说
shuō
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 說
To say; to speak, to talk. It reports what someone says (老师说… 'the teacher says…') and takes a language as its object: 说汉语 'speak Chinese'. With no particular words in mind it takes the object 话 'speech': 说话 'to talk'. The listener comes first, after 对 or 跟: 对我说 'say to me'.
Nói: nói ra một điều gì, nói một thứ tiếng. Dùng để thuật lại lời ai đó (老师说… “thầy giáo nói…”) và đi với tên ngôn ngữ: 说汉语 (nói tiếng Trung). Khi không nêu nội dung thì thêm tân ngữ 话: 说话 (nói chuyện). Người nghe đứng trước động từ, sau 对 hoặc 跟: 对我说 (nói với tôi).
VerbRegister: 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 说/說 = thuyết · 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 “说” mean?
To say; to speak, to talk. It reports what someone says (老师说… 'the teacher says…') and takes a language as its object: 说汉语 'speak Chinese'. With no particular words in mind it takes the object 话 'speech': 说话 'to talk'. The listener comes first, after 对 or 跟: 对我说 'say to me'.
Is “说” formal or informal?
说 is generally neutral.