电话
diàn huà
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 電話
A telephone; also a phone call. 打电话 is 'to make a call' (打 is literally 'to hit'): 给他打电话 'to phone him'. 接电话 is 'to answer the phone', and a phone number is 电话号码. A mobile is usually called 手机.
Điện thoại; cũng chỉ cuộc gọi. 打电话 là gọi điện: 给他打电话 (gọi điện cho anh ấy). 接电话 là nghe máy, 电话号码 là số điện thoại. Điện thoại di động thì thường gọi là 手机.
NounRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 063 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): Hán-Việt reading 电/電 = điện · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “điện thoại” (dien-thoai). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “电话” mean?
A telephone; also a phone call. 打电话 is 'to make a call' (打 is literally 'to hit'): 给他打电话 'to phone him'. 接电话 is 'to answer the phone', and a phone number is 电话号码. A mobile is usually called 手机. Literally: electric speech
Is “电话” formal or informal?
电话 is generally neutral.