Prepositions in Vietnamese

There are a lot of prepositions !!  I’ll just list some of them and update more later…

1/ Prepositions of time:
* vào : used to point to a definite time. It looks like a powerful word, can be used in every cases of time (e.g. hour, day, date, month, year…)

Ex:
- Tôi có một bài kiểm tra vào thứ 3.
(I have an exam on Thursday)
- Tôi có cuộc họp vào 5 giờ.
(I have a convention at 5).

* lúc : used to point to a definite time only in hour

Ex:
- Tôi có một cuộc họp lúc 5 giờ.
(I have a convention at 5)
- Anh đã đang làm cái gì lúc 4 giờ chiều hôm nay?
(What were you doing at 4pm today?)

> sometime you can also hear “lúc sáng / lúc trưa / lúc chiều” (at morning / at noon / at everning). It’s the same as “vào buổi sáng / vào buổi trưa / vào buổi chiều” (in the morning / in the afternoon / in the evening)

* trong : used to point to a period of time.

Ex:
- Anh phải nộp cho tôi bảng báo cáo chi tiết trong hôm nay.
(You have to give me the detailed report in today)

- Chúng ta đã đạt được nhiều thành tựu trong năm 2008.
(We‘ve got a lot of achievements in 2008)

* trước = before.  Ex: Cô ta đã đi trước bữa sáng (She left before breakfast)

* sau = after

* kể từ khi = since.

* cho tới khi = until. Ex: đừng đi đâu cho tới khi tôi đến ! (don’t go anywhere until I come)

* suốt / suốt cả = during. Trời mưa suốt cả ngày hôm nay. (It rains during today)

2/ Prepositions of place:
* tại: used to point to a definite place. It’s usually used to stress for the sentence. In my opiniton, “tại” = “at”. Sometime we can omit it for short.
Ex: Lúc này tôi đang ở tại Sài Gòn. (at this time I‘m staying at Saigon)

* trên = on, above. Ex: Cuốn sách ở trên bàn (The book on the table)
* dưới = under, below.
* trong = in (inside)
* ngoài = out (outside)
* trước = in front of
* sau = behind
* cạnh/bên cạnh = beside, next to
* gần = near, nearby

3/ The other prepositions:
* để : to (do something). Ex: Tôi viết bài này để giúp bạn (I write this lesson to help you)
* tới / đến : (go) to. Ex: Tôi đang đi tới trường (I’m going to school)
* từ : from. Ex: Bạn từ đâu đến? (You’re from where come? Where are you from?)
* của : of, belong to. Ex: Tên của tôi là Chung (Name of me is Chung)
* cho : for, give something to someone. Ex: Bông hoa này là dành cho em (This flower is for you).
* khoảng : about, around. Ex: Chúng ta sẽ gặp nhau vào khoảng 5h chiều nay (We will meet each other at about 5h pm today)

* conjunctions:

* như : as. Ex: Như anh mô tả, cô ta đẹp như tiên (as you described, she’s as beautiful as fairy)
* với : with. Ex: Hôm qua, tôi đã đi chơi sở thú với Lan. (yesterday, I came with Lan to the zoo)
* và : and
* hoặc : or

Bài 9: Asking time & date – Hỏi giờ & ngày

Today, I’m going to tell you about the ways of asking time & day in Vietnamese. But first, make sure that you’ve read and gotten the lesson 4, expressing about Vietnamese numbers.

Okay, let’s continue.

1/ Asking & telling time: There are two common sentences Vietnamese uses to ask time:

- Bây giờ là mấy giờ?

- Bây giờ mấy giờ rồi? or simpler “mấy giờ rồi?”

For explaination:
“bây giờ” means “now”.
“mấy” means “what” . In some other situations, it means “how many” or used to express a large number of something.
“giờ” means “hour”.
“rồi” means “already”.

