IF: Vietnamese Conditional Sentences (with examples!)

Lesson Transcript

Want to speak real Vietnamese from your first lesson?

What's up, everyone? My name is Ling. Welcome back to vietnamespod101.com.

The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Vietnamese.

In today's video, we're going to talk about the conditional sentences.

And it's way easier compared to English because in Vietnamese, you only have to remember two words.

There's one thing I want to notice that you don't have to conjugate the verbs into different

tenses. Instead, we just have to remember these two keywords and it's going to be fine.

So let's find out how easy it is.

First, I want to share with you guys that the conditional sentences in Vietnamese we say

Câu điều kiệt.

Câu is a sentence. Điều kiệt is a condition.

But first, I want to introduce the two parts of a conditional sentence which are

Nếu and Thì. So the two keywords that you have to remember are

Nếu means if and Thì means so or therefore.

So in the if clause, there will be Nếu and Danh tư and Động tư.

Danh tư is a noun and Động tư is a verb.

Nếu, Danh tư, Động tư, Thì, Danh tư, Động tư,

Danh tư is a noun and Động tư is a verb.

So there will be two parts, Nếu and Thì.

Let's take a look at the first structure of a conditional sentence or the easiest one,

the most common structure or way to use conditional sentence.

Nếu trời mưa thì tôi sẽ ở nhà.

means if it rains I'll stay home so as you see here basically we kind of combine

the zero and the first conditional sentences together so you will see that

the if clause we use the present tense and in the second clause we use the

future okay nếu trời mưa if it rains thì tôi sẽ ở nhà I will stay home

tôi sẽ ở nhà nếu trời mưa thì tôi sẽ ở nhà that means like if something

happens something will happen or if something happens something happens okay

let's take a look at another example

means if the weather is nice I'll go have a cup of coffee

okay so in this situation we use the present tense and the future tense okay

nếu trời đẹp thì tôi sẽ đi uống cà phê now sometimes you don't have to use

thì at all for example in this situation nếu trời đẹp tôi sẽ đi uống cà phê

it's still okay and it's still correct okay it's understandable as well so you

don't have to worry at all

nếu tôi tìm được việc, tôi sẽ chuyển vào Sài Gòn

means if I can find a job I'll move to Saigon

to live

Alright, so now maybe you're wondering what happens when we use the second conditional, right?

It's pretty easy in Vietnamese as well. Basically, it's pretty much the same with the first one.

But I want to distinguish like in English so you can relate easily.

Nếu tôi là bạn, tôi sẽ không làm như vậy.

Nếu tôi là bạn, I were you.

Tôi là bạn. So one tense only.

Tôi sẽ không làm như vậy. I won't do that.

Tôi sẽ không làm như vậy. In future tense, right?

Nếu tôi là bạn, tôi sẽ không làm như vậy. Means if I were you, I wouldn't do that.

So here as you can see when we translate to English, we will see that this is the second conditional.

But at the same time, we will use exactly the same as the first conditional or the zero conditional in Vietnamese.

So basically, we don't have the first, the second, the third. We just have cầu điều kiệt.

Alright, now let's take a look at another example of this second conditional.

Nếu tôi có thật nhiều tiền, tôi sẽ đi du lịch thế giới.

Now let's take a look at the third way of using conditional sentence in Vietnamese.

So basically, this one will be a little bit different because it's the third conditional sentence in English.

Nếu bạn không gọi cho tôi, thì tôi đã đi muộn rồi.

Nếu bạn không gọi cho tôi means if you hadn't called me or if you didn't call me or if you don't call me.

But when you say nếu bạn không gọi cho tôi, people will understand that it happened in the past already.

Thì tôi đã đi muộn rồi means I would have been late.

The only difference is we don't use the future tense here, but instead we use the past tense for something that would have happened.

Now let's take a look at the second example.

Nếu bạn không nói cho tôi về anh ấy, thì tôi đã trách anh ấy rồi.

Now let's break down the sentence.

Nếu bạn không nói cho tôi về anh ấy, if you hadn't told me clearly about him,

thì tôi đã trách anh ấy rồi.

Nếu bạn không nói cho tôi về anh ấy, thì tôi đã trách anh ấy rồi.

Nếu bạn tặng tôi chiếc vé đó, thì tôi đã có thể gặp thần tượng của mình.

Nếu bạn tặng tôi chiếc vé đó, if you had given me that ticket,

thì tôi đã có thể gặp thần tượng của mình.

The first one is the most common one, we can combine the zero and the first conditional sentence in English.

So we use the present tense and the future tense.

The second one, if you want to use the second conditional sentence,

we just use exactly the same structure with the first example, the first way.

That means you use the present tense and the future tense.

And the third one, if you want to use the third conditional in Vietnamese,

we only use the present tense or the past tense, it's up to you,

and the past tense in Vietnamese.

That's it for today, I hope it's clear and I hope it's not going to be too tricky or too difficult for you.

But basically, even if you use everything in the present tense in Vietnamese,

it's going to be still okay and acceptable.

The thing is, in Vietnamese, we don't have very complicated tenses,

so it's going to be very easy for users to use Vietnamese without being worried.

So take it easy, okay?

That's it for today, I hope it's clear and helpful.

And I know talking about grammar is a little bit complicated, but slowly we'll get there, okay?

Thank you so much for watching today.

Don't forget to like this video, subscribe the channel,

and visit the website vietnamespot101.com to learn more Vietnamese with me.

Thank you so much, see you in the next one.

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