How to Say What Time Is It in Vietnamese
Today we will learn how to say “What time is it in?” in Vietnamese and how to answer that question.
Table of Contents
What time is it?
“What time is it?” in Vietnamese is “Mấy giờ rồi?” This is the most common way to ask for time, and you will hear it from everyone and everywhere in daily life.
While I would love to explain each word and make sense of the sentence for you, it doesn’t make sense in this case if we combine the meaning of each word. It will be more confusing that way. The best way is to just remember that Mấy giờ rồi means “what time is it?”. It has only one meaning and people will not misunderstand it for something else.
But if you must know what each word means, here’s a quick explanation.
Mấy usually means how many in Vietnamese. For example, when you enter a restaurant, a restaurant staff will ask you “Mấy người?” It means “How many people?”
Giờ refers to the hour. For example, 2 giờ means 2 o’clock. We will talk more about giờ later in this post.
Rồi has various meanings and is used in different situations. However, when it is at the end of a sentence, it’s usually means already. For example, ăn rồi means already ate.
It doesn’t make much sense to find out what Mấy giờ rồi means by combining the meaning of each word in this case. It’s best to just remember that Mấy giờ rồi means what time is it. And mấy giờ means what time, for example, “Mấy giờ xe buýt tới?” (“What time will the bus arrive?”) or “Anh cho em hỏi bây giờ là mấy giờ?” (“Could you tell me what time it is right now?”)
Giờ, phút, giây, tiếng
To answer what time it is, let’s learn a few new words.
| giờ | refers to the hour |
| phút | minute(s) |
| giây | second(s) |
| tiếng | hour(s) |
When we want to talk about what time it is, we use giờ, phút and giây to indicate the hour, the minute and the second. When we want to talk about how many hours, we use tiếng instead of giờ.
Before we go into examples, if you do not remember how to say numbers in Vietnamese, now is a good time to review Numbers in Vietnamese.
Example:
A: “Mấy giờ rồi?”
B: “Hai giờ ba mươi phút.” (2:30)
A: “Từ đây ra Đà Nẵng mất bao lâu?” (How long does it take to go from here to Đà Nẵng?)
B: “Hai tiếng ba mươi phút.” (2 hrs 30 mins)
When talking about time, “ba mươi phút” can also be called “rưỡi.” Rưỡi means half. For example, hai tiếng rưỡi means 2 hrs and a half, 2.5 hrs, or 2 hrs 30 mins. The same applies to hai giờ ba mươi phút. We say “hai giờ rưỡi.” It is important to note that rưỡi doesn’t stand alone. It is usually used to talk about time or money (for example, 2,500 VND = “hai ngàn năm trăm” or “hai ngàn rưỡi”).
Example:
A: Mấy giờ rồi? (What time is it?)
B: Ba giờ rưỡi. (3:30)
A: Uống hết một ly không? (Are you going to finish this whole cup?)
B: Chắc uống nửa ly thôi. (Maybe I’ll just drink half.)
Notice that we use different words to say half in the above example.
You may also notice that in order to indicate which hour and which minute, we just put numbers in front of giờ and phút. To say what time, simply indicate which hour by using a number from một to mười hai followed by “giờ” and number from một to năm mươi chín followed by “phút.” If you want to be more specific, you can also indicate second by using a number from một to năm mươi chín followed by “giây.”
Example:
1:30:21
1 giờ 30 phút 21 giây (when talking about what time)
Một giờ ba mươi phút hai mươi mốt giây
Note
We usually just write numbers instead of spelling them out but I have been writing the whole form so you know how to say them in Vietnamese. Moving forward, I will write the numbers instead and it’s up to you to remember how to say them. Again, if you do not remember, you can review it here).
Sáng, trưa, chiều, tối, đêm
You may have seen these words in my other post Greetings.
| sáng | morning |
| trưa | noon |
| chiều | afternoon |
| tối | night/evening |
| đêm | late night |
Usually you do not need to indicate if it’s in the morning, afternoon or night if both speakers know that it’s in the morning, afternoon or night.
However, if you need to indicate morning, noon, afternoon or night, just simply add sáng, trưa, chiều or tối to the time. Đêm is often used for a time that is late at night. For example, midnight is called “12 giờ đêm” or “nửa đêm.” For earlier time, sometimes đêm and tối can be used interchangeably; for example, to say 9pm, we can say “9 giờ tối” or “9 giờ đêm.” Either way, people understand.
Example:
2 giờ sáng (2am or 2 o’clock in the morning)
12 giờ trưa (12pm or noon)
3 giờ chiều (3pm or 3 o’clock in the afternoon)
7 giờ tối (7pm or 7 o’clock at night)
Practice
- Can you tell what time it is in Vietnamese from the clock image in the beginning of this post?
- Do you know the meanings of these words?
giờ, phút, giây, tiếng, sáng, trưa, chiều, tối - Can you say what time it is right now in Vietnamese?
- How do you say these times in Vietnamese?
7am
4pm
9:30pm
8:45am
3:57pm - How do you say these times in your language?
8 giờ rưỡi sáng
12 giờ trưa
12 giờ đêm
Takeaways
This is the end of this lesson. I hope you’ll be able to:
- Ask what time it is in Vietnamese
- Memorize new words giờ, phút, giây, tiếng, sáng, trưa, chiều, tối and đêm and how to use them