Note: sometime you can hear some prefix words, such as “cho hỏi”, “vui lòng cho hỏi”, “làm ơn cho hỏi”. It means “please allow me to ask”, used to be more polite

That’s the ways to ask time … to tell time there are two ways

* Informal way: very easy, you just need tell the numbers. For examples:
- 2h00 : hai giờ (two hour)
- 3h15 : ba giờ mười lăm (three hour fifteen)
- 4h40 : bốn giờ bốn mươi (four hour forty)

* Formal way: This is the way a child learn to tell time. It is also used very common. There are 4 cases:

- The minute equals 0: in English, we call “[hour] o’clock” but in Vietnamese, we call “[hour] giờ đúng”. “Đúng” means “correct”, not more than and not less than.
For example: 2h00 = hai giờ đúng (two hour correct)

- The minute from 1 to 29: in English we call “[minute] past [hour]” but in Vietnamesse we call “[hour] giờ [minute] phút”.
For example: 4h17 = bốn giờ mười bảy phút (four hour seventeen minute)

- The minute equals 30: in English we call “half past [hour]“, but in Vietnamese we call “[hour] giờ rưỡi”.
For example: 3h30 = ba giờ rưỡi (three hour half)

- The minute more than 30 (from 31 to 59): in English we call “[60-minute] to [hour+1]“, but in Vietnamese we call “[hour+1] giờ kém [60-minute] phút”.
For example: 7h45 = tám giờ kém mười lăm phút (eight hour less fifteen minute).

Note: sometime we can omit the word “phút” (means “minute”) at the end for short.

To add more information about AM / PM, we add the word such as “sáng” for morning, “trưa” for afternoon, “chiều” for evening, “tối” for night at the end of sentence. Examples: 7h30 pm = 7 giờ ruỡi tối; 12h pm = 12 giờ trưa

2/ Asking & telling day in week: In Vietnam, we call the day in week is “thứ”. So, to ask about “thứ” we say: [date] là thứ mấy?

For examples:
Hôm nay là thứ mấy?
Today is day what?

Ngày mai là thứ mấy?
Tomorrow is day what?

Ngày 7 tháng 3 là thứ mấy?
date 7 month 3 is day what?

to reply the question, we say “[date] là [day in week]“

For examples:
Hôm nay là thứ 2
Today is Monday

Ngày mai là thứ 3
Tomorrow is Thursday

7/3 là Chủ Nhật
7/3 is Sunday

Look at back the lesson 4 to know more about “thứ”

3/ Asking & telling date:

to ask what [date] is today, we say “Hôm nay là ngày mấy?” or sometime you can hear “Hôm nay là ngày bao nhiêu?” means “Today is date what?”

to reply, we say “Hôm nay là ngày [date]“. For example: hôm nay là ngày 7/3

Note:
- You can replace the word “Hôm nay (today)” to “Hôm qua (yesterday)” or “Ngày mai (tomorrow)” depend on what date you want to ask
- Sometime you can hear such as “Thứ 2 là ngày mấy?” means “Monday is date what?” to ask about date of day.

That’s it for today. So “Hôm nay là ngày mấy? & Bây giờ là mấy giờ?”

Bài 8: Some of the Vietnamese grammar points

1/ Unlike English, in Vietnamese the noun or the adjective which modifies for the main noun will be put after the main noun.

Ex 1:
This beautiful girl is my wife
translated into vietnamese will be:
cô gái xinh đẹp này là vợ (của) tôi

Ex 2:
This is a good Vietnamese grammar point
translated into vietnamese:
Đây là một điểm văn phạm Tiếng Việt hay

2/ Tenses in Vietnamese: Although in Vietnamese we don’t have the things called “Tenses” like English but there are some words we can use in a sentence to make people understand clearer which time we are mentioning to.

- future tenses: sẽ (will/shall)
- near future tenses: sắp (be going to/ be about to)
- past tenses: đã (can be omitted for short if we knew the time mentioned already)
- continuous tenses: đang

Ex 1:
tôi (I) [sẽ/sắp/đang/đã]     đi (go)

Ex 2 :
A: What were you doing when I called you yesterday?
B: I was playing game on PC

translated

A: Bạn đang làm gì khi tôi gọi bạn hôm qua?
B: Tôi đang chơi game trên PC

3/ Conditional sentence: in the same with English we have “if… then… “, in Vietnamese we have “nếu… thì….”

