Learn about the Vietnamese tenses
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Intro |
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| Michael: How many tenses are there in Vietnamese? |
| Nguyet: And how do they work? |
| Michael: At VietnamesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Sasha Lee is confused about the number of tenses in Vietnamese. She asks a befriended teacher, Duong Do, |
| "How many tenses are there in Vietnamese?" |
| Sasha Lee: Có bao nhiêu thì trong tiếng Việt? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Có bao nhiêu thì trong tiếng Việt? |
| Dương Đỗ: Có 3 thì chính. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Có bao nhiêu thì trong tiếng Việt? |
| Michael: "How many tenses are there in Vietnamese?" |
| Dương Đỗ: Có 3 thì chính. |
| Michael: "There are 3 main tenses." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In grammar, tenses are used to express time reference and are formed through verb conjugation. Just like in English, the three main tenses of the verb in the Vietnamese language are |
| Nguyet: Quá khứ |
| Michael: Past |
| Nguyet: Hiện tại |
| Michael: Present |
| Nguyet: Tương lai |
| Michael: and Future tenses. Keep in mind, though, that, in Vietnamese, verbs do not conjugate to express tense. Instead, they rely on the context to express when an action took place. Also, to express time relation, Vietnamese uses adverbs, or, |
| Nguyet: phó từ |
| Michael: These are words added anywhere in the sentence to help express tense. In a short while, we will show you how to use these "extra words." |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: First, let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Sasha Lee says "How many tenses are there in Vietnamese?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Nguyet as Sasha Lee: Có bao nhiêu thì trong tiếng Việt? |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Duong Do says "There are 3 main tenses?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Nguyet as Duong Do: Có 3 thì chính. |
| Michael: As mentioned, Vietnamese, like English, has three main verb tenses, or |
| Nguyet: Thì động từ. |
| Michael: And, as in most languages, when it comes to the present tense, nothing special needs to be done to express it, such as when you say, |
| Nguyet: Tôi học. |
| Michael: or, "I study." Here, the verb "study" remains in its base form, |
| Nguyet: học |
| Michael: Now, when expressing the future tense and the past tense, that's when we need the help of the extra words we were talking about a while ago. For instance, when forming the past tense, we need to add the word |
| Nguyet: đã |
| Michael: before the verb. This word indicates that the action happened in the past. Here's an example: |
| Nguyet: Tôi đã học. |
| Michael: "I studied." Vietnamese has only one past tense. However, there are two ways a verb can be expressed in the past. We've already covered the first one. Another way is by adding the word |
| Nguyet: rồi |
| Michael: at the end of the sentence, such as in |
| Nguyet: Tôi học rồi. |
| Michael: Both forms of the past tense could mean, "I studied already" or "I already studied." Forming the future tense is just as easy. In this case, we place the word |
| Nguyet: sẽ |
| Michael: before the verb. |
| Nguyet: Tôi sẽ học. |
| Michael: "I will study." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: We learned that there are three major tenses in Vietnamese. The first one is |
| Nguyet: Quá khứ |
| Michael: or the past tense. The second one is |
| Nguyet: Hiện tại |
| Michael: or the present tense. And, finally, there's the |
| Nguyet: Tương lai |
| Michael: or future tense. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: There is an easier and more natural way of expressing tense in Vietnamese, and it includes the use of time words. For the present tense, there's nothing really special that needs to be done. However, when you're dealing with the present progressive tense, it's useful to use words like |
| Nguyet: hôm nay |
| Michael: or "today." You can add this either at the beginning or the end of your sentence, such as in this example: |
| Nguyet: Tôi đang học hôm nay. |
| Michael: meaning "I'm studying today." Speaking of present progressive, this is another tense often used in Vietnamese. To express the present progressive tense, we use the word |
| Nguyet: đang |
| Michael: before the verb as shown in our previous example. Another word we can use to help us express ourselves in the present progressive tense is |
| Nguyet: bây giờ |
| Michael: or "now," as in the sentence |
| Nguyet: Bây giờ tôi đang học. |
| Michael: "I am studying now." For the past tense, we can use the word |
| Nguyet: hôm qua |
| Michael: which means, "yesterday," as in |
| Nguyet: Tôi đã học ngày hôm qua. |
| Michael: "I studied yesterday." Keep in mind that you can remove the extra word and simply say |
| Nguyet: Tôi học ngày hôm qua. |
| Michael: This still means "I studied yesterday." And finally, for the future tense, we can use words like |
| Nguyet: Tôi sẽ học vào ngày mai. |
| Michael: "I will study tomorrow." |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: Earlier, we learned that we should add the word |
| Nguyet: đã |
| Michael: before the verb when expressing the past tense. One thing we need to understand about this word, though, is that it suggests more than just time. Not knowing this can cause confusion. Let's take this sentence for example: |
| Nguyet: Đã chín giờ |
| Michael: This translates to "It was nine o'clock." If we're not aware of the context, we can simply assume that the speaker is just stating a fact, that it was nine o'clock. However, the extra word here also means that the speaker is trying to say that it's already late or that it's time to do something else. The same is true with the extra word |
| Nguyet: đang |
| Michael: We learned that we use this word to express the present progressive tense. However, keep in mind that it doesn't always represent the present time. Take this sentence, for instance: |
| Nguyet: Lúc đó, tôi đang học, còn anh ấy ở nhà. |
| Michael: or "At that time, I was studying, and he was at home." Because of these differences, don't be surprised if a Vietnamese friend asks you why you need to alter English verbs to express tense when you can simply use signifiers, such as |
| Nguyet: năm ngoái |
| Michael: "last year," |
| Nguyet: tuần tới |
| Michael: "next week," |
| Nguyet: ngay bây giờ |
| Michael: and "right now." |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Nguyet: Tạm biệt! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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