How to pronounce pho

Short answer: say FUH (/fʌ/), like the start of fun. It's the first pronunciation in Merriam-Webster and the closest English version of the Vietnamese phở. Cambridge, Oxford and Collins give the British version as "fur" without the R (/fɜː/). FOH, rhyming with go, is also common in the US and some dictionaries list it, so it isn't wrong, but Vietnamese speakers say something much closer to "fuh".

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Is pho pronounced FUH or FOH?

Dictionaries don't fully agree on the pho pronunciation, which is why the question keeps coming up:

So "foe" is in the dictionaries, and plenty of people say it. Among them is the Vietnamese-Canadian playwright Nam Nguyen, who has written that he mostly says "foh" and sees it as a valid variant of the word in the diaspora. Still, if you want the version that's closest to the original, say FUH.

Why is pho pronounced "fuh"?

The Vietnamese spelling phở carries three clues that disappear in English:

• ph is an F. In Vietnamese, ph is always an F sound, as it is in English phone.
• ơ is an "uh" sound. The small hook on the o (called a horn) turns it into a vowel English doesn't have: unrounded, close to the vowel in fun. A plain o would sound more like "aw".
• The mark above the letter is a tone. It's the hỏi tone: in northern Vietnamese the pitch falls, and in the south it dips and then rises.

English spelling dropped the horn and the tone mark, and pho started to look like foe. In Vietnamese, pho without the marks is actually a different word, meaning "set".

Where the word itself comes from is still debated. One theory links it to the French feu ("fire") in pot-au-feu, a beef stew; another traces it to the Chinese word for rice noodles, 粉 (fěn in Mandarin, fan in Cantonese). Several dictionaries mark the French link as "perhaps", and Wiktionary calls it a folk etymology. The word first appeared in English print in 1935.

How to say pho step by step

1. Start with an F, top teeth lightly on the lower lip.
2. Add a short "uh", as in fun or cup. Keep your lips relaxed, not rounded: rounding them turns it into "foe".
3. For a Vietnamese touch, add the tone: let your voice drop a little, and in the southern style rise again at the end, almost like a question: "fuh?"

Don't add an R. Even the British "fur" version has no R sound, just a longer vowel.

Practice in a sentence

• Two bowls of pho, please: one beef, one chicken.
• Is it FUH or FOH? Most Vietnamese speakers would say FUH.
• Pho tastes different in Hanoi and in Saigon.

Then try other Vietnamese words English speakers use. Pronunciations from the Cambridge Dictionary and Wiktionary:

Another Vietnamese name that English speakers find tricky is Nguyen. For more food words that trip people up, see how to pronounce lychee, gyro, açaí and gnocchi, or our list of 45 commonly mispronounced words.

What is pho?

Pho is a Vietnamese soup of clear broth, flat rice noodles, herbs and meat, usually beef (phở bò) or chicken (phở gà). It appeared in northern Vietnam in the early 20th century, spread to the south after 1954, and traveled around the world with Vietnamese refugees. Northern, Hanoi-style pho has a clear, savory broth with few garnishes; southern, Saigon-style pho is sweeter and comes with bean sprouts, hoisin sauce and more herbs.

Sources

• Merriam-Webster — pho; Cambridge Dictionary — pho; Oxford Learner's Dictionaries — pho
• Dictionary.com — pho; Collins — pho
• American Heritage Dictionary — pho; Wiktionary — pho and phở
• Wikipedia — Pho and Vietnamese phonology
• Intermission Magazine — Nam Nguyen on pronouncing pho, July 2022