Learn about Vietnamese adverbial particles
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are the adverbial particles in Vietnamese? |
| Nguyet: And how are they used? |
| Michael: At VietnamesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation, Mark Lee is a bit worried about his kid's eating habits. He tells his neighbor, Duc Do, |
| "My daughter only ate breakfast yesterday. " |
| Mark Lee: Hôm qua con gái tôi chỉ ăn mỗi bữa sáng. |
| Dialogue |
| Mark Lee: Hôm qua con gái tôi chỉ ăn mỗi bữa sáng. |
| Đức Đỗ: Con bé đang ăn kiêng à? |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark Lee: Hôm qua con gái tôi chỉ ăn mỗi bữa sáng. |
| Michael: "My daughter only ate breakfast yesterday. " |
| Đức Đỗ: Con bé đang ăn kiêng à? |
| Michael: "Is she dieting?" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, we will talk about adverbial particles in Vietnamese, or |
| Nguyet: Tiểu từ trạng từ. |
| Michael: Vietnamese adverbial particles function differently than that of English. In English grammar, adverbial particles are components of verbal phrases that modify the verb in the phrase they are a part of. For instance, in the verbal phrase "shut down," the word "down" functions as an adverbial particle. In Vietnamese, adverbial particles function as focus-sensitive particles that help modify the adverbial in a sentence. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Mark Lee says "My daughter only ate breakfast yesterday?" |
| Nguyet as Mark Lee: Hôm qua con gái tôi chỉ ăn mỗi bữa sáng. |
| Michael: Mark Lee expresses worry because his daughter only ate breakfast the previous day. We know this because he used the adverb "only." In the dialogue, this is represented by the word, |
| Nguyet: chỉ |
| Michael: meaning "just," which functions as the adverbial particle in the sentence. Adverbial particles in Vietnamese usually appear right before the predicate, which includes the verb, which in this case is |
| Nguyet: ăn mỗi bữa sáng, |
| Michael: or "ate breakfast." Notice that, when directly translated to Vietnamese, this phrase would mean, "eat every breakfast." Without the adverbial particle, the indication that Mark's daughter ate nothing yesterday but breakfast is no longer there. Here, we can see that the adverbial particle in the sentence helps emphasize that an action was done exclusively. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned that adverbial particles in Vietnamese function differently from that of the English language. They are usually placed before the predicate and help narrow down the focus on the verb in the sentence. |
| Expansion/Contrast (Optional) |
| Michael: So far, we've covered one common adverbial particle in Vietnamese, which is |
| Nguyet: chỉ, |
| Michael: which could mean "only" or "just." Another common adverbial particle in Vietnamese is |
| Nguyet: thậm chí, |
| Michael: which can be translated to "even" in English. Let's take a look at this sentence: |
| Nguyet: Hôm qua con gái tôi thậm chí ̣ăn bữa tối. |
| Michael: "My daughter even ate dinner yesterday." This time, we have an adverbial particle that expresses surprise. The word is used when the subject in a sentence does something unusual. In this case, it's eating dinner. Remove the adverbial particle, and you are left with a simple declarative sentence—"My daughter ate dinner yesterday." Here's another example: |
| Nguyet: Tôi gần như ngủ gật khi xem bộ phim tài liệu tối qua. |
| Michael: "I almost fell asleep while watching a documentary last night." Here, we have the adverbial particle, |
| Nguyet: gần như. |
| Michael: It stresses the verb "fall" in the sentence. |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: Not all adverbial particles in Vietnamese appear before the verb in a sentence. One example would be the particle, |
| Nguyet: cả, |
| Michael: which means "also" or "both." For instance, if you want to say, "My daughter eats meat, also she eats vegetables" in Vietnamese, that would be, |
| Nguyet: Con gái tôi ăn cả thịt và rau, |
| Michael: with the adverbial phrase positioned right after the verb, |
| Nguyet: ăn |
| Michael: or "eat." Finally, we have the adverbial particle, |
| Nguyet: khoảng. |
| Michael: It's equivalent to the English adverb "about." Let's see how it's used in a sentence: |
| Nguyet: Sau khi về nhà, Lan uống khoảng 2 cốc nước vì cô ấy rất khát nước. |
| Michael: "After Lan came home, she drank about two glasses of water as she was very thirsty." Here, we can see that the adverbial particle stresses the verb for "drink," or |
| Nguyet: uống. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Nguyet: Tạm biệt! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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