Hello vietnam

When you arrive in Việt Nam, as the native sầu speakers of Vietnamese Gọi it, the first thing you"ll want to vị is greet your new hosts. That means knowing how lớn say all the basic pleasantries such as “hello”, “nice lớn meet you”, & “how are you?”

On the surface, Vietnamese greetings are actually a pretty simple topic. There aren"t a lot of different ways to say “hello” in Vietnamese.

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What complicates things is that, in order to lớn know how lớn say “hello” in Vietnamese correctly, you often need to include the right pronoun (he/she/you) – và in Vietnamese, there are a lot of potential pronouns to choose from.

In this article, I"ll teach you all the basic Vietnamese words you need to know lớn successfully greet people và exchange niceties. I"ll also cover the basics of Vietnam"s pronoun system, as it"s essential for Vietnamese greetings and much else.

Let"s start with the most basic Vietnamese greeting that every textbook will teach you first:

“Hello” in Vietnamese – Xin chào

Xin chào is the safest, most polite way of saying “hello” in Vietnamese. You can use it to greet anybody.

It"s easy to lớn rethành viên because chào sounds just lượt thích the Italian greeting “ciao”, which is often used in English. The accent on chào tells you that it"s pronounced using the “falling tone”. (A full explanation of Vietnamese tones is beyond the scope of this article.)

With chào in our arsenal, it"s time khổng lồ take a brief detour inkhổng lồ the bizarre world of Vietnamese pronouns.

Vietnamese Pronouns – a Basic Introduction

One of the strangest things about Vietnamese is that it doesn"t really have sầu a word for “you”. Yes, really. You"d think that this is quite an important word to have, but somehow the Vietnamese manage without it.

Instead, you address people (and refer khổng lồ yourself) using familial words lượt thích “uncle”, “brother”, or “grandpa”.

These words aren"t restricted khổng lồ your actual family: you use them with everyone, even a stranger on the street. The specific word to lớn use depends on the age, gender, and social status of the person you’re talking to.

So for example, if I want khổng lồ ask you how you are, and you"re a girl slightly younger than me, I could say em tất cả khỏe không?, where em means “younger sibling”. To an old man, I would instead say ông gồm khỏe không? – “how are you, grandpa?” There are many other words to lớn learn.

Here are a few you should know:

em – “younger sibling”; said to lớn someone slightly younger than youbạn – “friend”; said to someone around the same age as you.anh – “older brother”; said lớn a male slightly older than youchị – “older sister”; said to a female slightly older than youchú – “uncle”; said lớn an adult mancô – “aunt”; said khổng lồ an adult womanông – “grandpa”; said to lớn an elderly man or someone much older than youbà – “grandma”; said to an elderly woman or someone much older than you

Those are just a few of the most common Vietnamese pronouns, and there are a few more dialectal variations.

If this sounds complicated, that"s because it is. But don"t worry too much. Vietnamese people won"t get offended if you use the wrong word. They know that foreigners struggle with this stuff, and calling someone “grandpa” or asking them their age isn"t considered impolite like the way it can be in Western culture.

In fact, if you spend time in Vietnam you"ll notice that Vietnamese people tkết thúc khổng lồ ask you từng nào tuổi? (“how old are you?”) all the time. They don"t mean khổng lồ be rude; this question is extremely common in Vietnam because people need to know how old you are in order khổng lồ know which pronoun khổng lồ use for you.

Another quiông chồng note about pronouns: just as Vietnamese has no real word for “you”, it also has no real word for “I”. Once again, the word you use for “I” depends on who is speaking khổng lồ you; you use the same word for “I” that they use for “you”.

So for example, a young man might say to lớn his girlfriend: anh yêu em (“I love you”), literally “older brother loves younger sibling.” The girlfriend might then say bachồng lớn him em yêu thương anh – “younger sibling loves older brother”. Note how anh means “I” in the first sentence but “you” in the second one.

There are some other ways of saying “I”, but we"ll worry about them later.

Here"s another fun fact about Vietnamese pronouns. You know how in English, we typically refer to lớn people by their title and last name in formal situations? For example, in some situations you might be addressed as “Benny”, but in others, you might be called “Mr. Lewis”.

Vietphái nam isn"t lượt thích this, & they don"t really have sầu “titles” in the same way we"d think of them in English. In fact, Vietnamese people don"t really use each other"s family names at all.

Like in many Asian cultures, Vietnamese names put the family name first và the given name last. So what Westerners Call a “last name” is actually a “first name”, if you catch my drift. For the avoidance of doubt, I’ll refer to “family names” và “given names” instead of “first” and “last”.

So, if someone"s given name is “Hiển”, others might refer khổng lồ him as “Anh Hiển” – brother Hiển. This is roughly analogous lớn calling someone “Mr. (Family name)” in English.

I’ve only scratched the surface. The topic of Vietnamese pronouns goes much deeper. But the above sầu should be enough to get started. Let"s get bachồng to lớn chào và the question of how to lớn say “hi” in Vietnamese.

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“Hello” in Vietnamese Chào bạn/anh/chị

In general, xin chào can sound more formal than necessary. It"s more casual to say chào followed by the appropriate pronoun, e.g.:

kính chào bạn – “hello (person same age as me)”chào anh – “hello (young man, boy slightly older than me)”kính chào chị – “hello (young woman, girl older than me)”

If you want to greet a group of people, you can say chào những bạn – “hello all (my) friends”.

By the way, if you"re not sure what all those weird accent marks mean on or under words like chị, or why Vietnamese sometimes has twố ằccents ọn the sẩme letter, you need to go baông chồng & learn the Vietnamese alphabet. While Vietnamese is difficult to lớn pronounce, the writing system is actually fairly easy to lớn learn. I’ll be publishing an article soon explaining how to lớn read the Vietnamese alphabet.

