đa đa ích thiện
The more, the better — abundance as its own argument; said of what improves by quantity.
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Where will you be? Anywhere Hà Nội & the NorthHuế / Đà Nẵng & the CenterSài Gòn & the SouthOnline slang Bắc ↔ Nam words
đanh đá cá cầy
Sharp-tongued as a trapped dog — shrewish, snapping, giving no quarter.
đao kiếm tuy lợi bất sát vô tội chi nhơn
The blade, however sharp, spares the innocent — even weapons are held to law.
đao to búa lớn
exaggerative; braggy
đau chóng đã chày
Quick to hurt, slow to heal — damage keeps a sprinter's pace, recovery a pilgrim's.
đau chơn há miệng
An aching leg opens the mouth — press hard enough and confession comes, true or not.
đau lâu tốn thuốc
Long illness, deep pharmacy bills — sickness billed by the calendar.
đau lòng súng súng nổ, đau lòng gỗ gỗ kêu
A pained gun fires, pained timber creaks — pressure finds a voice; the aggrieved cannot stay silent.
đau như Hề Hoạn
Aching like Hề Hoạn — carrying a grief no one will hear out, like the jester in the old chèo play.
đau tiếc thân lành tiếc của
Sick, cherish the body; well, cherish the wallet — the patient promises anything, the recovered renegotiates.
đau đầu vì tiền
Headaches over money — the first half of the rhyme that ends 'and madness over love.'
đem chuông đi đấm nước người, chẳng kêu cũng đấm ba hồi lấy danh
Carrying your bell to strike in another's land — if it won't ring, strike it three times anyway for the name — persistence abroad, dignity kept.
đem con bỏ chợ
to help others and abandon them halfway; to help irresponsibly
đem quỉ về phá nhà chay
Fetching demons to wreck the fast-hall — peace on the premises, and someone imports the wrecker.
đem voi về giày nhà mả
Bringing the elephant home to trample the ancestors' graves — importing the very ruin, and showing it the family's soft ground.
đen đầu gọi là người
Every black-haired head counts as a person — humanity by the simplest census; all alike beneath the hair.
đen đầu thì bỏ, đỏ đầu thì nuôi
Black-haired, abandoned; red-haired, raised — the foundling's fate decided by a glance at the crown.
đeo mặt nạ
Wearing a mask — the public face kept over the private one.
đi bụi
To run away from home and live rough; to drift on the streets (from "bụi đời", street life).
đi cho biết đó biết đây, ở nhà với mẹ biết ngày nào khôn
Travel and you'll learn the there and here; stay home with mother and when will you wisen — the road as the only school.
đi guốc trong bụng
To know exactly what someone is thinking or planning — to read them completely.
đi gánh đau vai
Day-sleep schools the eyes — idle habits practice themselves into place.
đi khôn đứt, bứt khôn rời
Leaving can't cut it, pulling can't part it — attachment past all severing.
đi mây về gió
Traveling by cloud, returning by wind — presence with no fixed itinerary; the drifting life, or the spirit's commute.
đi qua nghiêng nón, cúi lưng, anh không chào, em không hỏi, vì chưng đông người
Passing by, I tip my nón and bow — no greeting from me, no word from you, only because the crowd was watching — decorum over a beating heart.
đi tắt đón đầu
Cutting across to meet the head of the column — leapfrogging the long road to seize the opportunity first.
đi vào lòng đất
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see đi, vào, lòng, đất.
đi xem đất, về cất mặt xem trời
Eyes down when walking out, face up only to check the sky — the old school of composed deportment.
đi đâu mà bỏ mẹ già, gối nghiêng ai sửa, tách trà ai dâng
Where are you off to, leaving your old mother — who straightens her pillow, who serves her tea — the guilt-verse of the wandering child.
đi đêm lắm có ngày gặp ma
keep wandering at night and you'll see a ghost eventually
điền liên canh gia liên cư
Adjoining fields, adjoining houses first — sell land to its neighbors; the abutter has first claim.
điều phải chứng minh
quod erat demonstrandum
điệu hổ li sơn
to lure an opponent out; to get rid of an opponent or a problem to achieve one's goal
đo bò làm chuồng
Measure the ox before building its stall — provision cut to the creature's size.
đo ni đóng giày
Measured and cobbled to fit — tailor-made to someone's exact size, often suspiciously so.
đong đi đổ lại sao đầy
Measured out and poured back, never full — every transfer taxes the load; handling is leakage.
đoán già đoán non
Guessing old, guessing young — speculating this way and that with nothing to go on.
đpcm
initialism of điều phải chứng minh: Q.E.D.
đàn gảy tai trâu
To waste fine words, art, or wisdom on someone incapable of appreciating them.
đàn ngọt hát hay
Sweet strings and fine singing — the honeyed performance, meant or merely staged.
đàn ông miệng rộng thì tài, đàn bà miệng rộng điếc tai láng giềng
A wide-mouthed man is talented; a wide-mouthed woman deafens the neighbors — the old double standard, preserved in rhyme.
đàn ông một trăm lá gan, lá ở cùng vợ, lá toan cùng người
A man has a hundred liver-leaves — one leaf lives with his wife, and one is always scheming elsewhere — the anatomy of male fickleness.
đàn ông nông nổi giếng khơi, đàn bà sâu sắc như cơi đựng trầu
Men are shallow as a deep well; women are deep as a betel tray — the proverb that flips its own insult mid-line.
đàn ông xây nhà, đàn bà xây tổ ấm
men make houses, women make homes
đàn ông đi biển có đôi, đàn bà đi biển mồ côi một mình
A man goes to sea with company; a woman goes to sea orphan-alone — childbirth as the woman's solitary ocean.
đàn ông đàn ang
what kind of man that...
đàn đàn lũ lũ
In droves and swarms — crowding along in great jostling bands.
đàng dài biết sức ngựa, nước loạn biết tôi ngay
The long road proves the horse; troubled times prove the loyal — endurance and allegiance both need distance to show.
đàng lang bộ thyền
The mantis stalks the cicada, blind to the oriole behind — every hunter is someone's prey mid-pounce.
đàng tí đương xa
A grasshopper's arm against the cart — resistance in the wrong weight class.
đào lý nhứt môn
Peach and plum of one gate — schoolmates of one master; the teacher's orchard of students.
đá kêu rêu mọc
Till stones cry and moss grows — delay geological in scale.
đánh bùn sang ao
Bailing mud from one pond to the other — busywork that changes nothing.
đánh cho chết nết không chừa
Beat him to death, the habit survives — some natures outlast any correction.
đánh chó không kiêng chủ nhà
Beating the dog without regard for its master — an insult that travels up the leash.
đánh kẻ chạy đi, ai đánh kẻ chạy lại
Strike the one who flees, never the one who returns — repentance disarms the raised hand.
đánh lô tô trong bụng
Lotto balls tumbling in the stomach — nerves fluttering; anxious suspense.
đánh lận con đen
Palming the black piece — a cardsharp's switch; steering the question crooked so the fixed answer wins.
đánh một gái giái cả chợ
Punish one girl, warn the whole market — exemplary justice, priced at one scapegoat.
đánh rắn cho chết nọc
Strike the snake till the venom dies — a half-killed danger is a scheduled relapse.