Days of the week: thứ hai … chủ nhật

The week is counted, not named

Vietnamese does not give its weekdays names of their own. It numbers them, and the word that does the numbering is thứ, which means 'in the order of'. The count starts on Sunday, and Sunday itself stands outside the count under its own name chủ nhật. Monday is therefore the second day of the week: thứ hai. From there everything lines up – Tuesday is thứ ba, Wednesday thứ tư, and so on to Saturday, thứ bảy. The number you say is always one higher than the one you would expect.

Two names that break the pattern: chủ nhật and thứ tư

chủ nhật carries no number at all – it is 'the lord's day', a name Vietnamese took from the church calendar, and it is the reason the counting starts at two. Do not look for a thứ nhất: that slot is taken. The second surprise is thứ tư. Four in a weekday name is tư, never bốn – the very same tư you met in the numbers unit, where 24 can be read hai mươi tư. Everywhere else the digit keeps its usual shape: thứ hai, thứ ba, thứ năm, thứ sáu, thứ bảy.

Saying when something happens: vào

To pin an action to a day, put vào in front of the day: vào thứ sáu, vào chủ nhật. The phrase usually opens the sentence, and everything else follows it in the order you already know – no verb changes anywhere. In relaxed speech vào is often dropped and the bare day does the same job, so Thứ sáu em Lan đi học is just as correct. Keep vào while you are learning: it makes the time phrase easy to hear.

Vào thứ sáu em Lan không đi học.On Friday Lan does not go to school.

Today, tomorrow, yesterday: hôm nay, ngày mai, hôm qua

These are ordinary nouns, and they take the same front position as a day of the week. Notice which word each of them uses for 'day': the two that look backwards or at the present take hôm – hôm qua, hôm nay – while the ones that look forward take ngày – ngày mai, ngày kia. There is no rule to derive here; learn the four as fixed pairs. And because the verb never changes, that little word at the front is the only thing telling your listener when it all happened.

One more word from the same family: tuần, the week itself. Một tuần có bảy ngày. Add cuối and you get cuối tuần, the weekend – Saturday and Sunday together. With này behind it, which you already know from pointing at things, tuần này means this week.