Counting in Vietnamese is not as daunting as it seems. Their counting follow a fixed structure (similar to that of Chinese!), and by adhering to the structure, we can confidently count from 1 to 100!

Let's begin by memorising how to count from 1 to 10 so that subsequent numbers will be much easier. The video of the left shows how to count from 1 to 10. Once you've got this down, we just need to add certain words like "mười" for bigger numbers. 

For numbers 11 to 19: mười + [number]

• "Mười một" = 11 

• "Mười hai" = 12 

For numbers 20 to 99: [number] + mười + [number] 

• "Ba mười bốn" = 34 

• "Nâm mười sáu" = 56 

• "Bảy mười" = 70

  • NOTE: if the last digit is 0 (ie 10, 20, 30 etc.), use [number] mười 

FYI, 1 SGD = 19 000 Dong. But when quoting the price, the locals usually omit the last 3 zeros. So it should be sufficient to learn numbers from 1-99

Eg. 74 (bảy mươi bốn) = 74000 dong