chỉ hươu nói ngựa
To brazenly call one thing another — deliberate misrepresentation, often to deceive or curry favor.
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chỉ mành treo chuông
A bell hung by a thread — everything precious suspended from the flimsiest strand.
chỉ sông sông cạn, chỉ núi núi tan
Point at the river, it drains; at the mountain, it crumbles — the lover's oath at maximum wattage.
chị ngã em nâng
When the elder sister falls, the younger lifts her — siblings as each other's ground.
chọc cứt ra mà ngửi
To stir up dung just to smell it — dredging up someone's dirt only dirties yourself.
chọn mặt gửi vàng
Choose the face before entrusting the gold — pick carefully whom you trust with what matters most.
chọn người gửi của
Fleeing the lord to live in the pagoda — refuge one rung up from the trouble.
chỏ hươu chỏ vượn
Talking snakes and dragons — narrative inflated species by species.
chồng ghét thì ra, mụ gia ghét thì vào
Husband's disfavor puts you out; his mother's only keeps you in — only one displeasure in that house is fatal.
chồng hoà vợ thuận
Husband amiable, wife agreeable — concord as the household's operating system.
chồng loan vợ phượng
Loan husband, phoenix wife — a couple matched like the paired birds of legend.
chồng người đánh giặc sông Lô Chồng em ngồi bếp rang ngô cháy quần Chồng người cưỡi ngựa bắn cung Chồng em ngồi bếp cầm chun bắn ruồi
Her husband fights at the Lô river; mine squats by the stove roasting corn till his trousers scorch — the wives' merciless comparison of husbands.
chồng đông vợ đoài
Husband east, wife west — one household, two horizons.
chổi cùn rế rách
Worn-out broom and torn pot-rest — the household's humblest veterans; and one's own dear shabby things.
chỗ dừng xe bên đường
roadside lay-by; pull-off area
chỗ ăn không hết, chỗ thết không khẳm
One larder overflows while the other can't fill the table — take from surplus to mend the shortfall.
chớp bể mưa nguồn
Lightning at sea and rain in the highlands — sudden, unreadable turns of weather or fortune.
chờ được mạ thì má đã sưng
By the time mother comes, the cheek is already swollen — help you have to wait for arrives after the blow lands.
chở củi về rừng
To do something pointlessly redundant — bringing something to a place that already has plenty of it.
chợ chưa họp, kẻ cắp đã đông
The market not yet open, the pickpockets already thick — predators arrive before the prey does.
chủ trung tín
Hold to loyalty and good faith — sincerity as the root of all standing.
chức trọng quyền cao
High office and heavy authority — rank with real power attached.
chứng nào tật nấy
Who drinks, will drink again.
chửa đánh người mặt đỏ như vang, đánh được người mặt vàng như nghệ
Before the blow lands, the face burns sappan-red; after it lands, turmeric-yellow — bravado's full color cycle.
chửi chó mắng mèo
Cursing the dog and scolding the cat — jabbing at someone sideways instead of saying it to their face.
chữ như cua bò sàng
Handwriting like crabs crawling a sieve — script scuttling in every direction.
chữ tác đánh chữ tộ
Mistaking the character tác for tộ — semi-literate blundering; garbling one thing for another.
chữa dép ruộng dưa
Combed by wind, washed by rain — groomed entirely by hard weather.
clgt
initialism of cái lồn gì thế? (“the fuck is/was that?”): WTF
CMNR
CMNR — initialism of 'chuẩn mẹ nó rồi': exactly right, damn straight.
coi bằng mặt, chớ bắt bằng tay
Look with the eyes, seize not with the hands — admire, and leave untouched.
coi người bằng nửa con mắt
Looking at people with half an eye — scarcely deigning to see them at all.
coi người như rơm như rác
Treating people like straw and rubbish — contempt that rates others as refuse.
coi trời bằng vung
to be arrogant despite one's ignorance; to be egotistical
con cháu các cụ
Children of the elders — a wry label for the privileged offspring of ranking officials.
con cháu hơn ông vải
Grandchildren outranking the ancestral tablets — greenhorns lecturing their elders.
con cháu đẻ ông vải
Grandchildren lecturing the ancestor tablets — the young overruling the very elders who made them.
con cà con kê
This hen, that rooster — rambling talk that never finds its point.
con cái khôn ngoan vẻ vang cha mẹ
Wise children are their parents' glory — the family's honor grows in its offspring.
con có cha như nhà có nóc
"children need their fathers to be complete"
con có cha như nhà có nóc, con không cha như nòng nọc đứt đuôi
A child with a father is a house with a roof; without, a tadpole with its tail snapped off — shelter and its absence, in one image.
con công chẳng giống lông cũng giống kiến
The peacock's chick, if not its feathers then its gait — breeding shows one way or another.
con gái con đứa
what kind of girl that...
con gái làng Vờ đẹp như trong tranh
The girls of Vờ village, lovely as paintings — a local boast in one brushstroke.
con gái mười hai bến nước
A girl faces twelve landings — a woman's marriage is a ferry that may tie up at any of twelve shores, clear or murky.
con gái nói có là không, nói yêu là ghét, nói buồn là vui
A girl's 'yes' means no, her 'love' means hate, her 'sad' means glad — the teasing dictionary of courtship.
con học thóc vay
The child studies on borrowed rice — education mortgaged meal by meal.
con không khóc mẹ chẳng cho bú
The child that doesn't cry gets no milk — needs unvoiced go unfed.
con là máu, cháu là mủ
Children are blood; grandchildren are sap — love thins by one degree each generation.
con là nợ vợ là oan gia
Children are debts, a spouse the karmic creditor — the family knot as a ledger of past lives.
con mắt là ngọc
The eye is a jewel — sight exists to sort true from false; guard it from mixing fish-eyes with pearls.
con mắt ưa nhìn
An eye that likes the look of things — attraction at first inspection.
con một cháu một bầy
One child, then a brood of grandchildren — the single thread that widens into a weave; a blessed house.
con nhà tông không giống lông cũng giống cánh
the apple does not fall far from the tree
con nhà tông, chẳng giống lông cũng giống cánh
A child of pedigree — if not the feathers, then the wings — lineage shows somewhere, always.
con quan thì lại làm quan Con nhà kẻ khó, bắt cua tối ngày
The mandarin's child becomes a mandarin; the poor man's child catches crabs all day — heredity as the old regime's whole career ladder.
con ruồi đỗ nặng đòn cân
Even a settling fly tips the scales — no weight is too small to decide a fine balance.
con rô cũng tiếc, con diếc cũng muốn
Grudging the perch yet craving the carp — appetite refusing to choose between fish.
con sâu làm rầu nồi canh
one caterpillar spoils the broth pot
Con sâu làm rầu nồi canh - Một người làm đĩ xấu danh đàn bà
One drop of poison infects the whole of wine.