University of Pedagogy
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Instructor: Nguyen Ngoc Vu
Student: Nguyen Minh Trang
Class: 4A
Contrastive Analysis 2011
31st December 2011
Personal pronoun is a word that you use to refer to someone when you do not need to use a noun,
often because the person has been mentioned earlier. Personal pronouns are a very important part of the
language system. Both English and Vietnamese use personal pronouns in the category of politeness.
However, Vietnamese personal pronouns express the shade of meaning (polite/ impolite) much more
clearly than the English ones. Vietnamese has a very compilcated personal pronouns system, so it is very
challenging for English people want to master it. In this paper, I want to make a contrast between English
and Vietnamese personal pronouns in four aspects: True personal pronouns, kinship terms, non-kinship
terms used as pronouns and proper nouns.
True personal pronouns:
In the two languages, personal pronouns have the same function that is to take the place of or to
denote the people taking part in the communication process or who we are talking about. Both English and
Vietnamese personal pronouns are categorised into three persons: first person, second person and third
person. However, English personal pronouns are depend mostly on the grammatical role while Vietnamese
personal pronouns can indicate the social status or the relation of the speaker and other persons in the
discourse.
According to the grammatical role, English personal pronouns are classified into two types: Personal
Subject Pronouns and Personal Object Pronouns.
A Subjective personal pronoun is used to indicate that the pronoun is the object of the verb or the
sentence. For example:
Suzy is a singer. She sings very well.
In this example, “she” takes the place of “Suzy” which is the subject of the sentence.
An Objective personal pronoun is used to indicate that the pronoun is the object of the verb or
preposition. For example:
Jia asked me to go with her.
As we can see from the example, the objectivepersonal pronoun “me” is the object of the verb
“asked” and the objective personal pronoun “her” is the object of the preposition “with”.
In addition, English personal pronouns must be in concord with the gender and the number of
people mentioned.
In term of gender, there are three genders in English pronouns: masculine, feminine and neuter. In
term of number, English personal pronouns are divided into singular and plural pronouns.
So, English personal pronouns used are depend on the grammatical role and must be in agreement
with the gender and number of people indicated. I will list all English personal pronouns in the following
table:
English personal pronouns
Person
Singular
Plural
Subject
Object
Subject
Object
First
I
me
We
us
Second
You
you
You
you
Masculine
He
him
Feminine
She
her
They
them
Neuter
It
it
Third
Now, let’s take a look at Vietnamese personal pronouns in the following table:
Vietnamese Personal Pronouns
Person
First
Singular
Plural
Formal
Informal
In English
Formal
Informal
In English
tôi
tao, mình
I, me
chúng tôi
bọn tao,
We, us
bọn mình
Second
Ông (male),
Mày, bạn
you
bà (female)
Các ông (male),
Chúng
các bà (female)
mày, các
you
bạn
Third
Masculine
Ông ta, ngài
Thằng đó
He, him
ấy, anh ấy
Feminine
Bà âý, cô ấy
Con nhỏ đó,
She, her
cô ta
Các ông ấy, các
Mấy
They,
ngài ấy, các anh
thằng đó,
them
ấy
bọn nó
Các bà ấy, các
Mấy con
They,
cô ấy
đó, bọn
them
nó
Neuter
-
nó
it
Họ
Chúng nó
They,
them
As we can see from the table, the Vietnamese personal pronouns system is much more complicated
than English one. Unlike English personal pronouns, the Vietnamese ones are not divided into subjective
pronouns and objective pronouns. A Vietnamese pronoun can be used as both the subject and object of the
sentence. For example, in English we say:
Suzy is a singer. She sings very well. I love her so much.
Let compare with the way we say in Vietnamese:
Suzy là một ca sĩ. Cô ấy hát rất hay. Tôi yêu cô ấy lắm.
We can see from the example that in English, the pronoun “she” is the subject of the verb “sings”
and “her” is the object of the verb “love”, but in Vietnamese we can use the pronoun “cô ấy” for both the
subject of the verb “hát” and the object of the verb “yêu”.
