🇻🇳

Vietnamese Verb Usage Patterns

Complete usage patterns for the 20 most essential Vietnamese verbs. Vietnamese is an isolating (analytic) language — verbs never change form. Tense and aspect are expressed through pre-verbal and post-verbal markers like đã (past), đang (progressive), sẽ (future), and không (negative). Vietnamese is also a tonal language with six tones that distinguish word meaning.

Essential Verbs

Tense/Aspect Patterns

60+

Example Sentences

How Vietnamese Verbs Work

Vietnamese follows Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) word order. Since verbs never conjugate, all grammatical information about tense and aspect is carried by particles placed before or after the verb.

Key features of Vietnamese verbs:

No conjugation — the verb form is identical for all persons, numbers, and tenses
Context-dependent — without markers, the bare verb can refer to past, present, or habitual action
Tonal distinctions — the six tones (ngang, sắc, huyền, hỏi, ngã, nặng) change word meaning entirely
Pronoun system reflects social relationships — age, gender, and formality determine pronoun choice
Serial verb constructions — verbs often combine (e.g., đi ăn = "go eat", tìm thấy = "search-find")

Personal Pronouns

Vietnamese pronouns reflect the social relationship between speakers. These are the most common:

Vietnamese	English
tôi	I (neutral/formal)
bạn	you (peer/neutral)
anh	you/he (older male)
chị	you/she (older female)
em	you/he/she (younger person)
anh ấy	he (older male, 3rd person)
chị ấy	she (older female, 3rd person)
chúng tôi	we (exclusive)
chúng ta	we (inclusive)
họ	they