thế tại tất đắc
Positioned where winning is obligatory — committed past the option of losing.
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Where will you be? Anywhere Hà Nội & the NorthHuế / Đà Nẵng & the CenterSài Gòn & the SouthOnline slang Bắc ↔ Nam words
thề cá trê chui ống
empty promise; vain promise; false promise
thề mắc thắt dối
Oaths tangle the false — swear enough and the perjury knots itself.
thể dục nhịp điệu dưới nước
water aerobics
thể nào
Used to emphasize the irresistible result of an event regardless: no matter what
thệ tề bất cập
Biting your own navel, too late — remorse gnawing at what no tooth can reach.
thỉ chung như nhứt
First and last as one — constancy without a single alteration.
thỉnh vật kiến tiếu
Please don't laugh at me — the scholar's modest preface to any offering.
thỉnh đa kiến lượng
Kindly bear with me — the formal plea for indulgence.
thị cổ phi kim
Praising the ancients to damn the present — nostalgia weaponized.
thị khả nhẫn, thục bất khả nhẫn
If this can be borne, what cannot — cruelty so far past bearing it defines the limit.
thị tắc hành, phi tắc chỉ
Right, then act; wrong, then stop — decision is the hinge; hesitation does neither.
thị tử như quy
Facing death as a homecoming — courage that reads the grave as a return address.
thịt thà cá mú
Meat and fish and suchlike — the protein end of the market, spoken of loosely.
thịt đỏ và thịt trắng
red meat and white meat
thọ trái oán tài chủ
The debtor resents the creditor — gratitude curdles fastest in the borrowed hand.
thọ tài như thọ tiển
Receiving wealth is receiving an arrow — every gift arrives fletched with obligation.
thọ ơn thọ lộc
Fed on favor and perquisite — thriving on others' help until working feels optional.
thọc gậy bánh xe
to put a spoke in someone's wheel; to throw a spanner in the works
thỏ thẻ như trẻ nên ba
Lisping like a three-year-old — grown, and still babbling in milk-teeth.
thỏng mắm treo đầu giàn
A crock of fish-paste hung at the shelf's edge — arrangements one bump from disaster.
thố thủ bất cập
Hands too slow for the moment — caught before a single move was ready.
thố tử hồ bi
The fox mourns the rabbit — grief among kindred kinds; when your like falls, your own cold comes closer.
thối nhứt bộ tự nhiên khoang
Step back one pace and the world widens — yielding buys room the stubborn never see.
thớt trên mòn, thớt dưới cũng mòn
The top millstone wears, and so does the bottom — in every grinding lawsuit, both stones lose face.
thờ thày mới được làm thày
Honor your teacher to become one — mastery is inherited through respect.
thời thế tạo anh hùng
the time creates the hero
thời tiết thế nào?
How’s the weather?
thời tiết tệ quá!
What awful weather!
thợ rèn không dao ăn trầu
The blacksmith without a betel knife — supplying every house but his own.
thụ khổ thụ nan
Bearing bitterness and shouldering hardship — endurance as a full-time occupation.
thủ chu đãi thố
Guarding the stump, awaiting the rabbit — one accident enshrined as a strategy.
thủ khẩu như bình
Guard the mouth like a stoppered jar — sealed speech, walled intentions.
thủ thân vi đại
Guarding one's own body is the great charge — self-preservation as first duty.
thủ thử lưỡng đoan
The mouse at the burrow's lip, in and out — commitment that pokes its head and pulls it back.
thủ vỉ tương ứng
Head and tail answering each other — the two-headed snake's defense; touch either end, the other strikes.
thủy chỉ thanh tắc vô ngư, nhơn chí sát tắc vô đồ
Water too clear keeps no fish; a person too exacting keeps no friends — every bond needs a little silt.
thủy khả dĩ tải châu, diệc khả dĩ phúc châu
Water carries the boat and water capsizes it — the people bear the throne, and can turn it over.
thủy lưu tại hạ
Water flows to the lowest place — and so does every loss; the underling's share is obedience and the bill.
thủy trung lao nguyệt
Trawling the moon from the water — labor spent on a reflection.
thức khuya dậy sớm
Late to bed, early to rise — industry measured in lost sleep.
thức khuya mới biết đêm dài, ở lâu mới biết lòng người có nhân
Stay up late and learn how long the night is; live with someone long and learn whether their heart is kind — duration is the only test.
thừa nước đục thả câu
to fish in troubled waters
thừa phong phá lãng
Riding the wind, breaking the waves — ambition under full sail.
thử nhập thương ngao
The mouse into the granary — landed amid plenty, the Sino-Vietnamese cousin of the mouse in the rice jar.
thực bất sung trường
Food that never fills the gut — poverty measured at the stomach.
ti cung khuất tất
Bowed torso and bended knee — servility in its full Sino-Vietnamese dress.
ti hí mắt lươn
Slit eel's eyes — the narrow gaze folk wisdom assigns to the untrustworthy.
ti-hí mắt lươn
So awful even ghosts complain and demons sulk — repellent past the supernatural's own standards.
tin bạn mất vợ
Trust a friend, lose a wife — the proverb's grimmest audit of misplaced confidence.
tin bợm mất bò
Trust the rogue, lose the ox — confidence invested at the predictable address.
tin sái cổ
to take something (usually a fraudulent claim) as a matter of fact without further inspection; to be too credulous
tiu-nghỉu như mèo mất tai
Crestfallen as a cat with a cropped ear — deflation you can see from across the yard.
tiên giác giác hậu giác
The first-awakened wake the later — whoever sees earlier owes the seeing.
tiên học lễ, hậu học văn
learn manners first, then learn literature
tiên lai hậu đáo
First come, then arrived — precedence by order of appearance; the queue as law.
tiên thiên bất túc
Congenitally insufficient — frail from birth; weak in one's very constitution.
tiên vi chủ, hậu vi khách
First the host, then the guest — precedence at the door, deference at the table.
tiên xử kỉ nhi hậu xử bỉ
Judge yourself before judging others — your own case is always first on the docket.
tiếc thay hột gạo trắng ngần, đã vo nước đục, lại vần than rơm
Pity the pearl-white grain of rice — washed in muddy water, then rolled in straw-char — worth spoiled by wrong handling.