Teachers’ Day In Vietnam
In Vietnam, every year in November there is a special day called Teachers’ Day. In Vietnamese, it’s called “ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam.”
Table of Contents
What is Teachers’ Day?
It is a day when you show your respect and gratitude to your thầy giáo, cô giáo with greeting cards, flowers and gifts. You will see people sell flowers on the streets in front of schools. It is kind of like a Valentine’s Day for giáo viên. Giving flowers, greeting cards and gifts to the teachers is voluntary.
When is Teachers’ Day?
When is “ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam”? It’s November 20th or “ngày 20 tháng 11.”
Celebration
What do Vietnamese people do to celebrate this day?
People do not have a day off from work or school. It is a normal day for most working adults. But it is the special day for students and teachers.
The streets in front of the schools are filled with people selling flowers. Teachers desks are filled with flowers and gifts from students.
Some schools operate as usual while other schools hold performances and speeches to celebrate with all the teachers. Schools may hire professional performers for the event, but it is often their students that perform. Students practice for several weeks prior to the performance. They either dance, sing or do skit.
Common phrases
As you know, this is a language website so we should not end the post without learning new words.
Here are some phrases for this special day:
Ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam
Mừng ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam
Chúc mừng ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam*
Chúc thầy/cô
As mentioned above, “ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam” means “Teachers’ Day” in Vietnamese. “Mừng” means happy, but it is also used to congratulate someone or something or give someone wishes. When we use “mừng” to congratulate someone or something, it is actually short for “chúc mừng.” “Chúc” alone means to wish someone something.
For example:
“Anh ấy mừng quá không nói lên lời.” (He’s too happy to speak).
“Mừng anh được thăng chức.” Or “Chúc mừng anh được thăng chức.” In this case, they both mean the same thing, which is “Congratulations on your promotion.” The literal translation is “(I) congratulate you on getting promoted.”
“Lại đây bà mừng tuổi” (Come here so I can give you New Year wishes.)
Now with what we have learned, what does “Mừng ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam” mean? It means “Happy Teachers’ Day.” Mừng means happy so in this case, the phrase just simply means “Happy Teachers’ Day.”
What about “Chúc mừng ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam“? We know “chúc mừng” is usually used to congratulate someone, but in this case it doesn’t make sense to say Congratulations on Teachers’ Day. In this case, the simplest way to explain the whole phrase is that “chúc mừng ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam” is basically the same as “mừng ngày nhà giáo Việt nam,” which means “Happy Teachers’ Day.”
