Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

How’s it going? It’s great to see you guys again and today, I have so many things to share to you. Our topic today is going to be top 25 Vietnamese verbs. Are you ready? Let’s go!
1. là “to be”
First one is là “to be”.
Mẹ tôi là bác sĩ. “My mom is a doctor.”
Anh trai tôi là công an. “My brother is a police officer.”
So here, you will see là means “to be”, but sometimes, you will see that this verb or this word will disappear in a sentence. For example - Bầu trời màu xanh. “The sky is blue.” So it’s very common. Sometimes, not all the time, you will use “to be” verb in a sentence so don’t worry because it’s really common and it’s perfectly normal okay?
So là “to be”.
2. thích “to like”
Thích, okay, so this one, the tone mark is a little bit strong so you have to go up a little bit, thích. It’s very easy for you to use a verb in Vietnamese because actually, we don’t have to conjugate the verb at all, even though in future tense or past tense, you don’t have to conjugate too. We can just put some specific word in front of the verb then it’s going to be fine.
So in present, for example, if you want to say that - Anh ấy thích đọc sách. “He likes reading books.” or if you want to say that “I like swimming.”, then you can just say - Tôi thích bơi lội, okay?
So here, you will see that the verb thích, you can use it for any subject or any pronoun, it’s fine. So easy huh?
3. làm “to do”
So actually làm means “to do”, but also means “to work / working / doing the job”
So in a sentence, you can understand better. Let’s say - Con trai tôi đang làm bài tập về nhà. “My son is doing his homework.”
In another sentence, let’s say - Tôi chuẩn bị đi làm trong một giờ nữa. “I'm going to work in 1 hour.”
So here, làm means “to work”. So don’t forget, làm is “to do / to work”.
4. nói “to say”
Nói means “to say”, but actually here, a nói also means “to speak / to talk”.
In a sentence - Anh ấy đã nói rằng anh ấy bị dị ứng với cá. “He said that he is allergic to fish.”
So here, we used say in the past right, “he said”, but actually in Vietnamese, as I mentioned, we don’t have to conjugate the verb in the past, but we can just put the word đã in front of the verb. That is going to be fine. So here, “said” is đã nói, okay? So nói is “to say”, but đã nói is “already said”, right?
So with another word, talk or to speak for example - Anh ấy đang nói chuyện với bạn gái. So “He's talking to his girlfriend.”
Here, you will see that đang nói so we don’t have to conjugate the verb in a present continuous, but instead, we use đang before or in front of the verb nói. That is going to be fine. So “He is talking to his girlfriend.” Anh ấy đang nói chuyện với bạn gái. So here, nói chuyện is “talking”.
Cô ấy nói tiếng Việt rất tốt. “She speaks Vietnamese very well.” Okay?
So here nói means “to say / to speak / to talk”.
5. giải thích “to explain”
So I don’t think we have another word for the verb explain. I think only giải thích is the most exact one.
So in a sentence - Tôi chưa hiểu rõ. Làm ơn giải thích cho tôi! “I haven't understood clearly. Please explain to me.”
You can say another way, for example - Ý bạn là gì? Giải thích đi. “What do you mean? Explain it.”
So giải thích “to explain”.
6. nghe “to hear”
Okay, so nghe is “to hear”and also means “to listen”. So if you want to say that you can hear something, you can use nghe, but also if you are listening to something, you can use also nghe.
For example - Bác có nghe rõ cháu nói gì không? “Did you hear what I said clearly?”
So here, you will see bác means “uncle”. So in Vietnamese actually, we don’t use I and you all the time, but actually, it depends on who they are, who you’re speaking with, you will have another pronoun or a specific subject for this kind of person. So here, you were talking with an uncle and then you can say - Bác có nghe rõ cháu nói gì không? Bác is “uncle”. “Do you hear clearly what I say?”, something like that.
So with listen, you can also say that “I enjoy listening to the music.” Tôi thích nghe nhạc.
So nghe is “to hear / to listen”.
7. đi “to go”
Okay, so it’s very simple. If you want to say that you’re going somewhere or you want to go to somewhere to do something then you can just say đi.
For example - Ngày mai tôi phải đi đến trường. “I have to go to the school tomorrow.”
If you want to ask someone if they want to hang out with you or if they want to do something, then you can say - Đi xem phim không? “Do you want to go watch a movie?”.
Đi ăn trưa không? “Do you want to go for lunch?
Đi uống bia không? “Do you want to grab a beer?”
Okay, so đi is “to go”.
8. biết “to know”
Okay, so biết has two meanings, first is to know. For example - Chị có biết anh ấy không? “Do you know him?” The second one is an ability to do something or you can do something.
For example - Cô ấy biết nói tiếng Tây Ban Nha. “She can speak Spanish.”
Anh ấy biết nấu ăn. “He can cook very well.”
So here, biết means also “can do something / ability to do something”.
So biết is “to know / can”.
9. lấy “to take”
Okay, I like this one because it has several meanings. So first, lấy is “to take”.
