final consonants evokes considerable concern in this topic.
2. Aims and objectives
This research is aimed to:
- point out the differences between Vietnamese and English in terms of word-final
consonants
- explore the final consonants pronunciation mistakes of Vietnamese learners

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- provide teachers with some workable solutions for educating pronunciation
3. Research question:
The aforementioned aims and objectives could be clarified by answering the questions
below:
1. What are the most common mistakes of Vietnamese learners when pronouncing
English final consonants?
2. Why do they have these pronunciation mistakes?
3. How can teachers help students to cope with these problems?
4. Scope of the research
Due to limitations in time and distance, this study is mainly focused on eighteen
responses from English teachers in secondary and high schools.
5. Theoretical/practical significance of the assignment.
It is believed that this study will raise the awareness of teachers about the importance of
final-consonant pronunciation and suggest effective teaching methodologies for
speaking skills. Therefore, Vietnamese would be more confident and gain a better
understanding when communicating with foreigners. Furthermore, this can enhance our
labor force, promote integration pace and raise national status on the world map.
II. DEVELOPMENT:
1. Literature Review & Theoretical background
1.1. Vietnamese final consonants:
According to previous research, there are 8 main final consonants in Vietnamese:

Consonants Phoneme English equivalent sounds

C /k/ Book

Ch /k/ Sick (cut in the South)

M /m/ Hum

N /n/ Pan

Nh /ɲ/ Canyon

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 Ng /ŋ/ Sing

P /p/ Stop

T /t/ Hat

Table 1: Vietnamese final consonants

Thao (2007) claims that Vietnamese is one of the syllable-timed languages and its
syllable construction is short and simple. The structure of each syllable is (C) V (C).
Taiwan Buffalo International (2001) characterized syllabic structure in Vietnamese by
this table:

Tone
initial Final (rhyme)

Onset Nucleus Coda

Final consonants in Vietnamese consist of only nasal consonants /m, n, ŋ/ and

unaspirated voiceless plosives /p, t, k/ with their allophones. The limited codas lead to
several problems for Vietnamese learners in properly pronouncing English.
1.2. English final consonants:
Yule (2006: 47) states “The basic structure of the kind of syllable found in English
words […] is shown in the accompanying diagram”:

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It is widely agreed that the syllabic structure of English is (C) (C) (C) V (C) (C) (C) (C).
Almost every English consonant appears word-finally, except for /h/, /w/ and /j/
(Cummins, 1998). Moreover, the English pronunciation system has a lot of complicated
consonant clusters, combining two, three, and even four consonants together in the onset
and coda. (Thao, 2007)
Acording to Nu (2009), English consonant has 24 phonemes in which /s/ and /z/ are
alveolar fricative sounds, /∫/and /ʒ/ are post alveolar or alveo-palatal or palatal alveolar
fricatives, /dʒ/and /ʧ/ are palatoalveolar or alveo-palatal affricatives. Most of these
consonants in English can be used as final consonants, e.g. vision /ˈvɪʒ.ən/,
watch /wɑːtʃ/. These sounds confused by Vietnamese learners of English are highlighted
here in Table 2 and their different features of production are described in table 3.

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 Table 2: English consonants
According to Nu (2009), the distinction between /s/ and /z/ is that /s/ is a fortis (or
voiceless) sound, such as sip, rice, and facing, but /z/ is a lenis (or voiced) sound, such as
zip, rising, and phrase. Both /s/ and /z/ can be found in the first, middle, and last
positions.
Their articulation is partially palatal and partly alveolar while generating /ʃ/ and /ʒ/. The
tongue makes contact with a somewhat farther back region than it does for /s/ and /z/.
Furthermore, air escape is diffuse when compared to /s/ and /z/. The friction is caused by
a larger region of the tongue rubbing against the roof of the mouth. /ʃ/ is voiceless, for
example, ship, Russia, whereas /ʒ/ has a throat voice, for example, measure, garage. / is
common and readily available, but /ʒ/ is not. The spread of /ʒ/ is relatively limited
because "few English words begin with /ʒ/ (most of them fairly recently introduced from
French) and not many conclude with this consonant." (Nu, 2009)
Following Nu (2009), the only two alveo-palatal affricate phonemes in English are
/ʧ/and /dʒ/. The soft palate is lifted, the nasal resonator is turned off, and an obstruction
to the air stream is established by a closure formed between the tip, blade, and rims of
the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge and side teeth in the articulation of these
phonemes. Simultaneously, the front of the tongue is lifted toward the hard palate in
preparation for the fricative release. The air escapes in a diffuse fashion throughout the
whole central surface of the tongue, with friction happening between the blade/front
portion of the tongue and the alveolar/front palatal section of the roof of the mouth. /ʧ/ is
voiceless but / dʒ / is voiced with the voice from the throat.
Table 2 can be used to assess the similarities and differences of one sound in contrast to
other sounds.

