thân em đi lấy chồng chung, khác nào như cái bung xung chui đầu
Married as the shared second wife — a shuttlecock everyone's head pushes through — polygamy from below.
Browse Tiếng Việt 6178
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
thân kinh bách chiến
A body through a hundred battles — veteran to the bone.
thân làm tội đời
A body that makes its own life miserable — self-inflicted servitude to one's own habits.
thân lươn chẳng quản lấm mắt
The eel's lot doesn't mind a muddy eye — those born to the mud can't be precious about dirt.
thân lừa ưa nặng
A donkey's frame favors the load — the drudge who volunteers for heavier.
thâu đa nạp thiểu
Collect much, remit little — the village-clerk's arithmetic, skimming between the taking and the passing on.
thâu đêm suốt sáng
through day and night
thè lè bông bí
Dangling like a squash blossom — tattered, drooping, coming apart.
thê hiền phu họa thiểu, tử hiếu phụ tâm khoang
A worthy wife spares her husband misfortunes; a devoted child eases the father's heart — the household's two great mercies.
thích thì nhích
If you like it, scoot closer — fancy it? Then move; the modern shrug that desire owes action.
thói nước Trịnh
The ways of the state of Trịnh — wanton, licentious carryings-on, after the proverbially loose ancient kingdom.
thôi quan hoàn dân
Office resigned, return to the village — power set down where it was first picked up.
thôi thà đừng biết cho xong, biết bao nhiêu lại đau lòng bấy nhiêu
Better never to have known — for every measure of knowing, that measure of heartache.
thông văn bác sử
Through the literature, broad in the histories — deeply and widely read.
thùng rỗng kêu to
empty vessels make the most sound
thú nào vui thú ấy
Each to their own delight — every pleasure legitimate to its own keeper.
thú thê bất tại nhan sắc
Marry a wife for more than a face — the match is with character; complexion is weather.
thăm ngàn
Thăm ngàn — Vietnamized Thai 'tham-ngan' (ทำงาน): to work, to grind; popularized by Thai-drama fandom.
thăng quan phát tài
Rising in office and swelling in fortune — the double blessing of the ambitious.
thơm như múi mít
Fragrant as a jackfruit segment — praise for skin sweet and golden.
thương cho roi cho vọt, ghét cho ngọt cho bùi
love means whipping, hate means giving sweetness and gentleness
thương chồng phải lụy cùng chồng Đắng cay phải chịu, mặn nồng phải cam
Loving a husband means bending with him — swallow the bitter, savor the salt-warm; a wife's shared weather.
thương con tần tảo sớm hôm, cơm đùm chéo áo, cháo đùm lá môn
Loving her child she scrimps dawn to dusk — rice bundled in a shirt-corner, porridge wrapped in taro leaf.
thương cung chi điểu, kiến khúc mộc nhi cao phi
The bow-wounded bird flies high from any bent branch — once burned, forever wary.
thương là hại
To love can be to harm — rescue billed to the rescuer; affection that costs its giver.
thương mẹ nhớ cha như kim châm vào dạ, nghĩ đến chừng nào, lụy hạ tuôn rơi Thuyền không bánh lái thuyền quầy Con không cha mẹ ai bày con nên
Missing father and mother like needles in the gut — a boat without a rudder; a child without parents, who shows the way.
thương người như thể thương thân
to love others as much as oneself
thương nhau chữ vị là vì
In 'love,' the operative word is 'for' — to care is to put yourself out for someone.
thương phong bại tục
Wounding morals and rotting custom — conduct that corrupts the public air.
thương thay cây quê giữa rừng, cay nồng ai biết, ngát lừng ai hay
Pity the cinnamon tree mid-forest — its heat unknown, its fragrance unguessed — worth wasted on the wilderness.
thương thay thân phận con rùa, lên đình đội hạc xuống chùa đội bia
Pity the turtle's lot — bearing the crane at the đình, bearing the stele at the pagoda — burdens sacred and endless alike.
thương thay thân phận đàn bà, hơn hai, ba tuổi vẫn là đàn em
Pity womankind — older by two or three years, and still ranked the junior.
thượng cẳng chân, hạ cẳng tay
to beat brutally
thượng lộ bình an
may you have a safe journey; bon voyage
thượng vàng hạ cám
Gold above, rice-bran below — everything from the finest to the cheapest.
thạc học thông nho
Massive learning, thorough scholarship — erudition beyond the common measure.
thả con săn sắt, bắt con cá rô
To give up something small in order to gain something bigger — a small bait for a large catch.
thả con săn-sắt bắt con sộp
Release the minnow to catch the snakehead — small bait surrendered for the bigger fish.
thả cá nhỏ, bắt cá lớn
release a small fish to catch a big fish
thả đỉa ba ba
Setting leeches on the softshell turtle — feeding one pest to another; a children's chasing game.
thảo gian nhân mệnh
Treating human lives as roadside weeds — power that mows people without counting them.
thấp cơ thua trí đàn-bà
Shallow schemes lose to a woman's wits — underestimate her intelligence and pay the tuition.
thấp như vịt
Squat as a duck — built low to the ground.
thấp đuốc tìm giàu, giàu chẳng thấy, cầm gươm chém khó, khó theo sau
Torch-hunt wealth and never see it; sword-chase poverty and it follows behind — fortune obeys fate, not pursuit.
thất bại là mẹ thành công
Close to the English saying: “Failure is the mother of success.”.
thất chi đòng ngung, thâu chi tang du
Lost at the east corner, recovered at the mulberry-west — the day's loss returned by evening's gain.
thấy bở thì đào, thấy mềm thì đục
Dig where it's crumbly, chisel where it's soft — working every easy mark for all they'll yield.
thấy ông bà ông vải
Seeing one's ancestors — run so far past exhaustion you glimpse the other side.
thấy đỏ tưởng chín
Mistaking red for ripe.
thần cây đa, ma cây gạo
The banyan keeps a god, the kapok keeps a ghost — each great tree its own resident spirit.
thần cơ diệu toán
Divine devices and miraculous sums — strategy so exact it reads like prophecy.
thần hồn nát thần tính
the person in question is/was scared of their own shadow; the person in question inadvertently scares/scared themselves; the person in question has/had an irrational fear
thần nanh đỏ mỏ
kind of bird-like monster in Vietnamese folklore that pecks the dead
thần vong xỉ hàn
Lips gone, teeth cold — lose the neighbor and the frost reaches you; allied fates, adjacent walls.
thần xuất quỉ một
Appearing like gods, vanishing like spirits — maneuvers too quick and clean for any eye to fix.
thầy bói xem voi
to see only a part of the whole; to draw incorrect conclusions due to a partial understanding
thầy có của sải có công
The abbot has the goods, the monk has the labor — one supplies, the other sweats; partnership of purse and hands.
thậm cấp chí nguy
Utmost urgency, extreme peril — the situation at its most critical.
thận chung truy viễn
Careful at the ending, mindful of the distant — devotion that survives the parents it honors.
thập diện mai phục
Ambush on ten sides — surrounded so completely that every direction is the trap.