Measure word “con”

In Vietnamese, con is the second most common measure word, after cái.

The implication (or “vibe”) of con is “animate”, “moving” (as opposed to that of cái, which is “inanimate”, “unmoving”). Because of this, con serves as the measure word for animals.

Structure

As always, the measure word goes before the noun.

Examples

Usage notes

The usage of con is much more complicated than just “animals”.

The living world

The colloquial term for động vật (“animal”) is con vật, commonly used in kid-friendly language.

Technically, người (“human”) is an animal, so it can take the measure word con. However, in reality, things are quite complicated. This is explained in measure word: introduction.

Apart from animals, we also use con with other organisms like vi khuẩn (“bacteria”) and protozoa, like trùng đế giày (“Paramecium”) or trùng roi xanh (“Euglena”), and even with non-living things like vi-rút (“virus”).

Non-living things

Some non-living things take the measure word con:

Category	Vietnamese	English
miscellaneous	con bài	card
	con dao	knife
	con mắt	eye
	con thoi	shuttle
pathway	con đường	road, path
	con phố	street
	con ngõ	lane
	con hẻm	alley
body of water	con sông	river
	con suối	stream
	con kênh	channel
	con sóng	wave
watercraft	con tàu	ship, train
	con thuyền	boat
	con đò	small boat

As a bound measure word

We also use con as a bound measure word:

Without “con”		With “con”
Vietnamese	English	Vietnamese	English
bạc	gamble	con bạc	gambler
buôn	to trade	con buôn	trader
chiên	(obsolete) sheep	con chiên	(Christian) sheep
lắc	to waggle	con lắc	pendulum
lăn	to roll	con lăn	roller
nghiện	addiction	con nghiện	addict
ngươi	(archaic) you, people	con ngươi	(eye) pupil
nợ	debt	con nợ	debtor
quay	to spin	con quay	spinning top
rối	puppetry	con rối	puppet
tin	trust	con tin	hostage
trỏ	to point	con trỏ	pointer, cursor

After animals

Be careful with con that goes after a noun referring to an animal. In this case, con (“child”) isn’t a measure word but rather means “young”.

Vietnamese	English
gà con	chick
vịt con	duckling
mèo con	kitten
chó con	pup

Of course, this means we can have a con before and another after the noun like con gà con or con mèo con. The one before acts as a measure word, the one after means “young”.

Two animals with their own words for their young selves are bò (“cattle”) and trâu (“buffalo”), whose young selves are bê (“bull/cow calf”) and nghé (“buffalo calf”), respectively.