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Vietnamese Health Vocabulary — Words for Health & the Doctor

Health vocabulary is the kind of language you hope you won't need urgently — which is exactly why it's worth learning calmly in advance. This page collects Vietnamese health words: sức khỏe (health), bác sĩ (doctor), thuốc (medicine), bệnh (illness), each with its English meaning and audio. Two notes for English speakers. First, Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, so reading feels approachable from the start — but the many diacritical marks are not decoration; they change both vowels and tone, and skipping them changes the word. Second, Vietnamese is tonal, and tone is meaning here: the same letters under a different mark can be a different word entirely, which matters a great deal in a setting where being understood counts. Since tone lives only in the sound, tap any 🔊 to hear it done correctly. Read the table to link the spelling and its marks to meaning, then take the words into the game below, where matching each one as it falls makes the vocabulary — and the tones — genuinely stick.

Key words explained

• surgeon bác sĩ phẫu thuật🔊 The surgeon explained the operation calmly.
• patient bệnh nhân🔊 The nurse checked on each patient in the ward.
• fracture gãy xương🔊 An X-ray showed a small fracture in his wrist.
• scar sẹo🔊 The old wound left a faint scar.
• rash phát ban🔊 The new soap gave her a mild rash.
• nausea buồn nôn🔊 A wave of nausea hit him on the boat.
• sprain bong gân🔊 She rested her ankle after the sprain.
• blister phồng rộp🔊 The new shoes gave me a painful blister.

All 90 Vietnamese health words

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