Pho Pronunciation: You Can Say It, Pronounce Pho, Say: Phở...

Updated 04-02-14. You need only read a few of my posts on this site and you'll understand my passion for pho. I take my pho seriously. And personally, I'm not one to make fun at my favorite, beloved and respected chow. Certainly not in substance, not in name, and definitely not in pronunciation.

pronounce-pho1Fuh? foe? FO? Fu-uuuuuhh? PhuUUH? What the P...? Well, you will find no funny stuff here. On the other hand, pronouncing "pho" can be challenging if you don't have the correct pho pronunciation to go by.

Use your favorite search engine and you'll find various ways that people suggest how to pronounce pho. If you care and search long enough you'll discover one or two ways to say "pho" getting propagated by many people. Well guess what, regardless of how widely spread and popular these Internet versions are, and how well-intentioned the individuals may be, these "pho" versions are incorrect pronunciation. Update: there are some decent pronunciation guides now on YouTube.

Since my goal aims to stop further proliferation of such 'slanderous' treatment of my favorite noodle dish called pho, I won't mention them here to further the butchering of the word. Instead I'll offer the following for your reading (and listening) enlightenment.

First let's set the record straight. I'm not a hard-liner. I believe in freedom and capitalism as the next sensible person. But I think we can all do better with pho pronunciation. It's not difficult, and with minimal effort, proper guidance/demonstration and practice, you'll impress a Vietnamese-speaking person or enjoy watching him/her in shock with such unexpected fluency and command of the language and your knowledge of the dish. Yes, no more "f..." or "ph...", or whatever. So here goes.

Wikipedia correctly makes a distinction between Vietnamese and English versions of written and pronunciation of pho. That is not to say that it is necessarily acceptable or there is nothing more to it. Granted, written words and their pronunciations in other languages have been "Americanized" before (read 'butchered',) so this is nothing new. But in this global economy it's probably a good thing to try saying non-English words as correctly as possible. Hey anything to help foster international friendship and understanding, right? And when it involves "pho", it's even more important to pho lovers and newbies alike.

So, using the International Phonetic Alphabet, the Wiki explains that Phở is pronounced phonetically as [fə̃ː] which sounds like this:

Phở pronunciation from Wikipedia.     
Below are my own versions. There are differences which will be explained below. Both wiki's and my versions are correct pronunciation.

Phở in normal speech.     
Phở in slower speech.     

 

Note: the Wikipedia pronunciation is from a Southern Vietnamese speaker, whereas my pronunciation has both Southern and Northern accents, with probably a 40-60% (South-North) influence. Also I deliberately accentuate to demonstrate the different sounds that exist in the word. Both are phonetically correct and legitimate pronunciation of the word phở.

Sometime a single sound doesn't really do justice. So below are a few additional phrases with proper pronunciation of "pho" in conversational usage so you get a better sense of the word "pho" and its inflections. You should be able to identify "pho" with no trouble. But more importantly you can now identify "pho" even when spoken in Vietnamese. Try numbers 3 and 4 below.

  1. Let's go have some pho today.     
  2. I had pho with a friend this past weekend.     
  3. Let's meet for pho at about 8 tonight - in Vietnamese.     
  4. How is your beef pho? - to lady friend in Vietnamese.     

There. It's pretty easy isn't it?

Well there is another challenge. North, Central or South Vietnamese accents. Encountering one when you're familiar with another can throw you off, but that's for another post. I can tell you one thing, of the two Vietnamese phrases above, one is Northern and the other, Southern accent. Can you tell which is which? If you promise not to cheat, take this poll below, and the answer is at the end of this article.

Which is Northern Vietnamese accent, recording #3 or #4?

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I hope that if you enjoy eating pho and care about this noodle dish (and who doesn't after the first bowl?), please pass on the proper pronunciation, or maybe gently correct a friend who has been misled. Better yet point them to this post so they can experience the recordings above themselves.

So what variety of pho pronunciation have you encountered? Share your views with us with a comment below.

By the way if you need help with Vietnamese pronunciation or would like some guidance or even request help, head on over to read my post on "Pronunciation of Pho and Other Vietnamese Words and Phrases," and leave a request.

#3: Southern Vietnamese accent
#4: Northern Vietnamese accent

73 comments

  1. Barrynominal 5 June, 2011 at 20:42 Reply

    So how do you pronounce it? You put it in a sentence, which I read, but did not spell it differently to differentiate the way it’s said 🙁 I’m on my phone, so I can’t listen to audio if that is the case…

  2. Cuong Huynh 5 June, 2011 at 20:52 Reply

    Hi Barrynominal: The audio files accompanying this article are Flash audio files so if you are on a mobile phone, you may not get to hear them properly. You will need a Flash-supported browser to listen to them. I apologize.

    • Cuong Huynh 7 June, 2011 at 11:51 Reply

      Hi Krista: Pho doesn’t really translate to anything in English, just like sushi or taco. So the choice becomes to say pho in an authentic way or saying it in anglicized way. I would say “foe” is a poor way of saying pho either way. This is why the audio files are provided.

  3. Elisabeth 9 June, 2011 at 07:28 Reply

    I can appreciate your desire to show us what the correct pronunciation is, and I have a multicultural/multilingual background (I’m American, grew up in Europe and mother is Scandinavian) so I definitely get it. But once a food becomes part of the local culture, it gets a local version of its name. Pho is now not only a vietnamese word but also an American/English word and presumably a word in many other languages.

    Do you eat Mexican food? Taco and burrito are now also English words. I’ve never heard someone be criticized for pronouncing them as such. Now, if they went to Mexico and ordered them there with the American version of the words, especially if they were ordering in Spanish, that would grate on my ears, but using them in American-English conversation it’s ridiculous to suddenly put on a ‘correct’ spanish accent for one word. Actually it’s more than ridiculous, it’s pretentious.

    I’m a salsa instructor and my husband’s first language is Spanish. Nothing bugs me more than people who walk up to us and try to be more ‘authentic’ and give the correct pronunciation of a handful of spanish-based terms, or even my husband’s name (which is actually the English George, not Jorge) in the middle of English conversation. Salsa is now an English word. When used in English conversation, by an English speaker, it’s appropriate to pronounce it as such. Actually my sons’ names aren’t even American/English (or Spanish!) so when I introduce them, I pronounce their names with an American accent, because that’s appropriate, not because I want to make it easier for those lousy Americans with lazy tongues.

    I am critical of the lazy-tongued Americans at other times though. Like when they say “chipoltee” for “chipotle”. Come on, look at how the word is spelled! But I think it’s unfair and unrealistic to be critical of those who pronounce Pho in an Anglicized way when it is now an English word. Just my two cents. I guess though, maybe I need to stop saying ‘foe’. I guess it depends on what the accepted pronunciation ends up being (which is decided organically by the population using it) for this new English word.

  4. LC808 29 August, 2011 at 19:54 Reply

    Nice! Now lets work on Aloha, Oregon (they say uh-low-uh) and karaoke (first off, where does that extra E come from?!?!).

  5. Cuong Huynh 5 September, 2011 at 01:13 Reply

    LC808: Hmm I thought Aloha is pronounced like the Polynesians would pronounce Aloha in Hawaii, no? Uh-low-uh is kind of odd…
    Karaoke, now that’s also a mystery to me too. I think this word has been Americanized to death.

  6. assdadas 8 November, 2011 at 18:37 Reply

    Your stupid audio files don’t work. Why are you so autistic as to insist that it cannot be spelled phawnetcially? Get a life, weirdo.

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