chậu úp khôn soi
No sun reaches under the upturned basin — some secrets sit where no light can get.
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Where will you be? Anywhere Hà Nội & the NorthHuế / Đà Nẵng & the CenterSài Gòn & the SouthOnline slang Bắc ↔ Nam words
chắp tay rủ áo
Folded hands and hanging sleeves — standing idly by when the matter is one's own responsibility.
chằm Zn
Depressed/„so done” — nerd-humor spelling: Zn is zinc (kẽm), so “chằm kẽm” ≈ “trầm cảm”.
chẳng chóng thì chầy
sooner or later
chẳng là
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chẳng, là.
chẳng lấy cũng khuấy cho hôi
If I can't have it, I'll spoil it for smelling — the jilted suitor's revenge of fouling what refused him.
chẳng ngon cũng sốt, chẳng tốt cũng mới
If not tasty, at least hot; if not fine, at least new — freshness redeems the humble offering.
chẳng trách
Used to demonstrate the inevitable result of what one has stated: no wonder
chẳng trúng cũng cọ bia
Missing the bullseye still grazes the target — a guess near enough to count.
chẳng ăn, chẳng chơi, nửa đời cũng ra ma
Neither feasting nor playing, half a life and you're a ghost regardless — thrift's memento mori: the grave takes savers too.
chẳng đặng đừng
Having no way not to — cornered into it; unavoidable.
chẳng ưa nói thừa cho bỏ
Disliking someone, you say a bit extra — spite always rounds the story up.
chặt to bung dừ
Chop it large, boil it soft — the coarse cook's shortcut; effort saved, texture lost.
chẽ tre nghe lóng
Split bamboo by the joint, judge news by the listening — verify along the grain before you commit the blade.
chếc gồi
Cutesy spelling of "chết rồi" — "I'm dead / uh-oh", a playful cry when something goes wrong.
chết kèn trống, sống dầu đèn
Dead: horns and drums; living: lamp-oil — each state of a person has its own running costs.
chết mê chết mệt
Head-over-heels smitten — infatuated to the point of losing all sense.
chết no hơn sống thèm
Better to die full than live craving — appetite's defiant motto against all abstinence.
chết thẳng cẳng
Dead with legs stretched straight — finality in one posture.
chết trẻ khỏe ma, chết già lú lẩn
Die young, a nimble ghost; die old, a muddled one — mortality's consolation for the early-taken.
chết vinh còn hơn sống nhục
Better die a beggar than live a beggar.
chết đi được
'...to death' — the all-purpose Vietnamese intensifier of feeling: happy, sad or full, to the point of dying.
chỉ hươu nói ngựa
To brazenly call one thing another — deliberate misrepresentation, often to deceive or curry favor.
chỉ mành treo chuông
A bell hung by a thread — everything precious suspended from the flimsiest strand.
chỉ sông sông cạn, chỉ núi núi tan
Point at the river, it drains; at the mountain, it crumbles — the lover's oath at maximum wattage.
chị ngã em nâng
When the elder sister falls, the younger lifts her — siblings as each other's ground.
chọc cứt ra mà ngửi
To stir up dung just to smell it — dredging up someone's dirt only dirties yourself.
chọn mặt gửi vàng
Choose the face before entrusting the gold — pick carefully whom you trust with what matters most.
chọn người gửi của
Fleeing the lord to live in the pagoda — refuge one rung up from the trouble.
chỏ hươu chỏ vượn
Talking snakes and dragons — narrative inflated species by species.
chồng ghét thì ra, mụ gia ghét thì vào
Husband's disfavor puts you out; his mother's only keeps you in — only one displeasure in that house is fatal.
chồng hoà vợ thuận
Husband amiable, wife agreeable — concord as the household's operating system.
chồng loan vợ phượng
Loan husband, phoenix wife — a couple matched like the paired birds of legend.
chồng người đánh giặc sông Lô Chồng em ngồi bếp rang ngô cháy quần Chồng người cưỡi ngựa bắn cung Chồng em ngồi bếp cầm chun bắn ruồi
Her husband fights at the Lô river; mine squats by the stove roasting corn till his trousers scorch — the wives' merciless comparison of husbands.
chồng đông vợ đoài
Husband east, wife west — one household, two horizons.
chổi cùn rế rách
Worn-out broom and torn pot-rest — the household's humblest veterans; and one's own dear shabby things.
chỗ dừng xe bên đường
roadside lay-by; pull-off area
chỗ ăn không hết, chỗ thết không khẳm
One larder overflows while the other can't fill the table — take from surplus to mend the shortfall.
chớp bể mưa nguồn
Lightning at sea and rain in the highlands — sudden, unreadable turns of weather or fortune.
chờ được mạ thì má đã sưng
By the time mother comes, the cheek is already swollen — help you have to wait for arrives after the blow lands.
chở củi về rừng
To do something pointlessly redundant — bringing something to a place that already has plenty of it.
chợ chưa họp, kẻ cắp đã đông
The market not yet open, the pickpockets already thick — predators arrive before the prey does.
chủ trung tín
Hold to loyalty and good faith — sincerity as the root of all standing.
chức trọng quyền cao
High office and heavy authority — rank with real power attached.
chứng nào tật nấy
Who drinks, will drink again.
chửa đánh người mặt đỏ như vang, đánh được người mặt vàng như nghệ
Before the blow lands, the face burns sappan-red; after it lands, turmeric-yellow — bravado's full color cycle.
chửi chó mắng mèo
Cursing the dog and scolding the cat — jabbing at someone sideways instead of saying it to their face.
chữ như cua bò sàng
Handwriting like crabs crawling a sieve — script scuttling in every direction.
chữ tác đánh chữ tộ
Mistaking the character tác for tộ — semi-literate blundering; garbling one thing for another.
chữa dép ruộng dưa
Combed by wind, washed by rain — groomed entirely by hard weather.
clgt
initialism of cái lồn gì thế? (“the fuck is/was that?”): WTF
CMNR
CMNR — initialism of 'chuẩn mẹ nó rồi': exactly right, damn straight.
coi bằng mặt, chớ bắt bằng tay
Look with the eyes, seize not with the hands — admire, and leave untouched.
coi người bằng nửa con mắt
Looking at people with half an eye — scarcely deigning to see them at all.
coi người như rơm như rác
Treating people like straw and rubbish — contempt that rates others as refuse.
coi trời bằng vung
to be arrogant despite one's ignorance; to be egotistical
con cháu các cụ
Children of the elders — a wry label for the privileged offspring of ranking officials.
con cháu hơn ông vải
Grandchildren outranking the ancestral tablets — greenhorns lecturing their elders.
con cháu đẻ ông vải
Grandchildren lecturing the ancestor tablets — the young overruling the very elders who made them.
con cà con kê
This hen, that rooster — rambling talk that never finds its point.