Đông Lào
A tongue-in-cheek internet name for Việt Nam itself — literally "East Laos" — used to discuss domestic affairs with plausible deniability, or simply as satire.
Browse Tiếng Việt 3881
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
Đầu xuôi đuôi lọt
"Starting properly ensures the speedy completion of a process. A – beginning is often blocked by one or more obstacles (potential barriers) the removal of which may ensure the smooth course of the process.".
Đồng thanh tương ứng, đồng khí tương cầu. Ngưu tầm ngưu, mã tầm mã
Similar people often become friends.
Đồng ý!
I agree! / Okay!
Đời cha ăn mặn, đời con khát nước
When the father's generation eats salt, the child's generation thirsts for water.
Đừng chế nhạo người
Laugh and the world will laugh with you.
Đừng xét đoán người qua bề ngoài
Do not judge the book by its cover.
đa hư bất như thiểu thiệt
Much hollow is less than a little solid — one true handful beats a cartload of froth.
đa sự đa lự
Many affairs, many anxieties — every undertaking enlists its own worry.
đa tài lụy thân
Much wealth wearies its owner — property is luggage; the rich travel heaviest.
đa đa ích thiện
The more, the better — abundance as its own argument; said of what improves by quantity.
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 mô
Central Vietnamese for "where are you going?" — "mô" is the region's word for "đâu" (where), one of the signature Central function words.
đi nhậu không
The after-work summons: "coming out drinking?" — "nhậu" is the Southern institution of beer, grilled snacks, and long tables that solve nothing and everything.
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 thẳng
"Go straight" — direction-giving 101; Vietnamese directions chain these: "đi thẳng, tới ngã tư rẽ trái…".
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
đi đường cẩn thận
"Travel safely" — the doorway farewell; Vietnamese care is logistical, and this is its signature line.
đi đường quyền
To "throw hands" — respond with (usually imaginary) martial-arts fury; internet shorthand for escalating from words to theatrical combat.
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.
đu fame
To cling to someone else's fame — riding a trending name or scandal for reflected attention.
đu sóng
Riding the wave — jumping onto a price run already in motion, hoping to surf a little further; one mistimed hop and you have graduated to «đu đỉnh» (bag-holding at the very top).
đu trend
To hop on a trend — joining the viral dance, sound, or meme of the week; "đu" (to swing/cling) makes the chase physical.
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.
Advertisement
Ad space — ads help keep Idiomer free. Premium will remove them.