tốt danh hơn lành áo
A good name beats a good coat — wear reputation before broadcloth.
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tốt gỗ hơn tốt nước sơn, xấu người đẹp nết, còn hơn đẹp người
Sound timber beats fine varnish; a plain face with good character beats beauty — the standard verse of substance over surface.
tốt khoe xấu che
people tend to show what's good about themselves and hide what's bad
tốt số hơn khôn
A good fate beats a good head — the lucky outrun the clever.
tốt thì khoe xấu thì che
Show the fine, veil the flawed — instinct's own advertising department.
tốt tuổi nằm duổi mà ăn
Born lucky, dine reclining — a good fate does the working while its owner stretches out.
tốt tóc nhọc cột nhà
Good hair tires the house-post — long-haired beauty beating her tresses dry against the pillar.
tổ chảng
Huge, whopping — emphatically oversized.
tổng tài
The domineering CEO archetype from C-drama and web novels — impossibly rich, cold to everyone, soft for exactly one person; used teasingly for bossy boyfriends and alpha posturing.
tội gà vạ vịt
The hen's offense, the duck's fine — punished for a fowl you never touched; blame that lands on the bystander.
tội lây vạ tràn
Guilt spreads, penalty floods — the old collective punishments, drowning the innocent adjacent.
tội nghi di khinh, công nghi di trọng
Doubted guilt weighs light, doubted merit weighs heavy — justice errs toward mercy and reward.
tội qui vu trưởng
Guilt files upward to the senior — the prow errs and the helm is caned; command owns the error.
tội đại ác cực
Crime great and evil extreme — guilt at its terminal grade.
tới công chuyện
“Now it’s on” — trouble (or serious business) has officially arrived; also “going all out”.
tới rồi
"We're here / it's arrived" — arrival in two syllables: the destination, the food, the long-awaited package.
tứ cố vô thân
utterly alone; isolated without family, friends, or support
tứ hải giai huynh đệ
all men are brothers
tứ đại đồng đường
Four generations under one roof — great-grandparents to great-grandchildren in a single household.
tức cảnh sinh tình
art of improvisation, through depicting one's scenery or situation at a fleeting moment
tức nước vỡ bờ
the straw that broke the camel's back
từ cổ chí kim
since time immemorial
từ ngày Tự Đức lên ngôi,
Since Tự Đức took the throne... — the protest verses dated by reign, where complaint learned to keep a calendar.
từ sông ra biển
from the river to the sea (a phrase supporting Palestinian self-determination)
từng lớp
(phrase) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see từng, lớp.
tử bất giáo phụ chi quá
A child untaught is the father's fault — the old ledger of parental duty.
tử dai kỳ tử
Every child heirs alike — the estate divided per head, whichever bed they were born from.
tử giả biệt luận
Of the dead, no verdicts — the grave closes the case.
tử giả bất khả phục sinh, đoạn giả bất khả phục thục
The dead do not live again, the severed does not rejoin — two finalities to weigh before the blade falls.
tử hải dai huinh đệ
Within the four seas, all are brothers — one root under every stranger.
tử sanh hữu mạng
Death and life are fated; wealth and honor sit with heaven — the couplet that files mortality under destiny.
tử vô táng địa
Dead with no ground to lie in — ruin's last line: not even a burial plot.
tử vị phụ ẩn
The child shields the father — blood's code of concealment, older than the courts.
tửu bất túy nhơn nhơn tự túy
Wine makes no one drunk; drinkers do — the bottle's oldest alibi, refused.
tửu nhập tâm như hổ nhập lâm
Wine in the heart is a tiger in the forest — drink houses a predator where judgment lived.
tự biên tự diễn
to compose and perform all by oneself
tự chiêu kỳ họa
Summoning one's own calamity — disaster by personal invitation.
tự cứu bất hạ,
Can't save yourself, yet rescuing others — the drowning lifeguard problem.
tự dĩ vi thị
Taking oneself for the standard — self-certainty immune to correction.
tự làm tự chịu
to reap what one sows
tự sửa sang nhà cửa
to do DIY home improvements
tự thuỷ trí chung
Bearing the offense, building the merit — guilt worked off in service.
tự thân vận động
to do things by oneself; to stand on one's own two feet
tự thực kỳ lực
Eat by your own strength — hands that work feed the jaw that chews.
tự tung tự tác
to do as one pleases, to be impetuous
tự viên kì thuyết
Rounding out one's own story — patching the theory until it agrees with itself.
ultr
Ultr — compressed 'u là trời' ('oh my heavens'): the keyboard gasp of Vietnamese Gen Z.
ung dung tự tại
Serenely self-contained — at ease wherever one stands, beholden to nothing.
uyển nhục y sang
Cutting flesh to dress the sore — relief today carved out of tomorrow.
uốn ba tấc lưỡi
Flexing three inches of tongue — deploying every wile of persuasion.
uốn cây từ thuở còn non Dạy con từ thuở con còn ngây thơ
Bend the tree while it's young; teach the child while it's innocent — formation's window in one couplet.
uốn gối mềm lưng
Bent knee and pliant back — bowing and scraping to power.
uốn tre uốn thuở còn măng, dạy vợ dạy thuở băn khoăn mới về
Bend bamboo while it's still a shoot; guide a wife in her uncertain first days — formation belongs to beginnings.
uống nước cả cặn
Drinking down to the dregs — greed that leaves nothing, not even the lees, for anyone else.
uống nước sông nhớ ngọn nguồn
Drinking river water, remember the source upstream — every benefit has a headwater to honor.
uống rượu luận anh hùng
Judging heroes over wine — the lordly presumption of Cao Cao ranking the world's great men at table.
uống rượu như hũ chìm
Drinking like a sunken jar — a capacity the vat itself would respect.
uổng xích nhi trực tầm
Bend a foot to gain a fathom? — the gentleman refuses; no profit licenses a crooked inch.
v/v
initialism of về việc (“on the matter of”)
vai u thịt bắp
Humped shoulders and corded muscle — the body labor built.
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