Vietnamese Classifiers - Perfect Vietnamese Grammar

Learn about classifiers

Lesson Transcript

Want to speak real Vietnamese from your first lesson?

Hey there, it's Ling again.

Welcome back to vietnamespod101.com,

the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Vietnamese.

As you can see, usually I will share with you guys some, like, differences

and common things between English and Vietnamese,

so you guys can have some effective ways to remember.

And today we're going to talk about something similar to that.

If in English, we have some articles like “a”, “an", “the"

to classify some different nouns, different kinds of nouns.

And in Vietnamese, we also have that.

But it's a little bit more complicated because you have to remember more vocabulary.

So today you will learn not only Vietnamese classifiers,

but also some vocabulary that goes with them.

OK, now let's get started.

What are the most common words in Vietnamese?

In Vietnamese, the most common words that can go with most vocabulary,

most nouns in Vietnamese, that is

cái

cái usually we'll use with most nouns, most objects, most things that cannot move.

For example,

cái bàn: the table

cái ghế: the chair

cái quạt: the fan

or cái điều hoà: the air conditioner.

Basically, we can use cái for so many words,

so many things that are everywhere around you.

cái điện thoại

cái bút

cái đèn

cái tủ lạnh

Another word which is also similar to cái,

we can use

chiếc

OK, for example

chiếc bút

chiếc thước kẻ

chiếc bàn

chiếc ghế

But actually chiếc is not as common as cái,

so sometimes it will sound a little bit unnatural when you go with a not suitable noun.

So to be safe, maybe you can use cái for most of the things,

it'll be better and more natural and it'll be highly likely that you are correct.

How about for animals?

We will use

con

OK, for example

con mèo

con chó

con gà

con cá

con chim

con vịt

con vịt, etc.

All kinds of animals, you can use con or all of them, there is no exception.

But there are some special cases, for example,

con người

con người is “a human being” or “people”.

OK, so this is a word, this is a combined word: con người

But also we have con trai and con gái

con trai

con gái

for boys and girls.

con trai, con gái

Also, there is one more special case, which is

con dao

con dao is a knife.

There is no rule, no explanation for this situation.

It's just con dao, con dao.

We don't say cái dao or chiếc dao, OK?

No, con dao.

Alright, now let's talk about people.

If you want to introduce a person who is a husband or a wife or a blah blah blah, anything,

you can use người, người.

Người is also “a person”, người means “person”, or “people”, or “uman”.

For example

người đàn ông

người đàn ông: “a man”

or người phụ nữ

người phụ nữ: “a woman”

người con

người con means “the kid” or “the child”.

người cha

người cha means “the father”

người mẹ

người mẹ means “the mother” or “a mother”.

We don't have any difference between a or the, like in English, we use the same word.

người cha, người mẹ.

or người ông, người bà means “the grandparents”, “the grandfather” and “the grandmother’.

người nông dân

like “the farmer”

người công nhân

người công nhân: “the worker”

So basically we can use người for most words or most nouns, talking about people, like

people in your family or people in your office, or we can use it for jobs as well.

So those are some very common and popular classifiers that you can use with most nouns

in Vietnamese.

But also there are some special cases that we don't use like the common words that I

mentioned above.

So we use, for example, for buildings and some special places, we will use like

ngôi

ok, ngôi

For example

ngôi nhà

ngôi nhà is “a house”

ngôi đền

ngôi đền is “the temple”

ngôi chùa

ngôi chùa is “a pagoda”

ok, so those are three special places that we use

ngôi instead of using chiếc or cái

ok, ngôi

One more word that sounds more formal

We can actually use for some maybe office environment or you can use it at work or we

can use it when you want to show respect for some important people.

So in this case we use

vị

That means something like “Mr”. and “Mrs.”something like that.

In example, we can say

vị giám đốc

vị giám đốc: it’s like “the director”

vị chủ tịch

vị chủ tịch is “the president”

vị phụ huynh

vị phụ huynh means “the parents”, so basically we use vị with some important people

in a formal way and you want to be polite

so instead of saying người chủ tịch

we can say vị chủ tịch

or người giám đốc

we don't say that, it sounds a little bit unnatural we can say vị giám đốc

The last one I want to mention is some things that are always

in pairs, for example

socks, shoes

ears, eyes

hands, feet

legs

then in these situations we will use

đôi

đôi means “tw” but it's like

Vietnamese traditional language

đôi

for example

đôi tất

đôi tất means “a pair of socks”

đôi giày

for shoes

đôi tai

đôi tai means “the ears”

đôi khuyên tai

đôi khuyên tai is “the earrings”

arms

đôi tay

đôi tay means “the arms”

also we have like

đôi mắt

đôi mắt means “the eyes”

Ok, so that's all for today. I hope it helps.

I really enjoy some grammar topics

like that so because of you I have some ideas

and recommendations so please leave

a comment below if you have any new ideas

for the next videos, ok?

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Ling and other hosts

Thank you so much again for watching, see you

in the next one, bye bye

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