MỘT QUÁN CÀ PHÊ NHỎ TRÊN LỀ ĐƯỜNG!

A. Vocabulary:

1. Demonstrative pronouns: This/That/These/Those:

-Này (after noun): this/these+ Noun

-Kia (after noun): that/those+ Noun

-Đây là: this is/ these are (close to the speaker, far from the hearer)

-Đó là: that is/those are(close to the hearer, far from the speaker)

-Kia là: that is/those are (far from both speaker and hearer)

E.g : -Món ăn này thì rất ngon. (This dish is very delicious)

-Những xe ô tô màu vàng kia là tắc-xi. (Those yellow cars are taxis)

-Đây là những con chó. (These are the dogs)

-Đó là thư viện. (That is a library)

-Kia là Robert. (That is Robert)

2. Country, Language and Nationality:

“The British who speak English are from the UK”. Well, you don’t need to memorize so much like that in Vietnamese. All you need to do is to look up the dictionary for the name of your country (or refer to the handy table below we’ve already made, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it if your country’s name is not there!), then follow the below 2 methods:

a. Add “Tiếng” BEFORE a country’s name to turn it into a language:

Ex: Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), tiếng Nhật (Japanese), tiếng Anh (English)

b. Add “Người” BEFORE a country’s name to turn it into a nationality

Ex: Người Việt (a Vietnamese), người Pháp (a French), người Anh (a British)…

Now you can practice telling your nationality and language in Vietnamese.

Short list of countries

B. Grammar:　

“TO BE OR NOT TO BE”

Could you memorize the use of TO BE in the previous lesson? Today, we will take one more step and learn about the negative of TO BE. In English, you just need to add “not” after “am/is/are” and voilà, it turns to be negative. However, in Vietnamese, it depends on the verb: thì, là or ở. Anyway, anything has its own method. So here we go!

a.Thì: To turn an affirmative sentence into a negative one, just add “không” AFTER “thì”.

Ex:Nhà của tôi thì to (My house is big)

à Nhà của tôi thì không to. (My house is not big)

b.Là: To turn an affirmative sentence into a negative one, just add “không phải” BEFORE “là”.

Ex: John là một người Pháp (John is a French)

à John không phải là một người Pháp (John is not a French)

Đây là một con mèo lười (This is a lazy cat)

à Đây không phải là một con mèo lười (This is not a lazy cat)

!Attention: Instead of “không phải là”, “không là” is still used, but not common.

c.Ở: To turn an affirmative sentence into a negative one, just add “không” BEFORE “ở”.

Ex: Con mèo ở trong nhà. (The cat is inside the house)

à Con mèo không ở trong nhà (The cat is not inside the house)

*IN SUM:

- THÌ -> THÌ KHÔNG

- LÀ -> KHÔNG PHẢI LÀ

- Ở -> KHÔNG Ở

“To be or not to be, that’s the question”- keep up with us to learn how to make a question on the upcoming lesson.

C. Conversation:　After going to Diamond Plaza, Phuong and Tim talked about some buildings in the city center.

Explanations:

In order to make you understand easily, this conversation still makes most use of the verb TO BE and Demonstrative pronouns.

To ask how people think about something, use the structure:

Anh/chị/em/bạn thấy …. thế nào? (What do you think about…? How do you like….?)

There are several ways to express your emotions in Vietnamese. Firstly is by using “Ồ”(surprised), “Ôi” (negative/ positive feeling about something extreme) at the beginning of the sentence. Besides, you can use “thật”, “quá” after an adjective:

Eg : - Hay thật.. ( How interesting…)

- Nó to quá (It’s so big!)

- Tiếng Việt của anh giỏi thật (Your Vietnamese is so good)

“Còn…” means “How about…” / “And…” used when you would like to mention something related to the topic you’re talking about.

“…cũng..” : also. Eg: Xe tắc xi ở Liverpool cũng màu vàng? (Taxis in Liverpool are also yellow?)

“mà là” usually appears in negative sentence: “không phải… ,mà là…” to emphasize the correct Noun (only Noun as you see là in the sentence).

Eg: Tôi không phải là người Trung Quốc, mà là người Nhật. (I’m Japanese, not Chinese)

*Tips: In Vietnamese, you can raise your voice at the end to make an interogative sentece.“Còn những chiếc xe ô tô màu vàng ở đằng kia?” is an example from the dialogue. Next lesson, we’ll tell you more about how to ask a question with the verb TO BE.

D. Today’s checklist: