请问
qǐng wèn
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 請問
'Excuse me, may I ask…': a polite opener before a question to someone you don't know. Say it first, then ask: 请问，现在几点？ 'Excuse me, what time is it?' It only introduces a question; to say sorry, use 对不起. It is made of 请 'please' and 问 'to ask'.
“Xin hỏi”, “cho tôi hỏi”: lời mở đầu lịch sự trước khi hỏi người lạ điều gì. Nói nó trước rồi mới hỏi: 请问，现在几点？ (Xin hỏi, bây giờ là mấy giờ?). Đây không phải lời xin lỗi; muốn xin lỗi thì nói 对不起. Gồm 请 (xin, mời) và 问 (hỏi).
VerbRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (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 问/問 = vấn · 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 “请问” mean?
'Excuse me, may I ask…': a polite opener before a question to someone you don't know. Say it first, then ask: 请问，现在几点？ 'Excuse me, what time is it?' It only introduces a question; to say sorry, use 对不起. It is made of 请 'please' and 问 'to ask'. Literally: please ask
Is “请问” formal or informal?
请问 is generally neutral.