nặng gánh san hà
Heavy with the burden of rivers and mountains — carrying the weight of great undertakings.
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Where will you be? Anywhere Hà Nội & the NorthHuế / Đà Nẵng & the CenterSài Gòn & the SouthOnline slang Bắc ↔ Nam words
nếm mật nằm gai
to undergo self-imposed hardships; to nurse vengeance; to endure hardships to accomplish some ambition
nịch ái bất minh, tham đắc vô yểm
Doting blinds and greed never fills — love without eyes, appetite without floor.
nối dáo cho giặc
Splicing a lance for the invader — arming the very hand raised against you.
nối dây tơ hồng
Tying the rose-silk thread — getting a couple married; performing the wedding.
nối giáo cho giặc
Passing the enemy your lance — abetting the foe; arming the wrongdoer.
nối gót
follow in someone's footsteps
nồi da xáo thịt
Boiling the flesh in a pot of its own skin — kin savaging kin; the family consuming itself.
nồi méo úp vung méo
A warped pot gets a warped lid — every misshape finds its matching cover.
nồi nào úp vung nấy
Every person has a fitting match — said of couples who suit each other (sometimes teasingly, of matched flaws).
nổi cơn tam bành
to boil over with anger; to fly into a rage
nổi trận lôi đình
Erupting in a thunderclap rage — fury like a storm breaking.
nội bất xuất, ngoại bất nhập
nothing inside can come out, nothing outside can come in
nội gia nô tỉ, xuất gia công khanh
Servant within the gate, minister beyond it — humility at home, dignity abroad.
nội gia tạo ác, ngoại kỉ tri văn
Shame made indoors is heard outdoors — the house's walls were never soundproof.
nợ chúa Chổm
Debts like Lord Chổm's — owing in every direction, legend-grade insolvency.
nợ lãnh là nợ mình
A guaranteed debt is your debt — co-sign and you've already begun repaying.
nợ như chúa Chổm
to be heavily indebted
nợ tiền kiếp
Wealth like drifting cloud — here at noon, gone by evening.
nợ đồng lần
Debt that rotates — life's borrowing circle: everyone owes, everyone repays, round and round.
nứa trôi sông
Bamboo adrift downriver — the unmoored, going where the water says.
nứt đố đổ vách
to be loaded; to be filthy rich
nửa người nửa ngợm
Half person, half creature — humanity incompletely installed.
nữ sanh ngoại tộc
Daughters pass to the outer clan — the old patrilineal accounting of a girl's belonging.
nực cười châu chấu đá xe, tưởng rằng chấu ngã ai dè xe nghiêng
Laughable, the grasshopper kicking the cart — yet the grasshopper stood and the cart tipped over — the underdog verse that history kept quoting.
oa giác công danh, nhăng đầu vi lợi
Fame the size of a snail's horn, profit the size of a fly's head — the tininess of what we trample each other for.
oan gia nghi giải bất nghi kết
Feuds are for untying, not for knotting — grievance managed rightly ends; managed wrongly, it compounds.
oan gia ngõ hẹp
foes in a narrow alleyway.
oan oan tương báo
Wrong answering wrong forever — vengeance signing its own next invoice.
oan phường vải
Slandered like the cloth-sellers' guild — accused with a trader's own twisting tongue.
oan Thị Kính
Wronged like Thị Kính — an injustice impossible to explain away; blameless yet condemned.
oan Thị Mầu
Wronged like Thị Mầu — playing the victim when one is really the culprit.
oki
Cutesy “OK” — agreement with sprinkles.
ong kiến còn có vua tôi, huống chi loài người
Even bees and ants keep kings and subjects — order is older than mankind; what excuse have we.
ong vỡ ổ
The hive burst open — everything airborne and stinging at once.
PCCC
initialism of phòng cháy chữa cháy (“fire prevention and control”)
pha ke
Fake; counterfeit or phony — the English word "fake" respelled the way Vietnamese pronounces it.
phanh bụng phanh ngực
Baring belly and chest — laying the whole matter open to view.
phanh xích lô
A loud, smacking kiss — named after the squeal of a cyclo's brakes.
phi công trẻ lái máy bay bà già
Describes a younger man who loves or dates an older woman.
phi cổ bất thành kim
there is no present without the past
phi vũ tình
Love in drifting rain — a tryst that never arrives; waiting in the drizzle for one who does not come.
phi đế phi bá
Neither emperor nor hegemon — holding power without the title to match.
phim mì ăn liền
Instant-noodle cinema — the quick, cheap commercial films of early-90s Vietnam; schlock made to sell fast.
phong ba bão táp không bằng ngữ pháp Việt Nam
Vietnamese grammar is very hard to learn.
phong quang phục khánh
Sweeping the hall to welcome the celebration — clearing every grudge so the rightful occasion can shine.
phong thổ kiến quốc
Granting fiefs to found the realm — parceling land to vassals to raise a state.
phong tục tập quán
habits and customs
phong, lao, cổ, lại, tứ chứng nan y
Palsy, consumption, blindness, leprosy — the four ailments past medicine, heaven's own afflictions.
phu một hoàn thê
The husband gone, all passes to the wife — widowhood's claim on what the marriage built.
phu phụ hòa, gia đạo thành
Husband and wife in harmony, the family way complete — concord at the hearth is the whole foundation.
phu tử tùng tử
The widow follows the son — the third of the three followings, the old code's last clause.
phu xướng phụ tùy
The husband calls, the wife follows — the old household's call-and-response of authority.
phàm hí vô ích
All play is profitless — the child-sage's verdict to Confucius; and some games cost fortunes.
phá gia chi tử
child who squanders the family fortune
pháp bất gía ư quân tử, lễ bất chấp ư tiểu nhơn
Law doesn't add to the gentleman, nor ritual bind the boor — rules assume the one and despair of the other.
Phây búc
Facebook — the platform's name respelled the way Vietnamese pronounces it; often shortened to "Phây".
phép vua thua lệ làng
even the monarch's law loses to a village's norms
phòng bệnh hơn chữa bệnh
it's better to prevent diseases than to wait for them to happen and then treat them
phòng điều khiển tín hiệu
signal box; signal control room