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Vietnamese Transport Vocabulary — Words for Travel

Getting around is one of the first real tests of a new language, which makes transport vocabulary especially worth learning before you travel in Vietnam. This page gathers Vietnamese transport words: xe (vehicle), tàu (train), máy bay (aeroplane), đường (road), each with its English meaning and a button to hear it. Two things for English speakers. First, the good news: Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet, so the letters are already familiar — but they come dressed in diacritics, the small marks above and below letters that you mustn't ignore. Second, those marks largely encode tones: Vietnamese is tonal, and the same syllable in a different tone is a different word, so a spelling can mean entirely different things depending on its marks. Tones live in the sound, so the 🔊 button is your best teacher — tap it for a native pronunciation. Read the table to connect spelling, marks and meaning, then carry the words into the game below, where hearing and matching them trains your ear to the tones far faster than reading alone.

Key words explained

• car ô tô🔊 They drove the car along the coastal road.
• bus xe buýt🔊 I catch the early bus into town.
• train tàu hỏa🔊 The train sped through the countryside.
• plane máy bay🔊 Our plane landed right on time.
• ship tàu thủy🔊 The cargo ship slowly entered the harbour.
• bicycle xe đạp🔊 She rides her bicycle to work in good weather.
• motorcycle xe máy🔊 He polished his motorcycle every weekend.
• van xe tải nhỏ🔊 We loaded the moving van with boxes.

All 90 Vietnamese transport words

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