· 3 min read

Vietnamese Proverbs: Learn the Real Sayings, Fix the Word-for-Word Calques

Learn 79 Vietnamese proverbs and idioms with flashcards: which cards are real native sayings, which are calques, and the true equivalents to memorize instead.

Water buffalo, lotus pond, conical hat and lute surrounded by floating flashcards

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Vietnamese proverbs (tục ngữ) and idioms (thành ngữ) are everywhere, from family talk to TV dramas. Flip It deck QD4680 "Vietnamese Idioms & Proverbs" gives you 79 cards, English front, Vietnamese back. Before you drill it, know one thing: the deck mixes three very different kinds of cards.

Study this deck: Vietnamese Idioms & Proverbs

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Question

When you eat the fruit, think of the person who planted the tree

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Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not

The three layers of this deck

  1. Cards 1-14: genuine Vietnamese sayings. These are the gold. Learn them first.
  2. Cards 15-43: English proverbs with a mixed bag of answers. Some backs are the real Vietnamese equivalent, some are literal translations.
  3. Cards 44-79: almost all word-for-word calques (La Mã không được xây trong một ngày, Đừng khóc vì sữa đã đổ). Understandable, but not what a Vietnamese speaker would say.

Cards worth learning as-is

Front (English)Back (Vietnamese)
When you drink water, remember the sourceUống nước nhớ nguồn
When you eat the fruit, think of the person who planted the treeĂn quả nhớ kẻ trồng cây
Near ink, you get stained black; near light, you get illuminatedGần mực thì đen, gần đèn thì sáng
Practice makes perfectCó công mài sắt có ngày nên kim
Out of sight, out of mindXa mặt cách lòng
When in Rome, do as the Romans doNhập gia tùy tục
To beat around the bushNói vòng vo tam quốc
To make a mountain out of a molehillBé xé ra to
Beggars can't be choosersĂn mày còn đòi xôi gấc

Also solid: Chậm mà chắc, Có chí thì nên, Đổ thêm dầu vào lửa, Dễ như ăn cháo, Phòng bệnh hơn chữa bệnh, Cây muốn lặng mà gió chẳng ngừng, Con nhà tông không giống lông cũng giống cánh. Card 8 (Gần chu thì đỏ) repeats card 3: keep card 3, the version Vietnamese people actually use.

Cards to rewrite with the real Vietnamese equivalent

These are the proverbs every learner hears, and the deck gives a calque or a mismatch instead:

  • Card 17, empty vessels: the fixed form is Thùng rỗng kêu to, not Bình rỗng.
  • Card 21, the pot calls the kettle black: Nồi nào úp vung nấy means "every pot has its lid" (people pair with their own kind). The real match is Chó chê mèo lắm lông, the dog mocks the cat for being hairy.
  • Card 23, two heads are better than one: the hint says Khổng Minh is Confucius. It is not: Khổng Minh is Zhuge Liang (Gia Cát Lượng), the Three Kingdoms strategist. Confucius is Khổng Tử.
  • Card 25, blood is thicker than water: máu mủ ruột thịt is just a noun for kin. Use Một giọt máu đào hơn ao nước lã.
  • Card 36, pearls before swine: Đàn gảy tai trâu, playing the lute into a buffalo's ear.
  • Card 55, too many cooks: Lắm thầy thối ma, too many shamans and the corpse rots.
  • Card 58, a leopard can't change its spots: Giang sơn dễ đổi, bản tính khó dời.
  • Card 67, haste makes waste: Dục tốc bất đạt.
  • Card 74, speak of the devil: Vừa nhắc Tào Tháo, Tào Tháo đến.
  • Card 79, don't judge a book by its cover: Tốt gỗ hơn tốt nước sơn, good wood beats good paint.

Two study tips

Tag the Sino-Vietnamese four-syllable sayings. Nhập gia tùy tục, Dục tốc bất đạt and Nhân vô thập toàn (no one is perfect, the real answer to card 6) are frozen Chinese-derived forms. Learn them as single blocks.

Learn the picture, not the English. Write the literal image in the hint (buffalo and lute, shamans and corpse, wood and paint). The image is what makes the proverb come back in conversation, and it stops you from answering a native saying with a translated one.

Pair this deck with the top 100 Vietnamese words for the grammar the proverbs are built on. Find QD4680 in the Flip It library.

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