妈妈
mā ma
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 媽媽
Mum, mother: what children of any age call their mother, and the everyday word for anyone's mother. The first syllable has the first tone, high and level, and the second a neutral tone: māma. With other tones ma is another word: 麻 má 'hemp', 马 mǎ 'horse', 骂 mà 'to scold'. The formal word is 母亲 mǔqīn.
Mẹ, má: từ con cái dùng để gọi mẹ, cũng là từ thông thường để nói về mẹ của ai đó. Âm tiết đầu đọc thanh 1 (cao, ngang), âm tiết sau đọc thanh nhẹ: māma. Đổi thanh là thành từ khác: 麻 má (cây gai), 马 mǎ (ngựa), 骂 mà (mắng). Từ trang trọng hơn là 母亲 mǔqīn.
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 妈/媽 = ma · 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 “妈妈” mean?
Mum, mother: what children of any age call their mother, and the everyday word for anyone's mother. The first syllable has the first tone, high and level, and the second a neutral tone: māma. With other tones ma is another word: 麻 má 'hemp', 马 mǎ 'horse', 骂 mà 'to scold'. The formal word is 母亲 mǔqīn.
Is “妈妈” formal or informal?
妈妈 is generally neutral.