chẳng trách
Used to demonstrate the inevitable result of what one has stated: no wonder
All languages English Tiếng Việt
Where will you be? Anywhere Hà Nội & the NorthHuế / Đà Nẵng & the CenterSài Gòn & the SouthOnline slang Bắc ↔ Nam words
Used to demonstrate the inevitable result of what one has stated: no wonder
Missing the bullseye still grazes the target — a guess near enough to count.
Neither feasting nor playing, half a life and you're a ghost regardless — thrift's memento mori: the grave takes savers too.
Having no way not to — cornered into it; unavoidable.
Disliking someone, you say a bit extra — spite always rounds the story up.
Chop it large, boil it soft — the coarse cook's shortcut; effort saved, texture lost.
Split bamboo by the joint, judge news by the listening — verify along the grain before you commit the blade.
Cutesy spelling of "chết rồi" — "I'm dead / uh-oh", a playful cry when something goes wrong.
Dead: horns and drums; living: lamp-oil — each state of a person has its own running costs.
Head-over-heels smitten — infatuated to the point of losing all sense.
Dead tired — a hyperbolic "this is killing me" for exhaustion, or a dramatic "I can't even" when something is too funny or too much.
Better to die full than live craving — appetite's defiant motto against all abstinence.
"Oh no / I'm dead" — the realization noise: forgotten keys, missed deadlines, unsent messages; almost never about actual death.
Dead with legs stretched straight — finality in one posture.
Die young, a nimble ghost; die old, a muddled one — mortality's consolation for the early-taken.
Better die a beggar than live a beggar.
'...to death' — the all-purpose Vietnamese intensifier of feeling: happy, sad or full, to the point of dying.
To brazenly call one thing another — deliberate misrepresentation, often to deceive or curry favor.
"It's just a misunderstanding" — the de-escalation phrase; "thôi" at the end shrinks the whole affair back to size.
A bell hung by a thread — everything precious suspended from the flimsiest strand.
Point at the river, it drains; at the mountain, it crumbles — the lover's oath at maximum wattage.
When the elder sister falls, the younger lifts her — siblings as each other's ground.
"Pretty big sister" — the affectionate title for a glamorous, capable older woman the internet collectively admires.
Calling a woman slightly older than you — vendor, cashier, stranger on the street. Respectful and friendly at once.
Total surrender before a problem: "I give up, nothing can be done". Stronger than plain "chịu" — you are declaring the case hopeless.
Hands thrown up: "I'm done, can't deal" — cheerful surrender to a person or puzzle beyond your powers.
To stir up dung just to smell it — dredging up someone's dirt only dirties yourself.
Choose the face before entrusting the gold — pick carefully whom you trust with what matters most.
Fleeing the lord to live in the pagoda — refuge one rung up from the trouble.
Talking snakes and dragons — narrative inflated species by species.
"Locked in!" — decision finalized on the spot; the verbal gavel of group chats planning anything.
To lock in profit — sell and make the paper gain real; the only known cure for counting crabs still in their holes («đếm cua trong lỗ»).
To close the order — livestream-commerce Vietnamese for committing to buy; sellers chant it, buyers comment it, wallets fear it.
Husband's disfavor puts you out; his mother's only keeps you in — only one displeasure in that house is fatal.
Husband amiable, wife agreeable — concord as the household's operating system.
Loan husband, phoenix wife — a couple matched like the paired birds of legend.
Her husband fights at the Lô river; mine squats by the stove roasting corn till his trousers scorch — the wives' merciless comparison of husbands.
Husband east, wife west — one household, two horizons.
Worn-out broom and torn pot-rest — the household's humblest veterans; and one's own dear shabby things.
roadside lay-by; pull-off area
One larder overflows while the other can't fill the table — take from surplus to mend the shortfall.
Lightning at sea and rain in the highlands — sudden, unreadable turns of weather or fortune.
"Hold on a sec" — universal pause button; Southern speech shrinks it to the even friendlier "chờ xíu".
The Southern "wait a tiny bit" — "xíu" (a smidge) makes any wait sound short and sweet.
By the time mother comes, the cheek is already swollen — help you have to wait for arrives after the blow lands.
To do something pointlessly redundant — bringing something to a place that already has plenty of it.
The market not yet open, the pickpockets already thick — predators arrive before the prey does.
Hold to loyalty and good faith — sincerity as the root of all standing.
High office and heavy authority — rank with real power attached.
Who drinks, will drink again.
Before the blow lands, the face burns sappan-red; after it lands, turmeric-yellow — bravado's full color cycle.
Cursing the dog and scolding the cat — jabbing at someone sideways instead of saying it to their face.
Handwriting like crabs crawling a sieve — script scuttling in every direction.
Mistaking the character tác for tộ — semi-literate blundering; garbling one thing for another.
Combed by wind, washed by rain — groomed entirely by hard weather.
initialism of cái lồn gì thế? (“the fuck is/was that?”): WTF
CMNR — initialism of 'chuẩn mẹ nó rồi': exactly right, damn straight.
Look with the eyes, seize not with the hands — admire, and leave untouched.
Looking at people with half an eye — scarcely deigning to see them at all.
Treating people like straw and rubbish — contempt that rates others as refuse.