Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
28 December 2009
Thanh 2
languages in the world, including English and Vietnamese, have this type of
word. However, each language has its own characteristics. The use of
confusion for English people who learn Vietnamese. Therefore, this paper aims
especially in the ways they are used. Then, I will suggest some implications for
verb, such as I, you, we, he, she, it, and they (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun
such as me, you, us, him, her, it, and them (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun
Characteristics”). For example: How can you stand living with them?
who owns a particular object or person, such as mine, yours, ours, his, hers, its,
person, second person and third person (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun
Characteristics”).
audience of the writer, such as you/you/yours. For example: You must tell me the
truth.
him.
doctor?
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doctors?
Characteristics”).
she/her/hers. For example: Mai is a good girl. She usually helps me.
- Neuter personal pronouns are used when the sexual state of referents is
not mentioned, such asthey/them/theirs, it/it/its. For example: They are the books
person, number and gender. To make it brief, I have summarized all in the
following table:
Singular Plural
Subjective Objective Possessive Subjective Objective Possessive
First I Me Mine We Us Ours
Second You You Yours You You Yours
Masculine He Him His
Third Feminine She Her Hers They Them Theirs
Neuter It It Its
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complicated than the one of English. Not only age, gender, person but also the
social context, attitude of the speaker to the listener as well as the relationship
between the speaker and listener are indicated through the way Vietnamese
choose personal pronouns in every day communication. There are two branches
True personal pronouns are catergorised into first person, second person
- First personal pronouns in singular forms include: tôi, ta, mình, tao… Tôi
is usually used in polite speech (Ex: This is a statement in a wedding: “Tôi xin
chân thành cám ơn sự có mặt của quý vị trong buổi lễ ngày hôm nay”). Ta is
wavering between coming back or staying on, he may ask himself: “Ta nên đi
hay nên ở lại đây?”) or it can be used to indicate the higher status of the speaker
to the addressee (Ex: A boss may say to his charwoman: “Hãy chuẩn bị mọi thứ
sẵn sàng cho ta”). Mình is also used for soliloquy (Ex: When someone
encourage himself, he may say: “Mình cần phải cố hơn nữa!”). Tao is used in
informal case when the speaker and the addressee have a close relationship
(Ex: A pupil want to borrow his friend’s picture book, he may say: “Cho tao mượn
cuốn truyện này nha”) or when the speaker is angry with the listener (Ex: “Tao sẽ
is used in close relationship or informal social context (Ex: A sister may ask her
brother: “Mày đang làm cái gì đó?”). Mi is usually used for familiar relationship in
the Middle area of Vietnam; it has the same function as mày. Bạn is used to creat
thể giớ thiệu về bản thân mình cho khán giả được biết không ạ?”).
- Third personal pronouns in singular forms include: nó, y, hắn, gã, ả…Nó
is often used to refer to animals, things or children (Ex: “Chiếc bàn này được làm
từ gỗ quý nên nó có giá rất cao”). Y and hắn are both used to refer to someone
could say: “Hắn là một tên tội phạm”). Gã and ả are both ofetn used to refer to
someone unliked, however, Vienamese use gã for male and ả for female (Ex: A
girl talks about a man who makes her annoyed: “Gã thật là phiền phức” while the
The plural forms of first, second and third personal pronouns can be
created by adding the words like “chúng”, “tụi”, “bọn” such as: chúng tôi, tụi nó,
bọn mày, bọn tao….(Ex: This is a statement in a wedding: “Chúng tôi xin chân
thành cám ơn sự có mặt của quý vị trong buổi lễ ngày hôm nay”). However, we
can also use “họ” as the plural form of a third personal pronoun without adding
any words (Ex: Instead of saying: “Tụi nó là bạn của tôi”, one can say: “Họ là bạn
are the most popular ways Vietnamese use to refer oneself and others. Even
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though the listener is not a family member or relative, kinship terms can also
(Luong, 1990). The system of these kinship terms is quite complicated and they
can different according to specific areas, so in this paper I just mention some
typical ones.
