Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

Thuốc đắng đã tật, nói thật mất lòng

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Honesty can be unpleasant but necessary

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Trung thực có thể khó chịu nhưng cần thiết

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: Bitter medicine cures illness, speaking truth loses affection

Examples

Tôi biết thuốc đắng đã tật, nói thật mất lòng, nhưng tôi phải nói sự thật với anh ấy.I know honesty can be unpleasant, but I have to tell him the truth.

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.

Common questions

What does “Thuốc đắng đã tật, nói thật mất lòng” mean?

Honesty can be unpleasant but necessary Literally: Bitter medicine cures illness, speaking truth loses affection

Is “Thuốc đắng đã tật, nói thật mất lòng” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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