LinguaThree words that do the job of both I and you
anh is a male older than you, chị is a female older than you, em is a younger person of either sex. Literally they mean older brother, older sister and younger sibling, and Vietnamese uses them with people who are not family at all: a waiter, a colleague, a taxi driver.
Each of the three does both jobs at once. The older person calls himself anh and calls the other em; the younger one calls herself em and calls the other anh. One word, two jobs, and which job it does is decided by where it stands in the sentence.
Anh tên là gì?What is your name? (to a man a little older than you)
Em tên là Mai.My name is Mai. (said by the younger person)
The pairing rule
| Who you are talking to | You call them | You call yourself |
|---|---|---|
| A man a little older than you | anh | em |
| A woman a little older than you | chị | em |
| Someone younger, and you are male | em | anh |
| Someone younger, and you are female | em | chị |
| Someone your own age you have just met | bạn | tôi |
This is the pairing rule: if I call you anh, you call me em. The two words arrive together, and the pair is fixed by which of you is older. You are never both anh, and you are never both em.
The same person is anh and em at the same time
Nam is 25. To Mai, who is 20, he is anh. To Hùng, who is 30, he is em. Nothing about Nam has changed: the word describes the gap between two people, not the person.
| The other person | Age | Nam calls them | Nam calls himself |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mai | 20 | em | anh |
| Hùng | 30 | anh | em |
| Lan | 30 | chị | em |
You are allowed to ask
Anh bao nhiêu tuổi? and Em bao nhiêu tuổi? are ordinary questions. Age is not a rude subject in Vietnam: it is exactly the information the language needs before a conversation can start.
Words in this lesson
| Word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| anh | older brother; a man older than you | Anh hơn em ba tuổi. You are three years older than me. |
| chị | older sister; a woman older than you | Chị tên là gì? What is your name? (to a woman older than you) |
| em | younger sibling; a person younger than you | Em tên là Mai. My name is Mai. (said by the younger person) |
| tên | name | Tên của chị là Lan. Your name is Lan. |
| tuổi | year of age | Em hai mươi tuổi. I am twenty years old. |
| bao nhiêu | how many, how much | Lớp có bao nhiêu người? How many people are there in the class? |
| hơn | more than (in a comparison) | Chị lớn tuổi hơn em. You are older than me. |
| cùng tuổi | the same age | Hai người cùng tuổi thì gọi nhau là bạn. Two people of the same age call each other bạn. |
Exercises
This lesson has 10 exercises in the app:
- multiple choice: 3
- fill the gap: 2
- match the pairs: 1
- build the sentence: 1
- translate the sentence: 2
- listen and type: 1
Try the first one
You are talking to a woman about ten years older than you. What do you call her?
The answer, the other exercises, the audio and your progress are in the app – free at A0 and A1.