真
zhēn
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Really, truly: an adverb that makes an adjective stronger, mostly in exclamations. It stands right before the adjective: 真冷! 'it's so cold!', 真贵! 'so expensive!'. As an adjective it means 'real, true': 真的吗? 'really?'.
Thật, thật là: phó từ nhấn mạnh tính từ, thường dùng trong câu cảm thán. Đứng ngay trước tính từ: 真冷! (lạnh thật!), 真贵! (đắt thật!). Làm tính từ thì nghĩa là “thật, thật sự”: 真的吗? (thật không?).
AdverbRegister: 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 ↗ · 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 “真” mean?
Really, truly: an adverb that makes an adjective stronger, mostly in exclamations. It stands right before the adjective: 真冷! 'it's so cold!', 真贵! 'so expensive!'. As an adjective it means 'real, true': 真的吗? 'really?'.
Is “真” formal or informal?
真 is generally neutral.