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Lesson Transcript

Xin chào, tôi là Giang. Hi everybody! I’m Giang.
Welcome to VietnamesePod101.com’s “3 phút học tiếng Việt”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Vietnamese.
In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "Who" questions in Vietnamese.
This time, we are going to ask "Why" questions.
You’re late for a meeting and your boss gets angry, he may ask you Vì sao anh đến muộn? “Why did you arrive late?”
So let’s break down this question.
First we have-
Vì sao, which is the basic translation of "Why" in Vietnamese.
Anh means “you”, and is a polite way to address a man at the workplace. To address a woman, the pronoun will be cô or chị.
đến means “to come” as we already learned.
muộn means “late”
Altogether, we have Vì sao anh đến muộn?
So in Vietnamese, vì sao is the exact translation of "Why", used to ask the reason for something.
Like “why” in English, vì sao also comes at the beginning of the question, followed by the subject and the verb.
"Why” can also be translated as tại sao. It is basically the same as vì sao in both meaning and usage. You can use them interchangeably.
For example, a Vietnamese person may ask you “Why are you learning Vietnamese?”
Vì sao bạn học tiếng Việt?
Or
Tại sao bạn học tiếng Việt?
học means “to study or to learn”
tiếng Việt means “Vietnamese language”
Now it’s time for Giang’s Insights.
If you want to ask someone why he or she doesn’t or didn’t do something, simply add không, which means “not or no” before the main verb. For example, your colleague is not feeling well but still manages to go to work. You may worry about her and ask Tại sao chị không nghỉ làm? which means “Why don’t you take a day off work?” Nghỉ làm means “take a day off work”
This lesson is the last lesson of this Absolute Beginner video series.
But it’s hopefully not the last you learn about the Vietnamese language! To take your language ability to the next level, check out VietnamesePod101.com, the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Vietnamese.
Tạm biệt!

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