对不起
duì bu qǐ
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 對不起
Sorry, I am sorry — the standard words of apology. It also opens a polite interruption or request, like 'excuse me': 对不起，请问… 'excuse me, may I ask…'. The normal reply is 没关系 'it doesn't matter'. The middle syllable has a neutral tone.
Lời xin lỗi thông dụng nhất, tương đương “xin lỗi” trong tiếng Việt. Cũng dùng để mở lời khi làm phiền hoặc muốn hỏi nhờ ai: 对不起，请问… (xin lỗi, cho tôi hỏi…). Câu đáp thường gặp là 没关系 (không sao). Chữ 不 ở giữa đọc thanh nhẹ.
InterjectionRegister: 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 ↗ · 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 “对不起” mean?
Sorry, I am sorry — the standard words of apology. It also opens a polite interruption or request, like 'excuse me': 对不起，请问… 'excuse me, may I ask…'. The normal reply is 没关系 'it doesn't matter'. The middle syllable has a neutral tone. Literally: cannot face you
Is “对不起” formal or informal?
对不起 is generally neutral.