nói như rồng
Talking like a dragon — grand speech; delivery outrunning substance.
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nói như rựa chém xuống đất
Words like a machete into earth — speech that lands once, deep, and stays.
nói thật đấy
"I'm serious" — drops the joking frame; what follows is meant. Southern speech says "nói thiệt đó".
nói thằng cuội
Talking like the Man in the Moon — Cuội's own genre: fluent, charming, false.
nói trước bước không qua
Close to the English saying: “Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. (Mr. B Lam).”.
nói trước quên sau
Saying it first, forgetting it after — memory expiring at the end of the sentence.
nói đâu quên đấy
forgetful; blithe; having a tendency for things to go in one ear and out the other
nói đóng đanh
Words driven like nails — speech that fixes itself in place.
nói để ngoài tai
Words parked outside the ear — advice received at the threshold and left there.
nóng như lửa
Hot as fire — temper or fever at flashpoint.
nóng quá
"So hot" — weather, soup, or temper by context; as weather-talk it is the country's most spoken sentence from April to September.
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.
nôm na mách qué
Homespun and impudent — plain speech with its elbows out; the old sneer at vernacular writing.
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.
núi cao còn có núi cao hơn
do not be smug about your achievements, as there are always people who do even better
núi non trùng điệp
Range upon range of mountains — distance folded on distance; a hard, far separation.
năm bè bảy mối
Five rafts and seven strands — splintered into factions and loose ends; a group, family or organization pulling in every direction at once.
năm cha ba mẹ
Five fathers, three mothers — provenance hopelessly mixed; a jumble of origins.
năm châu bốn biển
The five continents and four seas — everywhere on Earth, the whole wide world; the stock frame for talking about global reach or far-flung friends.
năm mươi năm mươi
Fifty-fifty — even odds or an even split; the borrowed percentages worn as a Vietnamese idiom, spoken exactly as written.
năm ngón tay có ngón dài ngón ngắn
Five fingers on one hand, some long, some short — even siblings of one palm differ.
năm nắng mười mưa
Five suns and ten rains — hardship upon hardship, weathered without complaint; fixed in the language by Tú Xương’s poem about his wife («năm nắng mười mưa dám quản công»).
năm Thìn bão lụt
years of the Dragon are prone to large storms and floods.
năm ăn năm thua
Five to win, five to lose — a coin-flip: even odds, could go either way.
năng lượng tích cực
Positive energy — the wellness-era staple for an uplifting mood, person, or place; what everyone promises their feed will radiate.
năng may hơn dày giẻ
Frequent stitching beats thick cloth — small renewals outwear one stout provision.
năng nhặt chặt bị
pick up stuff without fail and you'll get a full bag in no time
năng thuyết bất năng hành
Able to say, unable to do — eloquence with no hands attached.
nơm-nớp như cá nằm trên thớt
Trembling like a fish on the chopping block — dread with the blade already visible.
nươc chảy đâu đâu cũng tới
Flowing water reaches everywhere — no corner escapes what moves like water; the law, or the flood.
nước chảy bèo trôi
Water flows, duckweed drifts — letting things slide wherever they will.
nước chảy chỗ trũng
Water flows to the hollow — wealth pools where wealth already sits.
nước chảy đá mòn
Close to the English saying: “Constant dripping wears the stone.”.
nước chẩy bè chôi
Water flows, the raft drifts — carried along without a say.
nước gáo tắm cho voi
A gourd of water to bathe an elephant — provision comically beneath the need.
nước lã quấy nên hồ
Stirring plain water into paste — building something from nothing at all.
nước mắt cá sấu
crocodile tears
nước nóng còn có khi nguội
Hot water cools in time — so does hot temper; wait it out.
nước sôi
(noun) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see nước, sôi.
nước sông gạo chợ
River water, market rice — the boat-dweller's rootless housekeeping.
nước sông không phạm nước giếng
people should keep to themselves and mind their own business
nước Sơn La, ma Vạn Bú
Sơn La's waters, Vạn Bú's ghosts — the old dread litany of the malarial highlands.
nước Thanh Mai đi hai về một
The waters of Thanh Mai: two go, one returns — the malarial uplands' grim arithmetic.
nước đến chân
Water at the shins — the deadline arrived before the planning did.
nước đến chân mới nhảy
To put things off until the situation is urgent, and only act at the last possible moment.
nước đục thả câu
to fish in troubled waters
nấu sử sôi kinh
Boiling the histories and simmering the classics — grinding study for the examinations.
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.
nắc
To thrust during sex — blunt, vulgar bedroom verb.
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
nắng bề nào, che theo bề ấy
Whichever side the sun beats, shade that side — adjust your shelter to the moment's glare.
nắng lửa mưa dầu
Fire-hot sun and oil-thick rain — weather, or fortune, at its most punishing.
nằm gai nếm mật
to undergo self-imposed hardships; to nurse vengeance
nằm giường cá nhân
Sleeping in a single bunk — barracks life; the lean communal years remembered in one bed-frame.
nằm mèo xó bếp
The cat curled in the kitchen corner — idleness installed at the warmest spot.
nằm ngửa nhổ ngược
Lying face-up and spitting upward — the insult that lands back on its author.
nặng gánh san hà
Heavy with the burden of rivers and mountains — carrying the weight of great undertakings.
nếm mật nằm gai
to undergo self-imposed hardships; to nurse vengeance; to endure hardships to accomplish some ambition
nể luôn
Genuine hats-off respect — "nể" (to be impressed by) sealed with "luôn": admiration you didn't plan on giving but must.
nịch ái bất minh, tham đắc vô yểm
Doting blinds and greed never fills — love without eyes, appetite without floor.
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