Asking “which” with “nào”

In Vietnamese, we use nào to ask “which”.

Structure

Place nào after a noun to ask “which”. Its position in the sentence follows the placement of question words.

noun + nào

measure word + noun + nào

When the noun is understood from context, it’s acceptable to drop it and place nào after the measure word of the noun (only works if it has a measure word). This is like “which one” in English.

measure word + nào

Examples

  • Anh chọn cái nào?
    Which one do you choose?
  • Con nào nặng nhất?
    Which one is the heaviest?
  • Chúng ta nên học ngôn ngữ nào?
    Which language should we learn?

Usage notes

For the third structure, if there are more than one measure word, use cái as a middle-ground solution. For example, if option A is con mèo (“cat”), and option B is cuốn sách (“book”), then there is a conflict of measure words. Because of this, in this case, we have to use cái, so “which one” will be cái nào.

If a noun doesn’t have a measure word, then the first structure is the only option, of course. Otherwise, we have two options: either adding a measure word or not. However, there is a subtle difference between them: adding a measure word refers to each instance while omitting it refers to the general type of things.

  • quả táo nào
    which apple
  • táo nào
    which variety/cultivar of apples
  • cuốn sách nào
    which book
  • sách nào
    which genre of books
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