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 Table 3: Similarity and Difference of English consonants

1.3. Similarity and difference between Vietnamese and English final consonants
Hanh (2019) states that Vietnamese and English have 6 shared consonants, i.e. /p, t, k, m,
n, ŋ/ with regard to final consonants. “However, the Vietnamese final sounds /p, t, k/ are
unreleased while they can be released in English” (Tang, 2007). Among 24 English
consonants, there are three approximants /w/, /j/, /r/, and one glottal sound /h/, which can
never be word-final consonants (Pham, 2009). Therefore, 20 remaining English
consonants and clusters are completely foreign to the Vietnamese language, e.g. affricates
/ʧ, ʤ/ and fricatives /∫/, /ʒ/.
Trần (2005) stated that “Vietnamese phonology seems to be more complicated than
English, but in the long run, this system becomes easier and more achievable than
English”. "It may take a non-native speaker of Vietnamese two months to learn
Vietnamese phonology profoundly, and then he will surely be able to pronounce any
Vietnamese word," he added, "whereas British or American people must constantly learn
how to pronounce new words with a lot of help from dictionaries." When speakers have

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an efficient input, particularly of the tones, Vietnamese is considered to be
straightforward to phonetically acquire. That is one of the reasons why Vietnamese
native speakers have several challenges while learning foreign languages that are not as
near to and as simple as their own language.
A number of studies have been conducted to investigate Vietnamese difficulty in
pronouncing English consonants and clusters. These have resulted in significant results
that will serve as a vital foundation for future research, most notably for this work. After
evaluating her data, Ha (2005: 35-46) arrived at the results shown on the left, which
contrast with the table created by the Center for Applied Linguistics (Neumann, 2007).

Despite the fact that data were collected from a large number of informants, Ha's (2005)
research is unilateral, focusing on the issues of persons from the North, most notably the
mispronunciation between /s/ and /∫/, /tr/ and /ʧ/, /ʒ/ and /z/. Those results, as reported in
the table by the Center of Applied Linguistics (Neumann, 2007), are applicable to every
Vietnamese learner since it encompasses all of the faults that Vietnamese speakers from
any part of the nation can make. They are also compelling to linguists who are familiar
with Vietnamese dialects.
2. Research Methodology
- Subjects: eighteen English teachers teaching English in secondary
- Approach: Quantitative research

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- Techniques: Survey research (questionnaire)
2.1. Stating research questions:
Question 1: What are the most common final consonants pronunciation mistakes
students have to deal with?
Question 2: How can teachers and students cope with these problems?
2.2. Specifying the population and drawing a sample from the population
- Context:
+ English is widely used on a global scale
+ Vietnamese learners have difficulties in pronouncing final consonants
+ This study was created by the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic which began in
early 2020
- Population: English teachers in Vietnam
+ Population: the entire group of entities/persons/instance of language in use to
which the results of a study are intended to apply
+ Defining the population of interest
+ Selecting a sample from the population
- Sampling:
+ Interview 18 Vietnamese Teachers teaching English speaking
+ Type of sampling: Non-probability sample (also known as a purposive sample) does
not represent the wider population, simply represents itself.
+ Sample Type: Convenient sampling (Non-Probability Sample)
• Group members randomly sample eligible people
• Select acquaintances, friends, and colleagues as respondents and continue the
process until the required sample size is reached.
• The parameters of generalizability are negligible.
- Reasons for choosing Online Questionnaire by Vietnamese:
+ In the Covid-19 situation, face-to-face interviews should be avoided.
+ Interviewees do not have time for face-to-face contact.

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 + Using their mother tongue makes people share deeper information. Indeed, using
English, people tend to focus on grammar-pronunciation more than the content.
2.3. Deciding methods of data collection
- Quantitative research is obstructive, controlled, objective, generalizable, and outcome-
oriented. Quantitative research is described as a systematic analysis of phenomena
through the collection of measurable data and the use of statistical, mathematical, or
computational methods. Quantitative research gathers data from current and future
populations by employing sampling methods and sending out online surveys, polls,
questionnaires, and other forms of data collection, the results of which may be
represented numerically.
- Method: Mixed-method survey through email, instant messaging platforms, and social
media (Google Form - questionnaire) of 18 English teachers.
- “Questionnaires are any written instruments that present respondents with a series of
questions or statements to which they are to react either by writing out their answers or
selecting from among existing answers”. (Brown, 2001) This study aims to look for
information based on attitudes, behaviors, activities, and responses to the final consonant
pronunciation.
- Types of questions:
+ Scale shopping agree to strongly disagree: to investigate which phoneme or pair of
sounds are mispronounced the most
+ Open and closed questions: to collect the solutions applied to correct the mistakes in
ending consonants pronunciation.
2.4. Analyzing data

