Describing Things (là, thì)
Speaking of adjectives, if I wanted to describe something using an adjective, one of the ways I could do this is by using the word “is”. For example, I might want to say that “The tree is tall” to describe a tall tree. But in Vietnamese, translating the word “is” is a bit more complicated than it may seem at first. The Vietnamese word that translates directly to “is” in English is “là”. Sounds simple at first, right? All you need to do is sub in “is” with “là” and you’re done. But the thing about “là” is that it can only be used when describing one thing as another thing. Or in other words, describing one noun using another noun with some exceptions that we’ll cover later down the line.
To show you this, below is a correct Vietnamese sentence using “là”:
Vietnamese: Chị Hoa là bác sĩ.
English: Hoa is (a) doctor.
And now for an incorrect Vietnamese sentence using là:
Vietnamese: Công viên đó là đẹp.
English: That park is beautiful.
công viên = Park
đó = That
đẹp = Beautiful
While when translated, this makes perfect sense in English, it would not be correct to do in Vietnamese. Rather than using “là” in this scenario, the proper way to word this sentence is by switching out “là”_ _with the word “thì”. This word is normally translated as “then” in English, but in this case it can be translated to the word “is” for anytime you want to describe something with an adjective/descriptive word.
For example:
Vietnamese: Công viên đó thì đẹp.
But before we move on to the next section, let’s end with a bit of an advanced topic: Casual Speech. As a disclaimer, if you're just starting out, don’t worry too much about this part and just stick to using the proper grammar found above. Once you’re comfortable with that, then you can begin using the more casual way of talking.
A lot of times, in casual speech, native speakers will drop the words là and thì altogether. Partially because it makes things easier to say and partially because context clues fill in the gaps so it becomes unnecessary.
For example:
Vietnamese: Công viên đó đẹp.
The meaning remains the same, but without the pesky extra words. Of course, this doesn’t apply to formal speech or writing, but it could be helpful to know when you’re speaking to someone outside of business hours. Be on the lookout for these things because we will be seeing a lot more examples as we move along.
As discussed in the intro, English and Vietnamese have a very similar grammatical structure on a basic level.
Similar to English, Vietnamese follows a Subject-Verb-Object sentence structure. Now what does that mean in English? Let’s break down an example:
_“He opened the door.”_
Subject = He
Verb = opened
Object = the door
Vietnamese: Anh ấy mở cái cửa
English: He opened the door
Anh ấy = He
mở = open
cái cửa = the door
As you can see, the general sentence structure between both languages didn’t change at all.
One thing that is different though, is how adjectives work; the words used to describe things in a language. Let’s take a look at our example again, but this time, let’s say that instead of opening just a door, let’s see him open up a red door.
Vietnamese: Anh Phúc mở cái cửa đỏ.
English: Phúc opened the red door.
đỏ = red
You will notice that instead of the word for red (đỏ) _is behind the word for door (_cửa) instead of in front of it. That’s because in Vietnamese, when you use an adjective to describe something, you always put it behind the thing you are describing. With that out of the way, you now have a basic idea of how to make a sentence in Vietnamese.