Vietnamese personal pronouns is not only in agreement with the person, gender and number as the
English ones but also can reaveal the social status of the speaker and the other people in the discourse. For
example, the first person tôi is the only pronoun to be used in polite speech. The second person ta does
not only indicate a higher status of the speaker, but also is often used when talking to oneself as in a
soliloquy. The other superior-to-inferior forms in the first and second persons (tao, mày, mi, bay), which
are considered impolite, are commonly used in familiar social contexts, such as among family member
(Wikipedia, “Vietnamese Pronouns”). I have an example to illustrate this difference:
Do you think this picture is beautiful? I want to buy it.
Ngài có thấy bức tranh này đẹp không? Tôi muốn mua nó. (Formal context, inferior-to-superior
form)
Mày có thấy bức tranh này đẹp không? Tao muốn mua nó. (Informal context, superior-to-inferior
forms or between two people at the same age)
Kinship terms:
This is the most different feature between English and Vietnames because there is hardly any
kinship term to be used as personal pronoun in English. In contrast, kinship terms are a very important part
of the Vietnamese system to address or refer to oneself and others. They are even used much more than
true personal pronouns. Even though the listener is not a family member or relative, kinship terms can also
used as pronouns to address and refer to friends and unfamiliar interlocutors (Luong, 1990). The
Vietnamese kinship term system is quiet complicated, it is not only very challenging for foreigners but also
sometimes hard for Vietnamese people to master all kinship terms. The below table summarizes the
meanings and usages of the Vietnamese kinship terms:
Term
Reciprocal
Literal meaning
Note
cha
con
father
many other terms are used, depending on
the dialect: ba, bố, tía, thầy
mẹ
con
mother
mẹ is the northern form, má is used in the
south. many other terms are used,
depending on the dialect: u, bầm, mạ
anh
em
older brother
can be used to address any male regardless
of status. e.g. by military personnel to those
of lower ranks.
chị
em
older sister
em
anh or chị
younger sibling or cousin
of the same generation
con
cha, mẹ, bà, etc.
one’s child
cháu
ông, bà, bác, chú,
grandchild; niece;
etc.
nephew; cousin of junior
generations
ông
cháu or con
grandfather
paternal and maternal grandfathers are
differentiated as ông nội ("internal
grandfather") and ông ngoại ("external
grandfather"), respectively
bà
cháu or con
grandmother
paternal and maternal grandmothers are
differentiated as bà nội ("internal
grandmother") and bà ngoại ("external
grandmother"), respectively
cô
cháu
father’s sister
in some dialects, literal meaning is
restricted to father's younger sister
chú
cháu
father’s younger brother
in some dialects, literal meaning is
restricted to father's younger brother
thím
cháu
chú’s wife
bác
cháu
a parent's older sibling
in some dialects, can also refer to father's
elder brother or sister as well as mother's
elder brother or sister
dì
cậu
cháu
cháu
mother’s sister,
in some dialects, literal meaning is
stepmother
restricted to mother's younger sister
mother’s brother
in some dialects, literal meaning is
restricted to mother's younger brother
mợ
cháu
cậu’s wife
in some dialects, used by the husband to
refer to his wife, children to refer to mother,
or parents-in-law to refer to a daughter-inlaw
dượng cháu
the husband of cô or dì,
stepfather
cụ/ cố
cháu
great-grandparent
sơ
cháu
great-great-grandparent
(Wikipedia, “Vietnamese Pronouns”)
The Vietnamese kinship terms can reveal the relation of the speakers and listeners very clearly, and
this is a very interesting feature of Vietnamese system. For example:
“I will give you some money.”
Mother to son: “Mẹ sẽ cho con một ít tiền.”
Older sister to younger brother: “Chị sẽ cho em một ít tiền.”
Non-kinship terms used as pronouns:
In English, there are some nouns of title or occupation such as sir, madam, doctor, professor, Mr
President, ect. are used as a polite way of addressing someone to show respect. For example:
“Can I speak with you for a moment, sir/ madam/ doctor/ professor/ Mr President?”
