Linking Sentences Together Part 1: Conjunctions (và, nhưng, mà, hoặc, hay, cho)

Let’s start with our basic conjunctions. A conjunction is used to link together two separate parts of a sentence. Take some sentences like “the cat and the dog”, “I would like to but, I don’t have the time”, or “I have seen it although, I don’t remember it well”. You can see in all these examples, the bolded conjunctions are used to connect to separate ideas together. Luckily for us, the conjunctions in Vietnamese work exactly the same as in English.

Example Sentence:

Vietnamese: Tôi muốn ngủ nhưng mà phải đi học.

English: I want to play but, (I) have to go to school.

Vietnamese: Anh thích táo hơn cam.

English: He likes apples more than oranges

Here’s a list of some of the more common conjunctions:

Conjunctions
Word (Từ)	Definition (Nghĩa)	Usage Notes
và	And
nhưng	But	All three of these words can be used to say but, it just comes down to personal preference.
mà	But
nhưng mà	But
hoặc	Either / Or
hay	Or
cho	For
mặc dù	Although
thì	Then
nếu	If
hơn	More Than / Than
tại vì	Because
tại	Because	Used casually as shortened form of above
vì	Because	Used casually as shortened form of above

The words “the” and “a” are a very important part of English grammar. However, you will notice that in Vietnamese, there is something that feels a bit off with their translations. You might often see the words “cái” and “con” translated as either “the” or “a”. How is it that these words can be translated both ways?

The words “cái” and “con”, as well as many others in Vietnamese, are known as classifiers. In the same way “the” and “a” are used to call out a single object like “the tree” (cái cây) and “a dog” (con chó), the classifiers do so as well. Where they differ is that while we have the word “the” to say a singular thing is unique and the word “a” to say a singular thing is one of many, the classifiers don’t have that same distinction because whether or not something is unique or one of many doesn’t matter to the language. So really, the classifiers can refer to either “the” or “a“, it just depends on the context.

In Vietnamese, there are 2 common classifiers:

Cái: used for objects that are inanimate or don’t move. Also used if you are unsure of which classifier to use

Examples:

Cái điện thoại - a phone

Cái xe đạp - the bicycle

Con:_ _used for objects that are animate or can move

Examples:

_Con mèo - _a cat

_Con sông - _the river

Using these 2 classifiers, we have covered pretty much most cases for the translation of the word “the” and “a” in Vietnamese. However, while these are the most common, there exists many, many more uncommon classifiers in Vietnamese that are used for much more specific things. Some of these are used frequently and others basically see no use at all. If you don’t know which one to use though, cái is always a safe bet.

Now for reference, here are some of the common classifiers besides cái and con that you will likely see while reading things in Vietnamese.

Common Classifiers
Classifier	Use Case	Example
*quả/trái*	Used when referring to fruits	*Quả táo / Trái táo* (An apple)
*bài*	Used for compositional pieces	*Bài hát* (The song)
*người*	Used for people	*Người ca sĩ* (A singer)
*cây*	Used for stick-like things	*Cây bút chì* (The pencil)
*quyển/cuốn*	Used for books	*Quyển sách / Cuốn sách* (A book)

The word cái also has another purpose in addition to the one we just talked about. The word cái is also used to put focus on classifiers besides itself. So for example instead of just saying something like “quả táo”, you can instead say “cái quả táo” to place more emphasis on it.

Finally, we once again move on to casual speech, which just like before with là and thì, will have native speakers drop the classifiers altogether to make things easier to say and because you can figure out what they mean regardless. Again, I have to emphasize that you should definitely use the classifiers if you are learning or doing official business or writing, but natives will swap in and out between using these words and not using them when talking to each other in a lot of cases.

In addition, a lot of the time, native speakers will begin to pronounce cái with a sound similar to cớ or cí. This is, once again, to make pronunciation easier and has caused a lot of confusion for people trying to learn the language. But once you know this, it's pretty easy to figure out that the short c word in the front of something is just a lazily pronounced cái most of the time.

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.