How to Make Nouns Plural in Vietnamese - Basic Vietnamese Grammar

Lesson Transcript

Hi guys, it's Linh again.

Welcome back to VietnamesePod101.com.

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In this video today, I'm going to share with you some ways to turn a noun to a plural form.

Now, let's see what we got and how easy it is, okay?

The most common ways to turn a noun to a plural form is to put the word

những

before the noun, okay?

For example, if you want to say “a pen” in Vietnamese is

Cái bút

and “pens" is

Những cái bút

For example, “a table”:

cái bàn

and “tables”:

Những cái bàn

The next one, “a house” in Vietnamese, we say

Ngôi nhà

and “houses”, we say:

Những ngôi nhà

Another one would be

Những ngày mùa đông

Những ngày mùa đông means “winter days”

In sentence:

Những ngày mùa đông, tôi luôn thèm một tách trà nóng.

“In winter days, I'm always craving for a cup of tea or a cup of hot tea.”

Easy, right?

So you only need to put Những before the nouns.

So Những is like the most common word you can use with almost every noun.

But sometimes we will have some other ways to make nouns plural

because it's just more common.

It's just more natural.

And I'm going to share with you now.

The second word would be, I think the second common word would be

Các

Ok?

Các- dấu sắc, so we have to go up and we have to be a little bit strong.

Các - we can use with people, for example

Các bạn

means “you all”

Các bạn

For example:

Xin chào các bạn!

That means “hello” or “hi guys” or “hi there”

Xin chào các bạn!

Another one would be

Các anh

Các chị

That means “brothers” and “sisters”

For example:

Các anh tôi đều rất thành đạt.

means “My brothers are all successful.”

Các anh tôi đều rất thành đạt.

Các chị tôi đều đã lập gia đình.

means “My all sisters are married.”

Các chị tôi đều đã lập gia đình.

Các thứ cần thiết.

means “All the things needed” or “all the important things” or “ll the important stuff”

So các thứ here means “stuff” or “things”

Các thứ

Các thứ cần thiết.

In sentence you can say

Em đã mang các thứ cần thiết chưa?

That means “Have you brought all the important stuff?”

Or “Have you brought all the needed stuff?”

Another one would be

Các loại thức uống

Các loại thức uống means “drinks” or “all kinds of drink”

For example:

Các loại thức uống ở đây đều ngon.

means “All drinks here are very delicious.”

Các món ăn

Các món ăn means “foods” or “all kinds of food”.

For example:

Các món ăn trong menu nhìn rất hấp dẫn.

means “All the foods in the menu look very delicious or tempting.”

Các món ăn trong menu nhìn rất hấp dẫn.

Now let's talk about another word

For things that have two

For example: Eyes, ears or hands

We use

đôi

For example

đôi mắt

means “eyes”

đôi tai

means “ears”

And

đôi tay

means “hands”.

All right another word for plural we can use

mấy

dấu sắc- ok?

mấy

here means “a few” or “some”

mấy

For example:

mấy thứ

means “a few things” or “things” or “some things”

Mấy thứ kia là của ai?

means “Whose stuff is that?”

Mấy thứ kia là của ai?

mấy is the very common word for time for words about time

For example

mấy ngày

means “a few days”

So if you want to say “days” we can use

những ngày

But if you want to say “a few days” or “some days” we say

mấy ngày

ok?

For example

Mấy ngày này tôi rất bận.

means “These days”, or “these recent days I've been very busy.”

Mấy ngày này tôi rất bận.

Also we can use

mấy for “weeks"

For example:

mấy tuần

means “a few weeks”

And

mấy tháng

means “a few month”s and it's the same with “years”

Also we can use mấy for people

For example, “The girls over there” you can say:

Mấy cô gái đằng kia.

Ok? “The girls over there”.

The last word that I want to introduce to you is

một số

here also means “a few” or “some” or “several”

một số

For example

the same with mấy we also can use một số for “days", “weeks", “months" and “years"

một số ngày

một số tuần

So that's it for today thank you so much for watching

I know it's a little bit confusing because in English we only have “s” or “es”

but the good thing is we don't have to distinguish between pronunciation

different pronunciation

Here today we also learn a lot of new vocabulary and I hope that you can use it very soon