Vietnamese Typing Test — Free Online WPM Test
Vietnamese is spoken by approximately 95 million people, primarily in Vietnam, with significant diaspora communities in the United States, Australia, France, and Canada. Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet — unlike most Southeast Asian languages — but with an extensive system of diacritical marks and tone markers that make it one of the most orthographically complex languages to type on a standard keyboard. This guide explains the three main Vietnamese input methods (Telex, VNI, and VIQR), explains how the six Vietnamese tones are encoded in each system, covers the UNIKEY input method used by millions of Vietnamese typists, and gives you practical benchmarks and tips for improving your Vietnamese typing speed.
Why Vietnamese Typing Is Uniquely Complex
Vietnamese uses a modified Latin alphabet called Quốc ngữ ("national language script") developed by Portuguese missionaries in the 17th century and standardized under French colonial administration. This alphabet contains 29 letters — 7 more than the basic Latin 26 — with modified letters including ă, â, đ, ê, ô, ơ, and ư. Each vowel can also carry one of six tonal markers, creating a total of up to 12 distinct forms for some vowels.
The six tones of Vietnamese are not optional stylistic markers — they are phonemically distinct. The syllable "ma" means six completely different things depending on its tone: ghost (flat tone), mother (rising), but (falling), tomb (dipping), code/horse (broken rising), or rice seedling (heavy). A Vietnamese sentence with incorrect tones is not merely accented speech — it is a different sequence of words entirely. This means Vietnamese typing accuracy requirements are more demanding than in most other languages.
Vietnamese Input Methods: Telex, VNI, and VIQR
Because a standard keyboard cannot directly type Vietnamese's diacritical marks and tone markers, Vietnamese typists use an input method editor that intercepts keystrokes and converts them to Vietnamese Unicode characters. Three input methods are in common use:
Telex is the most popular method in Vietnam, used by the majority of Vietnamese typists on computers and smartphones. It uses letter-based codes: double letters for diacritics (aa→â, ee→ê, oo→ô, ow→ơ, uw→ư, aw→ă, dd→đ) and mnemonic letter keys for tones. Telex is preferred because the codes are easy to remember and fast to type without leaving the main letter keys.
VNI uses number keys for both tones and some diacritics: 1–5 encode the five non-flat tones, and 6–9 encode the special Vietnamese characters (6=â/ê, 7=ơ/ư, 8=ă, 9=đ). VNI is preferred by typists who find number-key encoding more systematic or who want clear separation between letters and encoding signals.
VIQR (Vietnamese Quoted Readable) is an older ASCII-based encoding developed for email in the era before Unicode was universal. It uses ASCII characters like ^, +, (, ', `, ?, ~, . to encode Vietnamese characters. VIQR is rarely used for new typing today but is still encountered in legacy documents and older software.
The Six Vietnamese Tones
The table below shows all six Vietnamese tones, their diacritical marks, an example word, and how each is encoded in Telex and VNI:
| Tone | Diacritic | Example | Telex Code | VNI Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bằng (flat) | No mark | ma (ghost) | ma | ma |
| Sắc (rising) | Acute accent ́ | má (mother) | mas | ma1 |
| Huyền (falling) | Grave accent ̀ | mà (but) | maf | ma2 |
| Hỏi (dipping) | Hook above ̉ | mả (tomb) | mar | ma3 |
| Ngã (broken) | Tilde ̃ | mã (code/horse) | max | ma4 |
| Nặng (heavy) | Dot below ̣ | mạ (rice seedling) | maj | ma5 |
UNIKEY: The Standard Vietnamese IME for Windows
UNIKEY is a free, open-source Vietnamese input method editor developed by Phạm Kim Long. It is the de facto standard Vietnamese IME for Windows, used by tens of millions of Vietnamese typists worldwide. UNIKEY supports Telex, VNI, VIQR, and several other encoding methods, and outputs Unicode text that is compatible with all modern applications — Word, Excel, browsers, email clients, and messaging apps.
On macOS, Apple's built-in Vietnamese Telex and Vietnamese VNI keyboard inputs are available via System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources. These are sufficient for most Vietnamese typing needs on Mac. On Linux, IBus with the ibus-unikey package provides UNIKEY-equivalent functionality. Google's Vietnamese Input Tools plugin is a browser-based option that works without OS-level installation.
WPM Benchmarks for Vietnamese Typists
Vietnamese typing speed is measured using the same WPM formula as English, applied to Unicode Vietnamese characters. Because each Vietnamese syllable typically requires more keystrokes than a Latin character, Vietnamese WPM is generally lower than equivalent English WPM for the same typist.
| Level | Average Speed | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 10–20 WPM | Learning Telex or VNI encoding |
| Casual user | 20–35 WPM | Comfortable for personal messages |
| Average professional | 35–50 WPM | Standard office speed in Vietnam |
| Fast professional | 50–65 WPM | Admin, journalism, content creation |
| Expert typist | 65+ WPM | Fast Telex/VNI specialist |
How FastTypings Supports Vietnamese
FastTypings has a dedicated Vietnamese page at /vi with Vietnamese-language text passages and an interface localized for Vietnamese readers. The typing engine correctly handles all Vietnamese Unicode characters — including all diacritical combinations and tone marks — measures WPM using the 5-character formula, and works with any Vietnamese input method installed on your operating system.
Whether you use Telex via UNIKEY on Windows, the built-in Vietnamese keyboard on macOS, or ibus-unikey on Linux, FastTypings measures your effective Vietnamese typing throughput — the characters that appear in the text field — giving you an accurate and comparable WPM measurement.