The Tongan alphabet has the following letters: a, e, f, h, i, k, l, m, n, ng, o, p, s, t, u, v, as well as the glottal stop, called fakau‘a and written as an apostrophe (‘).
Letter Pronounced a as in father e as in met f as in fine h as in horse i as in machine k as in king l as in look m as in man n as in neat ng as in singer (not as in finger) o as in hope p as in pig s as in same t as in time u as oo in boot (not u as in unit) v as in visit ‘ (fakau‘a) similar to the catch or break in "uh-oh"
Names of the Tongan letters: all vowels say their own name (basically, the same as in Spanish). The name of each consonant (except for the fakau‘a, of course) is its sound, followed by the Tongan a: fa, ha, ka, and so on.
Tongan vowels are either long or short. If a vowel is long, it should be written with a line above it (called a macron in English or a toloi in Tongan): ā. Many times, however, this line is either omitted, or, since many word processors lack a macron, a dieresis (two dots above the letter) is used instead: ä.
Syllables: A syllable may have, at most, two sounds. If it does, the first sound must be a consonant or fakau'a. The last sound of a syllable must be a vowel. If the syllable has only one sound, it must be a vowel. No word or syllable may end in a consonant. Also, consonant combinations are not permitted. The number of syllables that a word has is equal to the number of vowels in it.
The ng sound can only occur at the beginning of a word or syllable. It is considered one sound.
Accentuation: Normally, the next-to-last syllable is accented; however, if the last syllable is long, it is accented instead. If all of the syllables in a word have long vowels, all are stressed equally. Furthermore, in speech, the last syllable of a word or phrase is often accented to give it definite stress. This is called the definitive accent. If the last syllable is already long, the vowel is simply doubled to give it the definitive accent. Finally, there is some dialectal variation among speakers of Tongan regarding accentuation. Speakers from Vava‘u, for example, are more likely to end a phrase by stressing a normally unstressed syllable.