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Lesson Transcript

Xin chào, tôi là Giang. Hi everybody! I’m Giang.
Welcome to VietnamesePod101.com’s “3 phút học tiếng Việt”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Vietnamese.
In the last lesson, we learned how to count Vietnamese currency.
In this lesson, you’re going to learn how to talk about your schedule - for example, if a friend asks you "What are you doing this weekend?"
Let’s start!
To ask someone around your age or your friend this question, you can say-
Cuối tuần này bạn sẽ làm gì?
[slowly] Cuối tuần này bạn sẽ làm gì?
Let’s break it down.
Cuối tuần này is "this weekend".
Bạn means “you”, referring to someone around your age.
sẽ means “will” or “going to”
làm means “to do”
And gì means “what”
You can see that the order of words is the opposite of the English question.
We’ve learned that Vietnamese has a lot of personal pronouns and which one to use depends on the other person’s age, gender and closeness of the relationship.
The pronoun bạn is the equivalent of “you” and refers to someone around your age. So, depending on who you are asking, this pronoun will change, but the rest of the question stays the same.
For example, to ask a young man in a formal situation or a man who’s slightly older, you’d say-
Cuối tuần này anh sẽ làm gì?
If it’s a young woman or a slightly older woman, the question will be-
Cuối tuần này chị sẽ làm gì?
There are a lot more pronouns to choose from, so we’re going to introduce them one by one in the next few lessons.
What if you’re not asking about this weekend?
Asking about a different time period is as easy as replacing cuối tuần này.
“Tomorrow” is ngày mai. So you can also say Ngày mai bạn sẽ làm gì? which means “What are you doing tomorrow?” Or, you could also put in a weekday, like thứ hai, "Monday" or chủ nhật, which is "Sunday".
Thứ hai bạn sẽ làm gì?
Chủ nhật bạn sẽ làm gì?
Also in this case, depending on who you are asking, the pronoun bạn is changed accordingly.
So now, if someone asks *you* Ngày mai bạn sẽ làm gì? "What are you doing tomorrow?", how can you answer?
Here's an example - Tôi sẽ đến văn phòng. "I'm going to the office." đến means "go to” or “arrive", and văn phòng means "the office". Feel free to replace "office" with any other location!
Now it’s time for Giang’s Insights.
The time phrase can be put at the end of the question. But if you do that, the preposition vào, which means “in”, ”at”, or ”on” is needed. For example: Bạn sẽ làm gì vào ngày mai? means “What are you going to do tomorrow?” Or Bạn sẽ làm gì vào cuối tuần này? – “What are you going to do this weekend?”
In this lesson, we learned how to talk about your schedule. Next time we are going to learn how to use the verb là "to be". We'll also talk about how to tell people your nationality.
I'll be waiting for you in the next 3 phút học tiếng Việt lesson.
Tạm biệt!

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