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Plurals
Vietnamese nouns never change for number. Sách is a book or books; người is a person or people. Number is marked only when it matters, and then by a word in front of the noun.
Counting: number + classifier + noun
With a number, the noun takes its classifier and nothing else:
| Vietnamese | gloss |
|---|---|
| một con mèo | one cat |
| hai con mèo | two cats |
| ba cuốn sách | three books |
| mười người | ten people (người is its own classifier) |
The noun is unchanged. The classifier is what makes the noun countable — hai mèo without con sounds like a list heading.
Plural markers: các, những, mấy
When there is no number, three words mark a plural, and they mean different things:
| marker | meaning | example |
|---|---|---|
| các | all of a known group; "the … (plural)" | các bạn — "you all"; các em — "you (younger ones)" |
| những | some of a group, a subset; often with a modifier | những người đã đến — "the people who came" |
| mấy | a few, several (casual) | mấy đứa trẻ — "a few kids" |
Các addresses a whole audience — chào các bạn, "hello everyone" — and is the plural of the pronouns: các anh, các chị. Những picks out; it nearly always comes with something after the noun narrowing it down: những ngày mưa, "the rainy days".
Reduplication: distribution, not plural
Doubling a noun does not make it plural — it makes it every or all over:
người người — everyone, all the people ngày ngày — every day, day after day nhà nhà — every household
Vietnamese reduplicates adjectives more than nouns, and there it softens (see Adjectives).
Pronoun plurals: chúng and các
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| tôi (I) | chúng tôi (we, not including you) |
| — | chúng ta (we, including you) |
| anh (you, m.) | các anh (you all, men) |
| chị (you, f.) | các chị |
| nó (it, he/she casual) | chúng nó, họ (they) |
The exclusive / inclusive split (chúng tôi / chúng ta) is the same one Malay has with kami / kita. Chúng ta đi! "let's go (all of us)" versus chúng tôi đi "we're going (without you)".
Nothing to agree with
Adjectives, verbs and demonstratives do not change for number. Cuốn sách này "this book" and những cuốn sách này "these books" differ by one word, and it is not này.
If you speak Korean
Các and những are 들, and used as sparingly: a Korean speaker's instinct to leave the plural off when a number or the context supplies it is exactly right here. Number + classifier + noun is 세 권의 책 turned round — see Articles.
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