How do you pronounce the Vietnamese surname "Nguyen"?

Question

I see the name "Nguyen" frequently and the fact I have no idea how to pronounce annoys me.

Answer 1

Nguyen is pronuonced like "win".  I only know because i used to work for 1-800-flowers.com and that's what they people would say when they would spell their lasts names to us.

Answer 2

Nguyen is pronounced NuhWEN.  Listen to this audio link:

http://inogolo.com/audio/Nguyen_454.mp3

Answer 3

My husbands doctor was Dr. Nguyen.  It IS pronounced "win"

Answer 4

It's pronounced as though the "g" wasn't there.

NU (as in "new" car) and YEN (as in, I have a "yin" for Chinese food tonight.

Answer 5

I have known several Nguyens because I am a Viet Nam era veteran. They have explained it as Noo-yen but it is a single syllable. So Americans say Noo-yen but the Viet Namese say nuin as a single syllable. As strange as it seems I see all of the other answers as correct. If you visit the link from one of the other answers you will hear it pronounced as two syllables and phonetically spelled nuhWEN with the text saying it is a single syllable. So it can be heard as 'win' or nuin. The g is always silent and when made a single syllable the y must also become silent for the American tougue to say it. It becomes win or nwin.

Answer 6

I believe it is "Win"

I had a friend in school and a dentist with that last name.