Ex:
If you don’t love me then I will kill you ;P
translated:
Nếu em không yêu anh thì anh sẽ giết em

* Note: the word “thì” sometime can be omitted for short

Just a clip

I think the biggest difficulty in learning Vietnamese is speaking. When you learn a new word, you need to pronounce the word exactly but you can’t, so you usually prefer to pronounce it by your way, okay you got the word, you can write some sentences using that word but I’m sure that you can’t listen and speak it well, worse than you feel bored and want to give up. Hmm, I can imagine that… So what should you do?  why don’t you try to learn as these Vietnamese children? start with pronouncing perfect the letters

Học Tiếng Việt – VOV – Bài 1

common sentences #1

Some of the common sentences in Vietnamese

Click on >this link< to hear some with sound (need flash plugin installed)

Learn & Enjoy

A funny story – Một câu chuyện vui

A Medical Problem

An old woman came into her doctor’s office and confessed to an embarrassing problem. “I fart all the time, Doctor Johnson, but they’re soundless, and they have no odor. In fact, since I’ve been here, I’ve farted no less than twenty times. What can I do?”

“Here’s a prescription, Mrs. Harris. Take these pills three times a day for seven days and come back and see me in a week.”

Next week an upset Mrs. Harris marched into Dr. Johnson’s office. “Doctor, I don’t know what was in those pills, but the problem is worse! I’m farting just as much, but now they smell terrible! What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Calm down, Mrs. Harris,” said the doctor soothingly. “Now that we’ve fixed your sinuses, we’ll work on your hearing!!!”

Translated into Vietnamese:

Một vấn đề y khoa

Một người phụ nữ  già đi vào văn phòng bác sĩ của bà ta và thú nhận một vấn đề tế nhị. “Tôi xì hơi suốt, thưa bác sĩ Johnson, nhưng chúng không phát ra tiếng và cũng không có mùi. Thật vậy, kể từ khi tôi ở đây, tôi đã xì hơi không dưới hai mươi lần. Tôi phải làm gì đây?”

“Đây là toa thuốc, bà Harris. Hãy uống những viên thuốc này ba lần một ngày trong vòng bảy ngày và quay trở lại và gặp tôi sau một tuần”

Tuần sau đó, bà Harris bối rối bước vào văn phòng Bs.Johnson. “Bác sĩ, tôi không biết có gì trong những viên thuốc đó, nhưng vấn đề ngày càng tệ hơn! Tôi xì hơi vẫn nhiều như vậy, nhưng bây giờ chúng có mùi kinh khủng! Ông phải giải thích sao đây?”

“Bình tĩnh lại, Bà.Harris,” vị bác sĩ nói trấn an. “chúng tôi đã chữa xong các xoang mũi của bà, bây giờ chúng tôi sẽ chữa tiếp về khả năng nghe”

Is that funny?

Well, let’s take a look on this story to find out some of stuff we’ve learned in previous lessons.

About personal pronouns: can you see some in my translation? “tôi”, “chúng”, “chúng tôi”, “ông”, “bà”…

Here, I express some meaning of expressions that used in the story

“suốt” = all the time
“bình tĩnh lại” = calm down
“thực vậy” = in fact
“kể từ khi” = since
“không dưới” = no less than

And there is a grammar point I’d like to tell you: if  in English  adjective stand in front of noun then in Vietnamese adjective is put behind noun

Ex:

an old woman ~~> một người phụ nữ già

a medical problem ~~> một vấn đề y khoa

an upset Mrs.Harris ~~> Bà Harris bối rối

Bài 7: Personal Pronouns – Các đại từ định danh

Pronoun: Đại từ

is a word or a group of words that’s used to point at an object that want to mention

Personal Pronouns: Đại từ danh xưng

In Vietnamese, there are many personal pronouns you have to use suitable to every different contexts.

Here I just list for you some of base personal pronouns:

* 1st personal pronoun:

- singular: Tôi (only me)

- plural: Chúng tôi (both me and someone else – not you in it), chúng ta (both me and someone else – both you)

* 2nd personal pronoun:

- singular: Bạn (only you)

- plural: Các bạn (both you and someone else – not me in it)

* 3rd personal pronoun:

- singular: anh ấy (male person), cô ấy (female person), nó (a person you don’t need to be polite / a thing)

- plural: họ (people), chúng/chúng nó (someone or something you dont need to be polite)

Note: the words “chúng/các…” are used to express a large of objects

Express an object base on age distance:

In Vietnam, expressing an object base on age distance is very common in daily conversations. Beside the meaning is expressing an object, it also present the age group and the respect for the object

This table will help you understand more:

