Vietnamese has been written in Romanized script for centuries. But that fact still doesn’t make the pronunciation obvious to the average English speaker. As you come across names in this story, you may, of course, use whatever pronunciation naturally comes to you. If this is the case, you can ignore what’s below.
However, if you would like an approximation in English for some of the names in the book, this short and simple guide will help. I apologize for the linguists reading this. I will forgo phonetics for a more blunt approach. But it works.
Also, this is based on the northern Vietnamese dialect which I studied full-time at a foreign language center under the authority of the Hanoi Foreign Language University. I studied there from January 1998 to June of 1999.
Character Names:
Lady Trieu - “Chee-ooo”
Mr. Tho - “Mr. Taw”
Minh - “Ming”
Lien - “Lee-en”
Lieu - “Lee-oooh”
Sun Quan - “Sun Kwan”
Nhan - “N-yun”
Cuong - “Koo-ong”
Tuan - “Twan”
Hung - “Hoom”
Places Names:
Hung Temple - “Hoom”
Co Loa Citadel - “Koe-Lwa”
Ba Dinh Square - “Baa-Ding”
Hoa Lu - “Hwa-Lou”
Van Mieu - “Vun Mee-oooh”
Ngoc Son - don’t bother