Subject, verb and object are the most important parts in Vietnamese construction of a sentence. But other part is also important that is unit nouns or known as countable nouns or classifiers such as con (gà - chicken), cái (nhà - house), chiếc (xe - car)… Today, let’s study more about this important issue.
As we know, English has no unit nouns, it’s quite simple to count the number of objects or people. Such as singular noun - “a cat” or plural noun - “2 cats” with “s” or “es” at the end of the word. But in Vietnamese, we have “unit nouns” and this is the construction of sentence in Vietnamese with “classifiers”
Ex:
Tôi có 1 con mèo – I have a cat
Anh ta có 2 cái nhà – He has 2 houses
So, you could see in Vietnamese, we use the construction with a unit noun like this:
Subject + Verb + number (1,2,3…) + unit noun + noun
For understanding easily, you could see how to use classifiers in the following table:
No. |
VIETNAMESE |
ENGLISH |
1 |
1 CON MÈO |
A CAT |
2 |
CON MÈO NÀY |
THIS CAT |
3 |
CON MÈO ĐÓ |
THAT CAT |
4 |
CON MÈO THỨ NHẤT |
CAT NO.1 |
5 |
CON MÈO THỨ HAI |
CAT NO.2 |
6 |
CON MÈO ĐẦU TIÊN |
FIRST CAT |
7 |
CON MÈO CUỐI CÙNG |
LAST CAT |
8 |
CON MÈO NÀO? |
WHICH CAT? |
9 |
CON MÈO MỚI |
NEW CAT |
10 |
NHIỀU CON MÈO |
MANY CATS |
11 |
MỘT CÁI TÔ |
A BIG BOWL |
12 |
MỘT TÔ HỦ TIẾU |
A BIG BOWL OF NOODLE |
13 |
MỘT CÁI LY |
A GLASS |
14 |
MỘT LY NƯỚC LỌC |
A GLASS OF WATER |
COMMON CLASSIFIERS
No. |
Classifier |
Meaning | Used for |
---|---|---|---|
1 |
Người |
People | People, woman, man, children |
2 | Cái | Thing, piece | Shirt, trouser, dress, chair, table, bag, hat, bowl, plate, spoon, fork, watch, clock, glass, bottle, machine |
3 |
Con |
Animal | Animal, doll, road, river |
4 |
Đôi |
Couple | Shoes, chopstick |
5 |
Bộ |
Set | Clothes, movie, drama, story |
6 |
Quả |
Fruit | Fruit, ball, mountain |
7 |
Chiếc |
One | Car, motorcycle, ship, airplane |
8 |
Cây |
Tree | Pen, pencil, umbrella, lipstick, tree |
9 |
Món |
Thing, kind | Food, goods |
10 |
Thỏi |
Ingot | Lipstick, gold |
11 |
Quyển |
Book | Book, notebook, magazine |
12 |
Ly |
Glass | Glass of water, glass of beer |
13 |
Tách |
Cup | Cup of tea, cup of coffee |
14 |
Chén |
Small bowl | Bowl of soup, bowl of rice |
15 |
Chai |
Bottle | Bottle of beer, bottle of water |
16 |
Dĩa |
Plate | Food |
17 |
Cục |
Chunk | Soap, candy, stone |
18 |
Sợi |
Line | Necklace, string, hair, thread |
19 |
Chỗ |
Place | Seat |
20 |
Cuộn |
Reel | Tape, cassette, string, thread |
21 |
Điếu |
Roll | Cigarette |
22 |
Gói |
Pack | Gift pack, candy pack, cookie pack, anything is packed |
23 |
Chuyện |
Story | Story |
24 |
Bản |
Version | Contract, document, copy |
25 |
Ngôi |
House | House, star |
26 |
Miếng |
Piece | Piece of bread, piece of meat, piece of cookie |
27 |
Bông |
Flower | Flower |
28 |
Lần |
Time | Time |
29 |
Phòng |
Room | Room |