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Negation

One word does almost all of it: không before the verb or adjective. The complications are the two other negators Vietnamese keeps for specific jobs — chưa for "not yet" and đừng for "don't" — and the particles that make a negative emphatic.

không + verb / adjective

Tôi không biết. — "I don't know." Anh ấy không đến. — "He isn't coming / didn't come." Trời không lạnh. — "It's not cold."

No tense, no auxiliary, no change to the verb. Không is also "no" as an answer and "zero" as a number — and the tag that makes a question (see Questions): Anh đi không? "Are you going?"

không phải for nouns

When the predicate is a noun, negate the copula with không phải (là):

Tôi không phải là bác sĩ. — "I'm not a doctor." Đây không phải nhà tôi. — "This isn't my house."

Compare Malay bukan: a separate negator for nouns.

chưa: not yet

Chưa negates with the implication that it may still happen — and it is the honest answer when the question uses đã or chưa:

Tôi chưa ăn. — "I haven't eaten (yet)." Anh ăn cơm chưa? — Chưa. — "Have you eaten? — Not yet."

Choosing không where chưa is expected — tôi không ăn — means "I'm not eating / I don't eat", a refusal rather than a status. Learners get this wrong daily; Vietnamese hears it every time.

đừng: don't

The negative imperative has its own word:

Đừng lo. — "Don't worry." Đừng đi! — "Don't go!" Đừng nói với ai nhé. — "Don't tell anyone, ok?"

Chớ is the literary and proverbial version.

Emphatic negatives: đâu, gì cả

Two sentence-final words strengthen a negation:

Đâu here is the question word "where" doing a second job; cả / hết "all" seal the negation. Chẳng is a colloquial, slightly dismissive không: chẳng ai biết, "nobody knows".

No double-negative trap

Không ai "nobody", không gì "nothing", không bao giờ "never" are the negator plus an indefinite, as in Malay and Chinese; there is no separate negative pronoun to double up with.

Answering a negative question

Vietnamese answers the fact, not the form of the question — the opposite of English:

Anh không đi à? — Không, tôi không đi. — "Aren't you going? — (Right,) I'm not." — Có, tôi đi. — "(No,) I am going."

If you speak Korean

Không before the verb is 안 in front of the verb; không … được after it is 못. Chưa is 아직 … 안 with the "not yet" built in; đừng is -지 마. And không phải for nouns is 아니다 — Vietnamese also keeps a separate negator for "is not (a noun)".

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