Learn how to ask "When?"
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| 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 ask "Where" questions in Vietnamese. |
| This time we will learn "When" questions. |
| Now you want to know when your roommate is coming back home. You can ask him Khi nào bạn về nhà? |
| First we had- |
| Khi nào, which is the basic translation of "When" in Vietnamese. |
| Bạn means “you” |
| Về is the verb "to come back or to return", |
| And finally nhà which is "home." |
| So, altogether it is Khi nào bạn về nhà? |
| "When will you come back home?" |
| Here's another sample sentence using the Vietnamese word for "when": khi nào. If you want to ask "When will the meeting start?" it is Khi nào cuộc họp sẽ bắt đầu? |
| The word khi nào can come at the beginning or the end of a question. You can also ask Cuộc họp sẽ bắt đầu khi nào? |
| There are a few phrases that use "when" in English, but don't use khi nào in Vietnamese. Let's go over a few of those. |
| You will probably hear people say Bao giờ bạn mới về? which means “When will you return?” |
| Bao giờ also means “when” but it is used when you are waiting for someone or something to happen – it expresses that you are longing for something, in this case, for your friend to return. The word mới added before the verb về - “to return” expresses that you have been waiting for a long time, but something hasn’t happened yet. Note that bao giờ always comes at the beginning of the question. |
| If you want to ask a question about duration such as "Since when have you been teaching?" then you will have to say Bạn dạy học từ khi nào? |
| Here, the word từ meaning “since” is added before khi nào”, so từ khi nào means “since when?” This phrase often comes at the end of the question. And dạy học means “to teach”. |
| Bạn dạy học từ khi nào? |
| Let’s see how to ask "Until when?" in Vietnamese. It is very easy, because you can translate it directly. It becomes Đến khi nào? So for example, if you want to ask a friend "Until when are you going to stay here?" It will be Bạn sẽ ở đây đến khi nào? đến khi nào often comes at the end, too. |
| But of course there are other ways to ask about time. You can be as specific as you'd like. |
| For example, you can ask Bạn sinh năm nào? "In which year were you born?" |
| In English you can ask “When were you born?” but Vietnamese people often ask năm nào meaning “in which year” instead of khi nào, which means “when”. |
| "Which day is better for you?" will be Ngày nào thì tiện cho bạn? |
| “What time will you come?” will be Bạn sẽ đến lúc mấy giờ? |
| Now it’s time for Giang’s Insights. |
| To ask how long an action has been taking place, we could say Bao lâu. “How long have you been waiting?” is Bạn đã đợi bao lâu rồi? |
| So in this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the Vietnamese word for "When", khi nào, and its different variations. |
| Next lesson, we’ll learn more about asking questions with "Who" in Vietnamese. |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next 3 phút học tiếng Việt lesson! |
| Tạm biệt! |
Comments
Hide