Browse all entries 1735

nói trước bước không qua

Close to the English saying: “Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. (Mr. B Lam).”.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nói trước quên sau

Saying it first, forgetting it after — memory expiring at the end of the sentence.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nói đâu quên đấy

forgetful; blithe; having a tendency for things to go in one ear and out the other

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nói đóng đanh

Words driven like nails — speech that fixes itself in place.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nói để ngoài tai

Words parked outside the ear — advice received at the threshold and left there.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nóng như lửa

Hot as fire — temper or fever at flashpoint.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nôm na là cha mách qué

The plain vernacular is the father of impudence — so sneered the mandarins at honest nôm; plain speech wears the insult proudly.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nôm na mách qué

Homespun and impudent — plain speech with its elbows out; the old sneer at vernacular writing.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

núi ai đắp mà cao, bể ai đào mà sâu

Who banked the mountain so high, who dug the sea so deep — the rhetorical awe that opens the oldest verses.

Tiếng Việt Saying Attested

núi cao còn có núi cao hơn

do not be smug about your achievements, as there are always people who do even better

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

núi non trùng điệp

Range upon range of mountains — distance folded on distance; a hard, far separation.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

năm cha ba mẹ

Five fathers, three mothers — provenance hopelessly mixed; a jumble of origins.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

năm ngón tay có ngón dài ngón ngắn

Five fingers on one hand, some long, some short — even siblings of one palm differ.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

năm Thìn bão lụt

years of the Dragon are prone to large storms and floods.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

năng may hơn dày giẻ

Frequent stitching beats thick cloth — small renewals outwear one stout provision.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

năng nhặt chặt bị

pick up stuff without fail and you'll get a full bag in no time

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

năng thuyết bất năng hành

Able to say, unable to do — eloquence with no hands attached.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nơm-nớp như cá nằm trên thớt

Trembling like a fish on the chopping block — dread with the blade already visible.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nươc chảy đâu đâu cũng tới

Flowing water reaches everywhere — no corner escapes what moves like water; the law, or the flood.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nước chảy bèo trôi

Water flows, duckweed drifts — letting things slide wherever they will.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước chảy chỗ trũng

Water flows to the hollow — wealth pools where wealth already sits.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước chảy đá mòn

Close to the English saying: “Constant dripping wears the stone.”.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nước chẩy bè chôi

Water flows, the raft drifts — carried along without a say.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước gáo tắm cho voi

A gourd of water to bathe an elephant — provision comically beneath the need.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nước lã quấy nên hồ

Stirring plain water into paste — building something from nothing at all.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nước mắt cá sấu

crocodile tears

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước nóng còn có khi nguội

Hot water cools in time — so does hot temper; wait it out.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nước sôi

(noun) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see nước, sôi.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước sông gạo chợ

River water, market rice — the boat-dweller's rootless housekeeping.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước sông không phạm nước giếng

people should keep to themselves and mind their own business

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước Sơn La, ma Vạn Bú

Sơn La's waters, Vạn Bú's ghosts — the old dread litany of the malarial highlands.

Tiếng Việt Saying Attested

nước Thanh Mai đi hai về một

The waters of Thanh Mai: two go, one returns — the malarial uplands' grim arithmetic.

Tiếng Việt Saying Attested

nước đến chân

Water at the shins — the deadline arrived before the planning did.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước đến chân mới nhảy

To put things off until the situation is urgent, and only act at the last possible moment.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nước đục thả câu

to fish in troubled waters

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nấu sử sôi kinh

Boiling the histories and simmering the classics — grinding study for the examinations.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nấu xói

To badmouth or gossip about someone — "nói xấu" with its syllable onsets swapped nói-lái-style, written backwards online to slip past keyword filters and the subject's own searches.

Tiếng Việt Slang Attested

nắm thằng có tóc, không ai nắm kẻ trọc đầu

if you're gonna grab onto someone, grab onto one with hair, don't grab onto a bald one

Tiếng Việt Saying Attested

nắng bề nào, che theo bề ấy

Whichever side the sun beats, shade that side — adjust your shelter to the moment's glare.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nắng lửa mưa dầu

Fire-hot sun and oil-thick rain — weather, or fortune, at its most punishing.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nằm gai nếm mật

to undergo self-imposed hardships; to nurse vengeance

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nằm giường cá nhân

Sleeping in a single bunk — barracks life; the lean communal years remembered in one bed-frame.

Tiếng Việt Slang Attested

nằm mèo xó bếp

The cat curled in the kitchen corner — idleness installed at the warmest spot.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nằm ngửa nhổ ngược

Lying face-up and spitting upward — the insult that lands back on its author.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nặng gánh san hà

Heavy with the burden of rivers and mountains — carrying the weight of great undertakings.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nếm mật nằm gai

to undergo self-imposed hardships; to nurse vengeance; to endure hardships to accomplish some ambition

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nịch ái bất minh, tham đắc vô yểm

Doting blinds and greed never fills — love without eyes, appetite without floor.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nối dáo cho giặc

Splicing a lance for the invader — arming the very hand raised against you.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nối dây tơ hồng

Tying the rose-silk thread — getting a couple married; performing the wedding.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nối giáo cho giặc

Passing the enemy your lance — abetting the foe; arming the wrongdoer.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nối gót

follow in someone's footsteps

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nồi da xáo thịt

Boiling the flesh in a pot of its own skin — kin savaging kin; the family consuming itself.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nồi méo úp vung méo

A warped pot gets a warped lid — every misshape finds its matching cover.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nồi nào úp vung nấy

Every person has a fitting match — said of couples who suit each other (sometimes teasingly, of matched flaws).

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nổi cơn tam bành

to boil over with anger; to fly into a rage

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nổi trận lôi đình

Erupting in a thunderclap rage — fury like a storm breaking.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested

nội bất xuất, ngoại bất nhập

nothing inside can come out, nothing outside can come in

Tiếng Việt Saying Attested

nội gia nô tỉ, xuất gia công khanh

Servant within the gate, minister beyond it — humility at home, dignity abroad.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nội gia tạo ác, ngoại kỉ tri văn

Shame made indoors is heard outdoors — the house's walls were never soundproof.

Tiếng Việt Proverb Attested

nợ chúa Chổm

Debts like Lord Chổm's — owing in every direction, legend-grade insolvency.

Tiếng Việt Idiom Attested