In Vietnamese, expressing possession is carried out with the preposition của. However, in some cases, it sounds more natural to omit của.
Structure
The possessee comes directly before the possessor.
possessee + possessor
Examples
- Anh tôi đang học đại học.My brother is attending university.
- Đây là mẹ tôi.This is my mother.
- Công ti anh có bao nhiêu nhân viên?How many employees are there in your company?
Usage note
In general, the foolproof way to express possession is using của. However, it can and even should be omitted in quite a few cases.
While there are no hard-and-fast rules, the general principle is to omit it when the possessee is a concrete noun. Based on physical existence, there are two types of nouns: concrete and abstract.
- Concrete nouns are physical things that can be seen, touched, heard, etc.
- Abstract nouns are nonphysical ideas that can’t be perceived through the senses.
Concrete nouns
For some concrete nouns, của should be omitted.
- mẹ tôimy mother
- nhà tôimy house, my family
- công ti tôimy company
In the examples above, it doesn’t sound natural to include của, or it will sound like the speaker is trying to “make a point”. For example, the phrase nhà của tôi carries a connotation of “I own this house” instead of a casual “my house”. In general, there are nouns for which của should be (and is in fact almost always) omitted. Those nouns usually indicate:
- A personal relationship (family, boy/girlfriend, teacher, boss, etc.)
- A group or organisation (family, school, company, etc.)
Note that it doesn’t apply to all nouns of these types.
In contrast, for other concrete nouns, things are quite tricky. In general, it is fine to omit của, but it is also fine to include it. Some nouns prefer one option; some prefer the other; others are indifferent. In practice, it is very context-dependent and depends on multiple other factors: the sentence structure, its components and their positions, etc. Unfortunately, this is best understood through hands-on experience rather than theoretical explanation.
- giày tôimy shoes
- giày của tôimy shoes
- điện thoại tôimy phone
- điện thoại của tôimy phone
Abstract nouns
In general, abstract nouns require including của.
- ý tưởng của tôimy idea
- niềm vui của anh ấyhis happiness
- thành công của chúng taour success
However, for some monosyllabic abstract nouns, của should be omitted (note that this is just a generalisation).
- lòng tôimy heart (the emotions, not the organ)
- ý tôimy thought, what I mean
- hồn tôimy soul
Similarly, including của in the examples above also makes it sound unnatural.