In a sentence - Mỗi người lấy một cái bánh. “Each person takes one bread.”
The second is get married. Lấy means “get married”. For example lấy vợ for a man and lấy chồng for a woman. So when you ask - Bao giờ lấy chồng?, that means “When will you get married?” for a woman, something like that. Bao giờ lấy chồng? Okay?
The third meaning is “to get”. So you can use lấy for “to get”. For example - Bạn đã lấy lương chưa? “Did you get your salary?”
Bạn đã lấy chứng chỉ chưa? “Did you get your certificate?”
Okay, so lấy means “to take / to get married / to get”
10. nhìn “to see”
So nhìn means “to see” and also you can use it for “to look”.
In a sentence - Tôi đã nhìn thấy chị ấy ở nhà ga. “I saw her at the station.”
So here, we have nhìn. The base form is nhìn for “to see”, right? But if you want to say it in the past, saw, you can just put đã before the verb nhìn. That is fine. Dã nhìn means “I saw her”.
Okay, so for “to look”, you can use it for, for example - Cô ấy nhìn rất lộng lẫy trong bộ váy cưới. “She looks so beautiful in white.”
Okay, so here nhìn means “to see” and also means “to look”.
11. đến “to come”
Okay, so here, đến means “to come” and also means “to arrive”.
So if you want to use it for “to come”, for example - Bạn có đến nhà của họ vào ngày kia không? “Will you come to their house the day after tomorrow?”.
So if you want to use for “arrive”, you can use it for example - Họ đã đến đây vào sáng nay. “They arrived here this morning.”
So here is đây/ ở đây “here”.
So đã đến means “arrive”, already happened in the past.
So Họ đã đến đây vào sáng nay. “They arrived here this morning.”
You can use Tôi đang đến đây. “I'm coming/ I'm on my way.”
Okay, so here, đến “to come / to arrive”.
12. nghĩ “to think”
Next one is nghĩ “to think”. I know it’s really hard for foreigners to pronounce this tone mark, but there is no way, but practicing. If you hear people from the south, the southern accent, they will say /nge/, a bit softer right, /nge/, but the northern accent, nghĩ, nghĩ, so please practice and just follow one accent only.
So in a sentence - Đừng nghĩ quá nhiều! “Don't think too much!” or something else - Tôi đang suy nghĩ rất kỹ về chuyện này. “I’ve been thinking carefully about this.”.
Okay, so nghĩ “think”.
13. muốn “to want”
Okay, so this rhyme is a little bit hard because you have to bend your voice a little bit, muốn. The rhyme is uôn- U Ô N “U-O-N”, uôn- U Ô N, muốn, muốn. Okay, got it? So muốn is “to want”.
Tôi muốn có thật nhiều tiền. “I want to have a lot of money.”
You can say - Tôi muốn đi chơi. “I want to hang out.”
Tôi muốn đi du lịch. “I want to travel.”
Tôi muốn nghỉ việc. “I want to quit my job.”
So just simply put muốn behind the subject and it’s fine.
Tôi muốn… “I want…”
14. cho “to give”
Next one is...cho “to give”, cho, cho, okay? So cho means “to give”, but also means “to allow”, allow someone to do something or allow something.
So here, the first sentence, you can say - Chị ấy đã cho em cái bút này. “She gave me this pen.”
So here, you have “give” is cho, but ”gave” is đã cho. Don’t forget the keyword for the past, đã, so đã cho means “gave”, right?
Next one is allowed if you want to say that mẹ - Mẹ cho phép tôi về muộn hôm nay. “My mom allowed me to get back home late today.”
So cho means “to give,” or cho phép means “allowed,” okay?
15. dùng “to use”
Okay, so actually the letter D in Vietnamese sounds like a /z/ sound in English so dùng. You have to close your teeth like this and let the air flow slightly out of your teeth, dùng, dùng and also because the tone mark here is ùng so that’s going to be down a little bit, dùng. You got it?
Okay, so in a sentence - Chị có biết cách dùng máy phô-tô không? “Do you know how to use the copy-machine?”
Chị có biết cách dùng máy phô-tô không?
Okay, so dùng “to use”.
16. tìm thấy “to find”
So here, you will see two letter Ts actually, tìm. T standing alone sounds /ta/. It’s not like a T in English, of course, but the second TH sounds like /th/, /th/, a bit softer, right? So tim is huyền, you have to go down and thấy is sắc, you have to go up so tìm thấy, tìm thấy, “to find”.
Bạn đã tìm thấy ví chưa? “Did you find your wallet?”
You can say - Tôi không thấy Linh đâu cả. Hãy đi tìm cô ấy. “I don't see Ling anywhere. Please find her.” Tôi không thấy Linh đâu cả. Hãy đi tìm cô ấy.
So tìm thấy “to find”.
