不要
bù yào
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Don't: telling someone not to do something. Put it before the verb: 不要走 'don't go', 不要怕 'don't be afraid'; 请不要… is a polite 'please don't…'. On its own, 我不要 means 'I don't want it'. In speech 不 is said bú here, before a fourth tone: búyào.
Đừng, không được: lời bảo người khác đừng làm một việc gì. Đặt trước động từ: 不要走 (đừng đi), 不要怕 (đừng sợ); thêm 请 cho lịch sự: 请不要… (xin đừng…). Đứng một mình, 我不要 là “tôi không lấy, tôi không cần”. Khi nói, 不 đọc là bú vì đứng trước thanh 4: búyào.
AdverbRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · No Vietnamese entry is linked as its twin; the Hán-Việt reading is given character by character. Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Common questions
What does “不要” mean?
Don't: telling someone not to do something. Put it before the verb: 不要走 'don't go', 不要怕 'don't be afraid'; 请不要… is a polite 'please don't…'. On its own, 我不要 means 'I don't want it'. In speech 不 is said bú here, before a fourth tone: búyào. Literally: not want
Is “不要” formal or informal?
不要 is generally neutral.