Thứ nhất thì chết mất cha, thứ hai gánh vã thứ ba ngược đò
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Things go from bad to worse
Literally: First die father, second carry coffin, third row boat upstream
Examples
Sau khi mất việc thì bị ốm, thật là thứ nhất thì chết mất cha, thứ hai gánh vã thứ ba ngược đòAfter losing my job, I got sick, it's really things going from bad to worse
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 2026-08-08; pending editor spot-check.
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Common questions
What does “Thứ nhất thì chết mất cha, thứ hai gánh vã thứ ba ngược đò” mean?
Things go from bad to worse Literally: First die father, second carry coffin, third row boat upstream
Is “Thứ nhất thì chết mất cha, thứ hai gánh vã thứ ba ngược đò” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
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