The Vietnamese Basic Course begins with a guide to pronunciation because Vietnamese is a "tone language" in which the meaning of a word cna change when it is pronounced with a different musical pitch or pitch contour.
This text, included in the Foreign Service Institute's Basic Course Series, provides introductory teaching materials for the Vietnamese language as it is spoken in Vietnam. It is intended for general use by speakers of English of various occupational backgrounds who are living or expect to live in areas where Southern Vietnamese is used. While this course is designed for classroom use, special attention has been given both in the text and in the tape recordings to make them as useful as possible for self-instructional use.