Strongly Agree
(5 points)
Agree
(4 points)
Undecided
(3 points)

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Disagree
(2 points)
Strongly Disagree
(1 point)
Total point
Mispronounce between /ʃ/-/s/
2/18
4/18
2/18
5/18
5/18
47/90
= 52,2%
Mispronounce between /ʒ

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/-/z/
4/18
3/18
1/18
7/18
3/18
52/90
= 57,8%
Mispronounce between /dʒ/-/z/ or /s/
8/18
4/18
0/18
2/18
2/18
62/90
= 68,9%
Mispronounce between /ð/- /θ/
7/18
5/18
1/18
3/18
2/18
66/90
= 73,3%
Mispronounce /ʧ/
5/18
5/18

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3/18
2/18
3/18
61/90
= 67, 8%
- Almost 18 teachers caught these final consonants pronunciation mistakes in their class.
(All the response rates are above 50%)
- In terms of mispronouncing between /ʃ/-/s/, they said that their students often add /ə/ at
the end of the consonants. Some said that their students omit the ending consonants or
mispronounce these phonemes to /t/. The phoneme /ʃ/ is sometimes replaced to /s/ or /z/
(similar to Vietnamese). However, the pair /ʃ/-/s/ is the most distinguished between these
above phonemes.
- In terms of mispronouncing between /ʒ/-/z/, almost said that about the error replacing
English consonants with similar Vietnamese sounds (/ʒ/ into /z/). They sometimes
pronounce /z/ into /t/ or omit this sound. However, they said that /z/ is quite simple to
pronounce.
- In terms of mispronouncing between /dʒ/-/z/ or /s/, 68,9% of teachers said that their
students have difficulty in distinguish these sounds. The majority of students cannot
pronounce /dʒ/ properly and usually add /ə/ to the end of /dʒ/. A lot of teachers said
that /dʒ/ is the most difficult final consonant for students to pronounce. Some said that
their students mispronounce these two words because of grammar mistakes when adding
s/es to the end of plural nouns or verbs going with third person singular in present simple
tense.
- Distinguishing between /ð/- /θ/ is the most challenging for the students with 73.3% of
teachers saying that their students are able to differentiate these two sounds. They often
replace these phonemes with /t/ or omit these phonemes.
- There is 67,8% of the teachers said that their students have problems pronouncing /ʧ/.
Instead of pronouncing /ʧ/, they mispronounce it into /t/, /s/, and /k/. They sometimes
add /ə/ at the end of the consonant or omit the ending sound /ʧ/.

2.5. Addressing non-response

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According to the formula: Response rate = Number of people who completed the
survey / total number of people you sent it to x 100
The questionnaire has been sent to 20 teachers, but there are only 18 teachers replying.
 The non-response rate is 10%, and the response rate is 90%. Therefore, there was no
non-response bias.

III. CONCLUSION
1. Findings and implications for teaching:
A recognition of the phenomena of first-language transfer is essential for good
educational practice. A teacher's approach to pronunciation practice and providing
corrective feedback in the classroom is informed by knowledge of the phonological
system of English language learners' first language. It also has the potential to provide
both the instructor and the student the option to adjust their products in order to improve
mutual comprehension. Teachers might also give students lists of phonemes that are
shared by both the target language and the student's first language and are the most
understandable substitutes for native speakers.
2. Recapitulation
In conclusion, this paper takes a closer look at the differences in Vietnamese and English
final consonants which leads to the difficulty of Vietnamese in pronouncing English
final consonants like native speakers. Five informants have taken part in recording the
word list and the text. The results after processing match theoretical research well, which
shows that difficulties of Vietnamese speakers in English final consonants mostly result
in:
3. Concluding remarks:
Question 1: What are the most common final consonants pronunciation mistakes
students have to deal with?
The students often have difficulties pronouncing phonemes /z/, /s/, /∫/, /ʒ/, /dʒ/, /ʧ/,
especially /dʒ/, /ʧ/. They often omit the ending consonant, add /ə/ to the end, or replace
it with a similar Vietnamese sound.
Question 2: How can teachers and students cope with these problems?
The study has not come up with effective solutions for these pronunciation mistakes due
to the lack of time.

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4. Suggestions for further research.
The author is willing to expand the number of participants in order to improve the
reliability of the results. Furthermore, participation will range in age and grade level.

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