Here are the 5 rules to make Vietnamese sentences.
Table of Contents
- There is no verb conjugation in Vietnamese
- Subject + Verb
- Subject + Verb + Object
- Subject + Adjective
- Không
There is no verb conjugation in Vietnamese
Before we go into any sentence structure in Vietnamese, it is important to understand that there is no verb conjugation in Vietnamese.
First grammar rule is NO rule for verb conjugation. Yay! What does that mean? It means that verbs do not change regardless of person, tense, gender or number in Vietnamese.
For example:
In English, the verb “do” changes according to person and tense, such as I do, she does, they do, it does, he did, they had done, we would have done, etc. Because of that, for every verb, you need to know its conjugation to use it correctly in a sentence.
However, in Vietnamese, the verbs don’t change form regardless of situation, for instance, tôi biết, anh ấy biết, họ biết, chúng tôi đã biết (I know, he knows, they know, we knew).
You may wonder if there is no verb conjugation, how do we know if it’s in the past, present or future? In case we need to indicate in the past or future, we usually add additional words to indicate so.
For example:
Ngày mai em có cuộc họp với các thành viên của câu lạc bộ.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with the club members.
In this case, since it’s indicated that the action happens “tomorrow,” we know that it’s a future action. In Vietnamese, you can also add “sẽ” before the verb to indicate a future action. But in the example above, you don’t really need to since it’s already indicated that the action will happen tomorrow. It is redundant and unnatural in spoken language to add “sẽ” when you already indicated when. If you don’t indicate when, you can say:
Con sẽ làm mẹ tự hào.
I will make you (mom) proud.
Subject + Verb
This is the most basic sentence structure in Vietnamese language.
| Subject + Verb |
For example:
Subject + Verb + Object
| Subject + Verb + Object |
Examples:
| Anh yêu em. (I love you.) |
Anh and em are pronouns. Yêu means to love. We previously went over this structure in the post about How to say I love you in Vietnamese.
| Tôi thích chó. (I like dogs.) |
Tôi is a pronoun. Thích means to like. Chó means dog(s).
| Tôi biết tiếng Việt. (I know Vietnamese.) |
Tôi is a pronoun. Biết means know. Tiếng Việt means Vietnamese language.
Subject + Adjective
To describe something in Vietnamese, you just identify the subject then use the adjective to describe it. Like verbs, adjectives don’t change form regardless of person, gender, tense, etc.
| Subject + Adjective |
For example:
| Trời nóng. (It’s hot.) |
| Tôi khát nước. (I’m thirsty.) |
| Người phụ nữ đó đẹp. (That woman is beautiful.) |
| Anh ấy mạnh mẽ. (He’s strong.) |
Không
Không is used to turn an affirmative sentence into a negative sentence or a yes-no question.
To turn an affirmative sentence into a negative sentence, we just add “không” before the verb.
For example:
| Anh không yêu em. (I don’t love you.) |
| Tôi không thích chó. (I don’t like dogs.) |
| Tôi không biết tiếng Việt. (I don’t know Vietnamese.) |
| Tôi không hiểu. (I don’t understand.) |
Sometimes, “không có” is used interchangeably with “không” to turn an affirmative sentence into a negative sentence. For example, “tôi không có hiểu” means the same thing as “tôi không hiểu.” However, when có acts as a verb, which means to have, “không có” means “not have.” For example, “tôi không có tiền” means “I don’t have money.”
To turn an affirmative sentence into a yes-no question, we need to add both “có” and “không” to the sentence. Có in this case means yes and không means no. When you use them, the sentence becomes a yes-no question. The word “có” is usually added before the verb while “không” is added at the end of the question.
For example:
Anh ấy thích cá. (He likes fish.)
Anh ấy có thích cá không? (Does he like fish?)
Anh nói tiếng Anh. (You speak English.)
Anh có nói tiếng Anh không? (Do you speak English?)