How to say breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Vietnamese

Today let’s learn how to say breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Vietnamese.

Before we learn how to say breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Vietnamese, it is important to review how to say morning, noon, and night in Vietnamese.

Morning, noon, night

We have learned from What time is it lesson what morning, noon, and night are in Vietnamese. Let’s review them.

sáng	morning
trưa	noon
tối	night/evening

Breakfast, lunch, dinner

Bữa ăn means meal.

To say breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Vietnamese, we just indicate the meal’s time of the day by adding sáng, trưa, or chiều to bữa ăn.

bữa ăn + sáng/trưa/chiều

In Vietnamese, we always identify the object first before we describe it. Therefore, the noun often comes before the adjective.

Breakfast is a meal in the morning so breakfast in Vietnamese is “bữa ăn sáng.”

Lunch is a meal around noon so lunch in Vietnamese is “bữa ăn trưa.”

Dinner is a meal in the evening or at night so dinner in Vietnamese is “bữa ăn tối.”

Bữa ăn sáng	Breakfast
Bữa ăn trưa	Lunch
Bữa ăn tối	Dinner

Example:

Bữa ăn sáng có quan trọng không?

Is breakfast important?

Have breakfast, have lunch, have dinner

When we talk about have breakfast, have lunch, or have dinner, we usually refer to the act of eating, not the meal itself. In that case, we do not use “bữa ăn.”

Let’s look at this example:

Em ăn sáng chưa?

Have you had a breakfast?

Ăn means eat or eaten. Sáng means morning. “Em ăn sáng chưa?” means “Have you eaten in the morning?” or “Have you had breakfast?”

Let’s try a different example:

Em muốn ăn tối ở đâu?

Where do you want to have dinner?

Ăn means eat. Tối means at night or in the evening. “Em muốn ăn tối ở đâu?” means “Where do you want to eat in the evening/at night?” or “Where do you want to have dinner?”

Quiz

Let’s practice what we have learned today with this short quiz.