dốc bồ thương kẻ ăn đong
Emptying your bin, pity those who buy rice by the day — abundance should remember the hand-to-mouth.
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All languages English Tiếng Việt
dốt đặc cán mai
thick as a brick
dốt đặc như cán mai xay
Dense as a mattock handle — ignorance you could sharpen tools on.
dột từ nóc dột xuống
The leak starts at the roof-ridge and works down — rot begins at the top of the house.
dở khóc dở cười
Half crying, half laughing — a predicament neither face fits.
dở khôn dở dại
Half wise, half foolish — neither cleverness nor folly, but an unsettling in-between.
dở ngô dở ngọng
Talking saints and spirits — pronouncements delivered with an oracle's confidence and none of the credentials.
dục gia chi tội, hà hoạn vô từ,
To lay a charge, no shortage of words — the accuser bent on guilt always finds his phrasing.
dục tốc bất đạt
English equivalentː Haste makes waste.
dụng lòng không ai đụng thịt
It's the innards that carry the respect — at the feast, the offal platter is the etiquette; goodwill lives in the giblets.
dụng nhơn như dụng mộc
Use people as you use timber — no carpenter discards a whole trunk for one knot.
dụng như hổ, bất dụng như thử
Employed, a tiger; unemployed, a mouse — the same person is fierce or timid as they are trusted or shelved.
dứt cây ai nỡ dứt chồi
Fell the tree, but who could fell the shoot — severing the parents' bond, one still spares the child.
dứt dây động rừng
Pull one rattan strand and the forest stirs — no thread is unattached.
dừng ở đây
"Stop here" — the taxi/xe-ôm instruction; "cho xuống" (let me off) works when you're the passenger hopping out.
dửng-dưng như bánh-chưng ngày tết
Indifferent as bánh chưng at Tết — so abundant that no one turns a head; the proverbial cold shoulder.
dữ chưa
A Southern whistle of amazement — "well, look at THAT!" — for anything impressively intense, good or bad.
dữ như beo
Fierce as a panther — temper with claws.
dữ tu hành, hơn lành kẻ cướp
Better a wicked monk than a virtuous bandit — even fallen, the frame of discipline outranks the frame of crime.
dữ vậy
Southern "that intense, really?" — reacting to something that overshoots what you expected, from prices to tempers.
dự báo thời tiết hôm nay hoặc ngày mai thế nào?
What’s the weather forecast for today or tomorrow?
dựng cờ dựng truyện
Raising flags and spinning tales — fabricating a whole campaign of slander.
elm
Elm — teencode respelling of 'em', the affectionate junior pronoun.
em chã
A pampered man-child — from cậu Phước, the overgrown spoiled toddler in Vũ Trọng Phụng’s 1936 satire «Số đỏ» whose only line is a simpering «em chã» (“I won’t!”); revived by meme culture for anyone babied far past the age for it.
em iu
Texting-cute spelling of “em yêu” — darling (to a woman), keyboard-softened.
em yêu anh
I love you (woman to man)
em ơi
The universal service call to someone YOUNGER — waiter, shop assistant, junior. Warm, normal, expected: this is how you summon help in Vietnam, not rudeness.
fame
Fame — clout, renown; borrowed English for one's standing on Vietnamese social media.
G9
G9 — texting shorthand for 'good night', Vietnamese-style (G + nine = 'nite').
ga đến và ga đi
arrivals and departures
gai trên rừng ai mứt mà nhọn
Who whittled the forest thorns sharp? — nature needs no craftsman; things are as they grow.
gan cóc mật công
Toad's liver and peacock's bile — the proverbial poisons; what none may touch and live.
gan cóc tía
The red toad's nerve — outsized daring in a small package.
gan là sắt
A liver of iron — nerve that does not bend.
gan tướng giặc
A rebel general's gall — audacity of the professionally outlawed.
gan vàng dạ sắt
A gold liver and an iron heart — loyalty in refractory metals.
GATO
Jealous of someone else’s success or good fortune — envious hating.
ghi xương khắc cốt
to never forget; to be etched in one's memory
ghét cay ghét đắng
to have an extreme and utter hatred
ghế an toàn cho trẻ em
child safety seat
ghế ít đít nhiều
Few chairs, many behinds — more contenders than posts; a scramble for position.
gia bần trí đoản
A poor house shortens the wit — want leaves no slack for thinking far.
gia Phú tiểu nhi kiêu
Rich house, proud children — wealth teaches its young everything but humility.
giai có vợ như dợ buộc chân
A married man drags the tether at his ankle — marriage as mutual harness, his half of the couplet.
giai khôn lắm nước đái, gái khôn lắm nước mắt
A capable man makes much water, a capable woman many tears — the folk theory of each sex's chief solvent.
giai không vợ như cau không buồng
A man unmarried is an areca palm without a flower-sheath — standing, but bare of what crowns it.
giai thương vợ nắng quá chiều hôm, gái thương chồng đương đông buổi chợ
She loves him like the crowded morning market; he loves her like the slanting afternoon sun — her love bustles, his lingers.
giai tơ vớ nạ giòng
A green youth landing a seasoned widow — innocence matched with experience, to the village's amusement.
giai tứ chiếng, gái giang hồ
A man of the four garrisons, a woman of rivers and lakes — the matched pair of drifters.
giang hồ tứ chiếng
A drifter of the four garrisons — at home in every town and belonging to none.
giang sơn dễ đổi, bản tính khó dời
changing a country's borders is easy, but changing a person's character is hard
giang sơn nào anh hùng ấy
Every landscape breeds its own hero — each realm crowns from its own soil.
giao bóng ăn điểm trực tiếp
ace; a serve won directly without being returned
giao long ly thủy, thất phu khả chế
A dragon out of water is any man's captive — the hero off his ground can be handled by a nobody.
giao nghĩa mạc giao tài
Befriend for principle, never for purse — money is the one basis friendship can't survive.
giao tài nhơn nghĩa tuyệt
Where money enters the friendship, humanity exits — the ledger evicts the bond.
gieo gió gặp bão
What you reap shall reap.
gieo gió gặt bão
We reap as we sow.
gieo nhân nào gặt quả nấy
you reap what you sow
girl phố
The city-street girl archetype — independent, style-fluent, at home in the urban night; the female counterpart of "boy phố".
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