朋友
péng you
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
A friend, someone you know well and like. 我的朋友, or more simply 我朋友, is 'my friend'; 好朋友 is a good friend, 老朋友 an old friend. With 男 'male' or 女 'female' in front it means a partner: 男朋友 'boyfriend', 女朋友 'girlfriend'. The second syllable has a neutral tone: péngyou.
Bạn, bạn bè, người bạn. 我的朋友, hoặc gọn hơn là 我朋友, nghĩa là “bạn tôi”; 好朋友 là bạn thân, 老朋友 là bạn cũ. Thêm 男 (nam) hoặc 女 (nữ) vào trước thì thành người yêu: 男朋友 (bạn trai), 女朋友 (bạn gái). Âm tiết thứ hai đọc thanh nhẹ: péngyou.
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 ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “bằng hữu” (bang-huu). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “朋友” mean?
A friend, someone you know well and like. 我的朋友, or more simply 我朋友, is 'my friend'; 好朋友 is a good friend, 老朋友 an old friend. With 男 'male' or 女 'female' in front it means a partner: 男朋友 'boyfriend', 女朋友 'girlfriend'. The second syllable has a neutral tone: péngyou.
Is “朋友” formal or informal?
朋友 is generally neutral.