However, these nouns of title and occupation are not used frequently because we just say “Can I speak
with you for a moment?” can show our politeness. In contrast, almost any noun used for a person can be
used as a personal pronoun in Vietnamese, such as “doctor” (bác sĩ), “professor” (giáo sư), “owner” (ông
chủ), “father” (cha, ba, bố), etc. These personal pronouns are usually used as second-person pronouns and
used widely in every communication situation. We can take the above sentence as an example:
“Can I speak with you for a moment?”
Patient to doctor: “Tôi có thể nói chuyện với bác sĩ một lát không?”
Student to teacher: “Em có thể nói chuyện với thầy một lát không?”
Son to father: “Con có thể nói chuyện với ba một lát không?”
Servant to owner: “ Con có thể nói chuyện với ông chủ một lát không?”
Proper nouns:
Proper nouns, including personal names, are used for third person references in both English and
Vietnamese. For example:
Can you tell Jenny that I will call her soon? (Bạn có thể nói với Jenny là tôi sẽ sớm gọi cho cô ấy
không?)
However, Vietnamese speakers also use personal names to refer to themselves and the listeners, in
other words, they use personal names for first and second person references especially when the speaker
and the listener are at the same age, which is very strange if used in English. Let’s consider the below
conversation:
Jun: Jun đang tìm Min nè. Min đã đi đâu vậy?
Min: Min đi thư viện. Jun tìm Min có việc gì không?
Jun: Àh, Jun muốn nhắc Min nhớ gọi cho Jenny sớm.
It would be very strange and the meaning can be changed if we translate this conversation into English like
this:
Jun: Jun is looking for Min. Where did Min go?
Min: Min went to the library. Why do Jun look for Min?
Jun: Well, Jun want to remind Min to phone Jenny soon.
A normal translation of this conversation into english would be:
Jun: I am looking for you. Where did you go?
Min: I went to the library. Why do you look for me?
Jun: Well, I want to remind you to phone Jenny soon.
Personal pronouns play an important play in communication, especially in Vietnamese. They can
reveal the social status or the relationship between the speaker and the listener, in some cases, they can
also show the politeness or impoliteness of the speakers. As we can see from all the contrast I have made
between English and Vietnamese personal pronoun system, it is not easy to find the equivalence of
personal pronouns in the two languages. Before concluding my essay, I would like to suggest some
implications for teaching and learning English-Vietnamese.
Firstly, when there is a change of personal pronoun when translating from English to Vietnamese or
vice versa, the teacher has to understand that situation clearly to explain to the students. After that, the
teacher should give some similar examples for students to master that knowledge.
Secondly, when we want to find the exact equivalence between the two languages, we have to
depend on the context, the relationship between the speaker and listener. In addition, the factors of sex,
age or feeling of the speakers are also very important. For example, all of us know that the pronoun “we”
refer to the first person, but in somes cases, we have to understand it as a second-person references. Let’s
take a look at this example:
Teacher said to students:
T: Can we keep silent for moment?
Ss: Yes, sir.
In the above conversation, we see that the Teacher use the pronoun “we” to refer to the students, the
second-person reference.
Last but not least, learning a language is not the same as learning Maths, Geography or Physics,
you shouldn’t just sit in your desk, do a lot of exercise or learn by heart a number of formulas. Pratice
makes perfect, you have to go outside, speak with some native speakers, learn from them all the skills that
you can’t learn from books. Especially personal pronouns are very important in communication, practising
with native speakers can help you improve your using personal pronoun system.
As we know, acquire a second language is not easy at all. There are many problems we have to
face in the learning process, personal pronoun system is one of those problems. I hope that this paper will
help you to understand more deeply about this topic and gain more knowledge about English and
Vietnamese system.
References:
http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/Articles/Ho/Ho.html
http://www.oocities.org/collegepark/campus/6336/personal_pronouns.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_pronouns
How English works
http://mylanguages.org/vietnamese_pronouns.php