I&#x27;ve been living here in Vietnam for five years now and read &amp; write Vietnamese pretty well. Written Vietnamese may not be as elegant as Chinese but it&#x27;s very practical and I think it gives the Vietnamese a huge leg up in learning Western languages and dealing with the Western world. For any Westerner, learning to read &amp; write the language is <i>vastly</i> easier than Chinese, Khmer, or Thai. Which is a good thing since mastering the tones is quite difficult.<p>In a lot of casual conversation people don&#x27;t even bother to write the accents and tones out because it&#x27;s a bit of a hassle on a mobile phone, which makes it look even plainer.<p>As another commenter said, the plainness of a lot of everyday written Vietnamese has more to do with utilitarian fonts and poor typography than the language itself.