In Vietnamese, we use gì to ask “what”.
Note: as g precedes i, it represents the soft g sound, not the hard one, according to the spelling rules.
Structure
Place gì after a measure word or a noun to ask “what”. Stand-alone gì also means “what”. Its position in the sentence follows the placement of question words.
measure word + gì
noun + gì
Examples
- Anh muốn gì?
What do you want? - Anh ấy mua xe gì?
What (type of) car did he buy? - Đây là điện thoại gì?
What (type of) phone is this?
Usage notes
Not every measure word can go with gì (the first structure). It can be grammatically correct but not make sense semantically (or there is some context).
The most common measure word, cái, goes with gì to form cái gì, which means “what”, the generic “what” (.lit “what thing”, compare che, cosa, and che cosa in Italian). It’s similar to stand-alone gì, which also means “what”, but the subtle difference is that stand-alone gì sounds a bit more formal and “elegant”:
- Anh ấy đang làm gì?
What is he doing? - Anh ấy đang làm cái gì?
What is he doing?
However, at the start of sentences, it’s recommended to use cái gì, or other phrases, instead of stand-alone gì:
- Gì treo trên tường? ❌
- Cái gì treo trên tường? ✅
What hangs on the wall?
Alternatives to cái gì are thứ gì and điều gì, which sound a bit more formal, more common in written Vietnamese. The former asks about concrete things while the latter asks about abstract concepts.
- Thứ gì nhanh hơn ánh sáng?
What is faster than light? - Điều gì khiến bạn hạnh phúc?
What makes you happy?
Extremely short sentences are exceptions:
- Gì? ✅
What? - Gì đây? ✅
What is this?
The living world
The second most common measure word, con, is the measure word for animals. Because of this, con gì normally means “what animal”:
- Con gì nhanh nhất?
What (animal) is the fastest? - Con gì có cánh mà không biết bay?
What (animal) has wings but can’t fly?
Although there are no words that mean “animal”, there is no doubt that the questions are asking “what animal”. However, theoretically, it’s not necessarily always the case because con is also the measure word for some non-animal things. A typical example is this tricky riddle:
- H:Con gì có sống mà không có chết?
- Đ:Con dao.
The riddle plays with words: sống (“life”) contrasts with chết (“death”), but sống also means “spine”. The answer is “knife”, which is not an animal at all.
The same can be said for the “botanical” measure words. For example, cây is the measure word for bút (“pen”), gậy (“stick”), etc. but cây gì almost always means “what tree”.
| Vietnamese | English |
|---|---|
| cây | tree |
| hoa | flower |
| bông | |
| quả | fruit |
| trái | |
| hạt | seed |
| củ | bulb |
| tuber |
Art and craft works
Some measure words go with gì to ask about the name of an art or craft work, such as a song, a book, or a dish. For example, cuốn is the measure word for sách (“book”), truyện (“storybook”), lịch (“calendar”), etc. However, questions with cuốn gì don’t expect answers like cuốn sách, cuốn truyện, or cuốn lịch, but rather the name of a book, such as Tam Quốc (“Three Kingdoms”) or Những Người Khốn Khổ (“Les Misérables”). A few other measure words also work in this way:
| Measure word | Name of |
|---|---|
| bài | a song |
| a poem | |
| bản | a classical music piece |
| bức | a painting |
| cuốn | a book |
| quyển | |
| món | a dish |
| vở | a play |
It doesn’t matter if the measure word can also refer to other things. For example, món is also the measure word for quà (“gift”), but món gì almost always asks about dishes (of course, context matters).
Nouns like nhạc (“music”), sách (“book”), thơ (“poem”), and tranh (“painting”) can go with gì, but the difference compared to their measure words is that they ask about the genre or type, not the name. For example, questions with sách gì expect answers like văn học (“literature”), khoa học (“science”), lịch sử (“history”), etc.
- A:Anh đang đọc cuốn gì?
What book are you reading? - B:Tôi đang đọc Số đỏ.
I’m reading Số đỏ (Dumb Luck).
- A:Anh ấy thích đọc sách gì?
What genre of books does he like to read? - B:Anh ấy thích đọc sách khoa học.
He likes to read science books.
Bonus: khẩu is the measure word for súng (“gun”) and pháo (“artillery”, “fireworks”). All of the three words can go with gì.