Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the criticaltonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
Theonsetconsonant/p/ does not occur innativeVietnamesephonology, and every word containing it is aloanword. Most Vietnamese people, especially southerners, find difficulty in differentiating it from/ɓ/, as they cannot articulate/p/. There are some ways to tell the two apart, or to tell the lettersb andp apart, including using expressions likebê bò(literally“b as inbò”) andbê phở(literally“p as inphở”).
