Questions from families raising Vietnamese abroad

This is the question we get most, and the honest answer is: start at the lowest reading level and use the English tap. Every speech bubble reads aloud in Vietnamese on one tap and in English on two taps, so a child who understands almost nothing still follows the story. The library is sorted by reading level, not by age, precisely because children born abroad usually read Vietnamese well below their school grade.

Yes, and this is why the audio matters more than the text. You do not have to read anything aloud or correct pronunciation — the app does both. Your job is to sit next to your child and ask what happened in the story. The weekly report comes in English so you can see which words are sticking without reading a word of Vietnamese.

59 USD in US dollars, by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. It is a single payment: there is no subscription, no renewal date and nothing to cancel. You are not charged again, and titles we release later are included.

The Vietnamese site sells the same library for 1,290,000₫, which is about 49 USD at today's rate. The overseas price is roughly 20% higher, and the reason is boring: international card processing costs more than domestic Vietnamese payment, and this side of the product carries English support and English titles. Same model though — you buy it once and keep it.

Reading does. Download a title once and your child can read it with full audio on a plane, in the car, or anywhere the signal is bad — which is most of a flight to Vietnam. Two features do need a connection: pronunciation scoring, because it sends the recording to be checked, and the Penguin tutor.

Vietnamese and English, on every line of every published title. Korean, Japanese and Chinese are being worked on and are not available yet. We list them as coming rather than claiming them, because a child who picks a language and gets an empty page stops trusting the app.

Four profiles on the same account, on phones and tablets. Each child keeps their own progress, their own vocabulary list and their own weekly report, so an older sibling's reading does not skew a younger one's recommendations.

No, and we would not sell it as one. A teacher gives your child other Vietnamese-speaking children to talk to, and nothing in an app replaces that. See·Talk is for the six days between classes, when the books at home are in English and nobody is reading Vietnamese with your child.

Recordings are used to score pronunciation and are kept in the child's own account for the parent to review. We do not sell data and there is no advertising in the app. The company behind See·Talk is Công ty TNHH Thiết Kế Nhanh in Ho Chi Minh City; you can reach a person at lienhe@seetalk.vn.

Class licences start at 12 USD per student per year, invoiced to the school or association, minimum 25 students, and include a teacher dashboard. Write to us and we will send a quote and a trial for one class first.