Untranslatable Vietnamese Words

Lesson Transcript

Want to speak real Vietnamese from your first lesson?

When I received this topic, I was wondering,

so there are untranslatable words.

How can I translate? How can I explain to you?

But it's going to be challenging and it's going to be interesting.

So today, I'm going to introduce to you some untranslatable words,

Vietnamese words, so that you know Vietnamese is weird sometimes.

Right. Hello, everyone. My name is Ling.

Welcome back to vietnamespod101.com and let's see what we've got today.

So basically, untranslatable words are like some words in the sentence

that don't play any role or just doesn't mean anything.

But like having them in the sentences will make your Vietnamese sound more natural.

So let's see how we can use them in some examples.

The first one I want to introduce to you is

That means she's beautiful, isn't she?

So basically, when you use this word, just think of it as a tab question, okay?

It's like, do you agree or like, right?

That means like, this is good, isn't it?

You'll see that when we use it, it sounds like your expressions, your feeling, right?

And you want to ask for the other person's agreement, right?

This is good, isn't it?

Another example would be

A lot of foreigners that I know pronounce this word or this sound as

but actually is

Okay, for example, you'll see some names, some Vietnamese names, for example

A very beautiful beach city

Your tongue has to be like up

Not the sound from your throat, okay?

Next one

No, it's not like that

Okay, in sentence

I told you, something like that

He's like, I don't know how to explain because it's untranslatable. Sorry, Vietnamese part

It's like to express your feeling and these words usually stand at the end of the sentence, okay?

Like I told you

Another example

That means come on

Like when you're trying to convince someone

Come on

Something like that

Let's take a look at another example

I'm still not clear yet

Means I haven't done yet

Like I told you I haven't done yet

I told you today

Yeah, so have you found something similar?

Like have you noticed what the rule is?

So, but

But

Next one

Go is to go or let's do something, right?

But in this situation, go cannot be translated because let's take a look at some examples

It means forget it

Forget it, okay?

So, when is forget and when go is like

Forget it

Another example that you can use

An đi means like let's eat

Please eat

Also, you can use with drink

Drink it

Drink it is like let's drink or please drink

Drink it

Okay

Also, if you want to invite someone to join you something

or to go out on a date or to go out for coffee with you

You can say

Hôm nào is like some day

Đi is to go

Uống cà phê means to drink coffee

And đi, that weird đi

Đi here stands at the end of the sentence

It doesn't play anything

But it just makes your Vietnamese sounds more natural, more Vietnamese

Hôm nào đi uống cà phê đi

Next one

Nhứng is the plural form of nouns

However, in this situation, it will not mean anything

Okay, let's take a look

That means he's late two times already

Or he's been late two times already

Or he's been late twice already

So when we use những here, it's just like to emphasize that he's late for two times

So những here makes the times that he's late even more like more serious

or a little bit more negative

So to emphasize something that happens like more than one time

Okay

Next one

Ây

This is interesting

Ây

Ây is like stuff or thing

But it can replace many, many things for many, many words

For example, if you don't remember

If you suddenly forget a word that you want to speak

or you want to say

We can use ảy to replace that word

Like let's go buy something

Let's go buy some stuff with me

Or do you want to go buy something with me?

Next one

Have you eaten that?

So anh ấy chưa?

Ấy is like not a specific thing

You just want to ask in general

Ấy chưa?

Next one

Bảo ấy mà không làm

It's like you tell someone to do something

but you can't remember what that something is

Bảo ấy mà không làm

Bảo, like I told you

Ấy, to do that

mà, but

không làm

You didn't

Bảo ấy mà không làm

Like I told you

You didn't do that

Confusing

Last one

Trời

Trời means sky or god

Ơi trời ơi

But trời here means nothing

Yeah

In sentence

Cô ấy chưa được thăm gia đình trong hai năm trời

means she hasn't visited her family for two years

So when you say hai năm trời

it makes this period even sounds longer, right?

Hai năm trời

So instead of saying two years

Even two years

Something like that

Mấy ngày trời mà họ chưa được ăn gì

That means they haven't eaten anything for a few days

A few days

Mấy ngày trời mà họ chưa được ăn gì

So basically when we use trời

that means to emphasize the period of time

Mấy ngày trời

Hai năm trời

Ba ngày trời

Hai tuần trời

That's it for today

Thank you so much guys

I really enjoyed the videos batch this month

I hope that you find something helpful

and you can easily practice

Đừng quên ôn tập

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See you in the next one

Xin chào và hẹn gặp lại các bạn

Xin chào, bye

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