Vietnamese Verbs

Learning Vietnamese verbs is essential for mastering the language. In order to form a complete sentence, you’ll need to add in the correct verb. Not only that, you will also need to understand how to use verbs in the correct context so that it conveys the meaning you are trying to get across to listeners. Learning how to use verbs correctly will also ensure that you develop your reading and comprehension skills when it comes to the Vietnamese Language.

In Western languages, verbs are conjugated in order to express when something happens. For instance, “I am running” would be changed to “I ran” in order to express that the event happened in the past. Vietnamese does not change the ending of verbs in order express when something happens. In other words, Vietnamese verbs are not conjugated. Instead, verbs in Vietnamese depend on the context of a sentence in order to express tense. This makes learning verbs in Vietnamese much easier!

Let’s use an example to gain a better understanding of how Vietnamese verbs are used.

To express “I wrote” in Vietnamese, you would say, “Tôi đã viết.”

To express “he wrote” in Vietnamese, you would say “ông ta đã viết.”

“We wrote” would be “chúng tôi đã viết.”

“I will write” is “Tôi sě viết.”

As you can, even though the verb is changed in English to convey different tenses, the same verb in Vietnamese remains the same no matter how it is used. What changes the tense of the sentence are the words used around the verb. Consider the following example to better understand this:

Present tense: I study - Tôi hoc

Present progressive tense (đang is put in front of the verb): I am studying - Tôi đang hoc

Past tense (đã is put in front of the verb): He already studied - Anh đã hoc

(You can also put rôi at the end of the sentence instead, or in addition to đã in front of the verb)

Future tense (sẽ is put in front of the verb): He will study - Anh sẽ hoc

Learning the fundamentals of Vietnamese verbs, unlike in other many other languages, is a fairly simple process. Improving your Vietnamese Language skills will become much easier when you learn the grammar of the language and build your vocabulary along with your understanding of common verbs. Doing so will allow you to quickly advance to higher levels of the Vietnamese Language so that you can enjoy your visit to the beautiful country of Vietnam or simply take pleasure in learning a second language!