“Good Morning”, “Good Afternoon” & “Good Evening” in Vietnamese

If your brain needs a break from juggling all these pronouns, you might want to lớn play it safe with one of these options:

kính chào buổi sáng means “good morning” in Vietnamesexin chào buổi chiều means “good afternoon” in Vietnamesekính chào buổi tối means “good evening” in Vietnamese

These greetings aren"t as commonly used as a simple kính chào bạn, but they"re still something you should know.

“Hello” (on the phone) in Vietnamese – Á-lô

I can only assume the Vietnamese got this one from the French. When you answer the phone in Vietnamese, you don"t say chào but á-lô, just lượt thích how in Portuguese you say alô & in French you say allô, all of which are of course derived originally from the English “hello”?

Á-lô is also the kind of thing you might say if the line is patchy và you"re not sure if the other person is there. Á-lô, can you hear me?

“Hey!” in Vietnamese – Ơi

Ơi sounds uncomfortably lượt thích the British “oi!”, which would be a rude way to address a stranger in English.

But in Vietphái nam, ơi is an extremely common và perfectly polite way khổng lồ get someone"s attention – on the street, in a shop, across the dinner table, or anywhere.

You"d usually preface it with the correct pronoun. For example, you might say anh ơi! khổng lồ beckon the (male) waiter over in a restaurant.

You can also use ơi with someone"s given name. So when Anh Hiển walks inlớn the room, try getting his attention with a Hiển ơi!

“How are you?” in Vietnamese – Khỏe không?

In Vietnamese, to lớn ask someone how they are, what you’re really asking is if they"re khỏe – “healthy”.

So “how are you?” is khỏe mạnh không? (“are you healthy?”).

You can also use a slightly longer sentence with a pronoun. For example, you could ask an elderly man ông tất cả khỏe mạnh không? (“are you (grandpa) healthy?”).

Vietnamese has no exact word for “yes”, so in order khổng lồ reply to a question in the affirmative sầu, you simply repeat the word from the question. So the positive sầu response to khỏe không? is just khỏe! (“(I"m) healthy.”).

Không by itself just means “no”, so if “grandpa” is not feeling good, the conversation might look like this:

Ông có khỏe mạnh không?Không!

“What’s your name?” in Vietnamese – Tên của công ty là gì? / Quý khách hàng thương hiệu gì?

An important early step when getting lớn know someone is learning their name! “Name” in Vietnamese is tên, và lớn ask for it say thương hiệu của chúng ta là gì? (“name of frikết thúc is what?”), or the simpler bạn tên gì?

As I hope you"ve figured out by now, you"ll need to replace bạn in the above examples with the appropriate pronoun for whom you"re talking lớn. So you might instead ask thương hiệu của cô là gì? or bà thương hiệu gì?

Once you và your conversation partner know each other"s names, it might be time to drop this pronoun malarkey altogether. It"s common in Vietnamese to refer to yourself và others in the third person, even when it would sound strange to lớn bởi so in English.

Phưc: Phưc là ngừơi Việt. George là ngừơi Mỹ, đề nghị không?George: Không phãi, George là ngừơi Anh.

Translation:

Phưc: Phưc is Vietnamese. Is George American?George: No, George is English.

This style of speech sounds weird lớn an English speaker, but in Vietnam giới it"s considered friendly & respectful. Plus it means you can take a break from worrying about which pronoun to lớn use.

“Nice lớn Meet You” in Vietnamese – Rất vui được gặp mặt bạn

After greeting someone, and learning their name (& age), the next thing you might want to do is say rất vui được gặp mặt bạn. This means “nice lớn meet you!”

Once again, replace bạn with the right pronoun.

“Goodbye” in Vietnamese: Tạm biệt / Hẹn chạm chán lại

We"ve covered how to lớn say “hello”, but what if you want to lớn say “goodbye” in Vietnamese? The most important phrase to know here is nhất thời biệt, which means, well, “goodbye”!

Another phrase you might say hẹn gặp gỡ lại, which literally means “(I) hope (we) meet again!”

More Ways to Say “I” in Vietnamese

Since knowledge of Vietnamese pronouns is so essential to lớn a knowledge of Vietnamese greetings, I feel it"s helpful to lớn kết thúc on another quick pronoun-related point.

A ubiquitous pronoun that you absolutely must know is tôi, pronounced “toy”. Most “learn Vietnamese” books will tell you that this word means “I”, although its literal meaning is something more lượt thích “servant”.

As you speak with Vietnamese people, however, you"ll quickly learn that tôi is considered a bit too formal for everyday speech. Really, you should refer to yourself as em/anh/chi etc. as described above sầu.

Tôi is the kind of word you use in abstract situations with no specific audience, e.g. writing a newspaper article or addressing a camera.

It"s also a word you could use in a crowd if you want lớn be absolutely clear that you"re talking about yourself và not, say, someone else in the room who could conceivably be an em.

của ai? – “whose is this?”của tôi! – “It’s mine!”

But tôi can still show up in greetings. For example, tôi vô cùng vui được gặp mặt anh (“I"m very pleased to lớn meet you”).

Cảm ơn những bạn for reading! (That means “thank you, friends!”)

What are the other essential words & phrases for when you first meet someone in Vietnamese? Is there anything I"ve sầu missed?

And bởi vì you have any tips for remembering the vast array of Vietnamese pronouns and knowing which ones khổng lồ use? (The pronoun topic is much deeper than what I scratched upon here. It really is one of the unusual things about the language.)