Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

Lúa thứ hai, khoai thứ nhất

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Something of moderate quality is better than something of poor quality

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Điều gì đó có chất lượng vừa phải thì tốt hơn điều gì đó có chất lượng kém

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: rice second, potato first

Examples

Cô ấy chọn chiếc áo không đẹp nhất nhưng cũng không xấu, đúng như câu nói lúa thứ hai, khoai thứ nhất.She chose the dress that was not the most beautiful but not the ugliest, just like the saying 'lúa thứ hai, khoai thứ nhất'.

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Headword listed in the vdict.com proverb dictionary index (discovery source; headword only — no source content copied). Entered as candidate 2026-08-05; definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-06; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “Lúa thứ hai, khoai thứ nhất” mean?

Something of moderate quality is better than something of poor quality Literally: rice second, potato first

Is “Lúa thứ hai, khoai thứ nhất” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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