Express an object via the name:

In Vietnam, we can call name of object, it help to increase the intimate

As I said, there are a lot of personal pronouns in Vietnamese, I’ll explain to you at another time

Bài 6: Simple word & Complex word – Từ đơn & Từ ghép

First, I’ll teach you some Vietnamese words which I use for this post

- word: từ  (a Vietnamese word has only a syllable)

- simple: đơn/đơn giản

- complex: phức/phức tạp

- Adjective: Tính từ

- Noun: Danh từ

- Verb: Động từ

- Adverb: Trạng từ

- Sentence: câu

- Phrase: nhóm từ/cụm từ

* Từ đơn: is a word with only a syllable. Ex: cá (fish), tôm, quạt (fan) …

* Từ phức/Từ ghép: is a goup words combined with each other to be able to have meaning. Almost complex words are noun. Ex: đồng hồ (clock), căn tin (canteen), cánh đồng (field) …

I am standing on a field -> Tôi đang đứng trên 1 cánh đồng

I am playing tennis -> Tôi đang chơi quần vợt

“tennis” is a noun -> “quần vợt” là 1 danh từ

If you want to ask me how to discriminate which word is “Từ đơn” and which word is “Từ phức” in a sentence, I can tell you that you have to learn closely vocabularies first

That’s it. See you in next lesson “personal pronouns”

Bài 5: How to type Vietnamese ? – Làm sao gõ Tiếng Việt?

Because Windows doesn’t support the easy way to type Vietnamese, so we have to use a software to do that. Its name is Unikey. Bellow is its description:

UniKey is a very small and easy-to-use Vietnamese keyboard for Windows.
UniKey is free and open-source. You can freely use UniKey under the terms of The GNU General Public License. See screenshots of UniKey.

UniKey supports:

Many character sets/encodings:

• TCVN3 (ABC), VN Unicode, VIQR
• VNI, VPS, VISCII
• BK HCM1, BK HCM2, Vietware-X, Vietware-F.
• Unicode UTF-8, Unicode NCR Decimal/Hexadecimal – for Web editors.

All 3 popular input methods: TELEX, VNI and VIQR.

All Win32 platforms: Windows 9x/ME, Windows NT/2000/XP.

UniKey is very small (~ 120 KB), does not need any additional library.

No installation is required.

Ok, you need a link to download this soft, here you are >HIT ME NOW<

Well, you have the soft. Just spent a little bit time to install it and run…

Make sure the program work well, compare with this image

If you dont see [V] symbol, press Ctrl+Shift once to change it to Vietnamese typing mode

What continue? Ah, you need to learn the way to type Vietnamese by Telex: This is tutorial for you >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tele….

This task might be very hard but be glad, even Vietnamese native feel it’s hard, not only you lol

Good luck and enjoy learning Vietnamese

Bài 4: Vietnamese Numbers – Số trong Tiếng Việt

The way to pronouce numbers in Vietnamese you can learn at this page http://www.languageguide.org/im/num/vi/

Here, I just want to tell you some points you need to know

1/ The native always prefer to omit some words in reading for short. For example: the right way to read “21″ is “hai mươi mốt”, but sometime you can hear they say “hai mốt”. So, dont be confused, you should get it and say like that.

2/ The numbers such as 15, 21, 25, 31, 35, 41…, 95 will be pronounced like this way: mười lăm, hai mốt, hai lăm, ba mốt, ba lăm
… dont pronounce mười năm, hai một, hai năm, ba một, ba năm…

Why is it? I dont know, but the native like to use like that

3/ Unlike English or other languages, Vietnamese people prefers to number for everything such as days in a week, months in a year, every 3 months in a year.

* days in week: thứ 2, thứ 3, thứ 4, thứ 5, thứ 6, thứ 7, chủ nhật (sunday)

* months in year: tháng 1/tháng giêng, tháng 2, tháng 3, …, tháng 11, tháng 12/tháng chạp

* every 3 months in a year: quí 1 (1->3), quí 2 (4->6), quí 3 (7->9), quí 4 (10->12)

but the native doesnt number for seasons in year, we call spring is “mùa xuân”, summer is “mùa hạ/mùa hè”, autumn is “mùa thu”, winter is “mùa đông”

As usual, I’ll attach some clips for you to learn more in bellow