(mother-children). For example, a child talks to her mother: “Tối nay, mẹ và con
đi siêu thị nhé!” The term cha-con is also used in the relationship between parish
chị-em (older sister-younger brother/sister). For example, a little boy says to his
sister: “Ba bảo chị một lát chở em đi học.” A person can also use anh/ chị to refer
people who are in the same generation and older than him/her, and use em to
prefer people who are in the same generation and younger than him/her.
example, an old man talks to his niece: “Để ông kể cho cháu nghe chuyện Tấm-
Cám nhé!” The terms ông-cháu and bà-cháu can also be used when a person
nice/nephew). For example, a man may talk to his nephew: “Cậu có quà cho
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cháu này.” The term chú-cháu is also used when a person talks to a male who is
the same age or younger than his/her parents whereas bác-cháu is used when a
(parents’ older sister- nice/nephew), mợ-cháu (uncle’s wife on the maternal side-
example, a woman may say to her niece: “Cháu của dì hôm nay giỏi quá!” The
term dì-cháu or cô-cháu is also used when a person talks to a female who is
younger than his/her parents while bác-cháu is used when a person talks to a
To make the third-person forms of the kinship terms above, the word “ấy”
is added behind them such as ông ấy, bà ấy, thím ấy, dì ấy, chú ấy, chị ấy, anh
ấy…For example: Lan là chị của tôi. Chị ấy rất thương tôi.
Within this paper, I would like to discuss the contrast between English and
Firstly, there are different pronouns in English that indicate subject vs.
predicate position (eg. “he” vs. “him”) while Vietnamese pronouns remain the
Example:
- Anh ấy là bạn trai của Mary. Tôi đã gặp anh ấy trong buổi tiệc sinh nhật
another noun (eg. “mine”, “yours”, “his”, “hers”). In contrast, possessive pronouns
do not exist in Vietnamese; in stead, the word “của” is used to indicate the
possession.
Example:
Áo khoát của tôi màu hồng. Cái của bạn màu xanh.
Example:
Anh ấy nói sẽ đi Hà Nội vào tháng tới. (The subject of reported clause is
omitted).
strongly influenced by semantic and pragmatic factors while this is not the case
example: In English, we use only the pronoun “he” for referring to both brother
and father; however, in Vietnamese, we have to use the pronoun “ông ấy” for
referring to father and the pronoun “anh ấy” for referring to brother.
pronouns above, I would like to suggest some implications for English and
pragmatic factors such as age, sex, social status, relationship, attitudes and
feelings of the speaker and addressee, as well as the formality of the context in
learn Vietnamese, teachers should explain clearly the different meanings of each
consider the relationship, sex and even social status between the speaker and
the listener. If the speaker is a female and the listener is a male, the utterance
should be “Em yêu anh”. On contrast, if the speaker is a male and the listener is
a female, the utterance should be “Anh yêu em”. However, if the utterance is said
by people in a family, the personal pronouns must be change: “Mẹ yêu con” for
the mother to her child and “Con yêu mẹ” for the child to his/her mother, “Bà yêu
cháu” for the grandmother to her grandchild and “Cháu yêu bà” for the grandchild
has much higher social status than her, she may say “Em yêu ngài”.
contexts appears, it is the teacher’s duty to explain clearly the reason for such
change. The following example will make the suggestion more clear:
This is the conservation between a father and his daughter when the
Ba: Con hãy bỏ thằng đó đi. Nó không thể mang hạnh phúc đến cho con
đâu.
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Ba: Nghe lời ba đi con. Bỏ thằng đó đi. Ba sẽ tìm cho con một người tốt
hơn.
Con gái: Con xin lỗi ba, nhưng con không thể.
Ba: Vậy thì mày hãy ra khỏi nhà tao để đi theo thằng đó luôn đi.
In the conservation above, we can see the sudden change from “cha-con”
to “mày-tao” when the father gets angry because he fails to convince her
differently according to the attitude of the utterer. He is called “nó”, “thằng đó” by
the father with scornful attitude, but the daughter use the pronoun “anh ấy” to call
him respectfully.
aquainted with using possessive and objective pronouns which do not exist in
Vietnamese. For example, the sentence “Mặc dù nó đã cố gắng rất nhiều nhưng
sự vụng về của nó khiến cho mọi người không muốn giao nhiệm vụ cho nó” is
translated into English “Although he tried a lot, his awkwardness made nobody
Last but not least, ellipsis is dominant in Vietnamese while it is not the
In Vietnamese In English
A: Đi đâu đó? A: Where are you going?
B: Đi chợ. B: I’m going to the market.
pronouns in English and Vietnamese, for example, are problems that learners
need to make their efforts to adapt. With this research paper, I hope that readers
pronouns in Vietnamese. Then, we can find out more effective solutions to help
learners grasp the using of personals pronouns between the two languages more
easily. It is obvious that this paper cannot avoid shortcomings, so your useful
References
Erickson, J. English. In J. Garry & C. Rubino, eds. Facts about the world’s
Company, 1990.
25 Dec. 2009
<http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/
nounchar.html#persons>.
2009 <http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/pronouns.html>.
Duc Dai Hoc. 11 Jan. 2006. Vu Dai hoc va Sau Dai hoc. 28 Dec. 2009
<http://www.hed.edu.vn/TrangChu/LuanAnTienSi/11128299/>.