17. đi ra ngoài chơi “to go out”
So okay, so if you want to ask a girl or a woman to go out with you for a drink or on a date, you can ask - Em có muốn ra ngoài chơi tối nay không? “Do you want to go out tonight?” Em is for a girl or a woman so please girl, don’t use it for men because it’s not correct.
So if you want to ask a guy or a man going out with you, so you can ask - Anh có muốn ra ngoài chơi tối nay không? It still means “Do you want to go out tonight?”, but actually, this one, you can use when you talk to a man or to a guy.
Remember, guys, please use this one for a woman if you want to say, “Do you want to go out tonight?”, you can say - Em có muốn ra ngoài chơi tối nay không?.
18. hỏi “to ask”
So hỏi is “to ask” but câu hỏi is “a question”, câu hỏi “question” and also we have the tone mark dấu hỏi. Dấu hỏi is the tone mark for this word you saw, hỏi “to ask”.
In a sentence - Anh ấy hỏi tôi quá nhiều câu hỏi. “He asked me too many questions.”
So quá nhiều here is “too many”, câu hỏi is “question” - Anh ấy hỏi tôi quá nhiều câu hỏi. “He asked me too many questions.”.
19. làm việc “to work”
Làm việc is “to work”, làm việc. So we already làm for “to do”, right? But also, we can use làm for “to work / to do my job” so làm việc “to work”.
In a sentence - Chồng tôi làm việc cho một công ty nước ngoài. “My husband works for a foreign company.”
I would say - Tôi làm việc cho VietnamesePod101.com. “I'm working for VietnamesePod101.com.”
20. vào “to enter”
Okay, so you use this word when you want to say that you come inside the room or you want to enter the area, you can use vào.
In a sentence - Cô giáo vào phòng và mọi người đứng dậy chào. “The teacher entered the room and everyone stood up to greet her.”
You can use - Chúng ta không thể đi vào đường này hôm nay được vì nó bị chặn. “We cannot enter this way today because it's blocked.”
So vào is “to enter”.
21. cảm thấy “to feel”
So here, you will see the letter C, you will pronounce like letter K in English and TH, you will pronounce like /ta/ so cảm thấy. Okay, so cảm thấy is “to feel”, but actually, cảm giác is “a feeling”. So don’t forget, cảm thấy “to feel” and cảm giác “a feeling”.
In a sentence - Bạn cảm thấy thế nào về chỗ này? “How do you feel about this place? / What do you think about this place?”.
When you use the word - cảm giác, you can use like - Tôi có cảm giác là hôm nay mình sẽ gặp may. “I have a feeling that I will get lucky today.”.
Cảm thấy is “to feel” and cảm giác is “feeling”.
22. thử “to try”
Okay, so here, the letter TH, you will pronounce /ta/ and here, the tone mark is dấu hỏi so it will be thử. Thử is “to try” and thử thách is “challenge”, thử thách.
Okay, so actually it has similar meaning and in a sentence, you will see this one clearer - Tôi muốn thử một lần cho biết. “I want to try one time for the experience.” and thử thách “challenge”.
Học tiếng Việt thực sự là thử thách. “Studying Vietnamese is really challenging.”
Okay, so thử is to “to try” and thử thách is “challenge”.
23. rời khỏi “to leave”
So in a sentence, you will say - Anh sẽ rời khỏi công ty sau 30 phút nữa. “I will leave the company in the next 30 minutes.”
Here, we have the word sẽ representing for the future tense. So in Vietnamese, we don’t have to conjugate the verb in future, but we just put the verb after the word sẽ then it’s going to be in a future. Anh sẽ rời khỏi công ty sau 30 phút nữa.
So rời khỏi is “to leave”.
24. gọi “to call”
So here, letter G in Vietnamese, we pronounce /ga/ and also the tone mark is dấu nặng so this word, we will pronounce, gọi “to call”.
In a sentence - Gọi cho tôi 1 chiếc taxi nhé. “Call 1 taxi for me, please.”
So gọi cho tôi “call for me / can you please call for me”, 1 chiếc is “one” and actually, taxi in Vietnamese is still taxi so Gọi cho tôi 1 chiếc taxi nhé. “Call for me 1 taxi please.”
So gọi is “to call” or you can say, “Can you please call Linh? I want to talk to her.” Bạn có thể gọi Linh được không? Tôi cần nói chuyện với cô ấy.
So gọi is “to call”.
25. chạy “to run”
Okay, so here in Vietnamese, we have two sounds /ta/ and /cha/ so CH is /ta/, a bit softer, but TR is /cha/, stronger. So don’t forget, chạy is “to run”.
In a sentence - Tôi chạy hàng ngày. “I run every day.”
Okay, so don’t forget, chạy is “running”.
All right, that’s all for today, 25 Vietnamese Verbs and I hope you can take note of this so you can remember sometimes when it’s necessary. I’m not sure if you have any questions during the video so if you do, just let me know in the comments below and please, don’t forget to like the video, subscribe to the channel and visit the website, VietnamesePod101.com to learn more Vietnamese with Linh and some other teachers. Thank you so much for watching the video.

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