"chưa chắc" vs "có thể"/"có lẽ"

 I often find myself wanting to say "not sure [yet]". Up to now, I assumed the "chưa chắc" was a perfectly fine way to say this. However, it turns out that this expression is more equivalent to "far from certain".

Example
A: Đọi tụi mình sẽ thắng trận này! (Our team will win this match!)
B: Chưa chắc. (That's far from certain.)

On the other hand, "not sure" in a more neutral way would be better translated as "có thể" or "có lẽ".

Example
A: Đọi tụi mình sẽ thắng trận này! (Our team will win this match!)
B: Có thể. (Maybe./It's possible.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sentence-final particles in Vietnamese

1. ạ (NV) Politeness marker very prevalent in Northern Vietnamese. Used extensively by kids talking to adults A: Con thích món này không? B: Con thích lắm ạ! 2. cơ A particle to show affection - Con thương mẹ lắm cơ! Similar to the   spatial particles đó/đấy/ấy, for additional emphasis - Cái này là gì cơ?  - Bạn nói gì cơ? 3. chứ, chớ, chớ bộ (SV) The first usage of chứ and its variants is to ask for confirmation. It's similar to the question particle không in this case - Bạn thích món này chứ? The second case is to confirm that something is the case, and sometimes, to show disagreement - A: Bạn thấy ca sĩ hát hay không? B: Hay chứ! (confirmation) - A: Ca sĩ này hát không hay đâu. B: Hay chứ! (disagreement) 4. đã To express that something needs to be done before something else - Khoan đã! - A: Đi về đi! B: Phải tính tiền đã. 5. đâu A strong negation, like "not at all" in English. There are three forms: "không...đâu", "có...
Read more

How to use chứ

The word chứ has various applications. In general, it is used to affirm or negate something with emphasis. Following are the various cases: 1. In conjunction with không or chẳng, chứ is used to express "X is the case, certainly not Y" Anh ấy là giám đốc, chứ không phải là nhân viên bình thường. He is the CEO, certainly not just a regular employee. 2. Chứ can appear at the end of a sentence, either as a question or in a statement. If the sentence is a question, chứ is similar to "..., right?" or "..., isn't it?" in English Phim này hay chứ? This movie is good, isn't it? If chứ appears at the end of a statement, it may either affirm or deny that something is the case. Consider... A: Em thấy phim này có hay không? ( Do you think this movie is good? ) B: Hay chứ! ( Definitely! ) ...versus... A: Phim này dở quá, chị không thích. ( This movie is really bad, I don't like it. ) B: Hay chứ! ( No, it's good! ) 3. Another...
Read more

The best channels and shows to learn Southern Vietnamese in 2021

This is a list of channels and series on Youtube to learn Southern Vietnamese. Most of of these have Vietnamese subtitles and some even have both Vietnamese and English subtitles. If they are missing, you can turn on the Youtube auto-generated subtitles (if enabled by the channel owner). The quality isn't always superb. That said, if the speaker talks in a very clear voice and there isn't any background noise, these subtitles are surprisingly accurate. If you would like to find more channels with subtitles, there is a search filter called "Subtitles/CC". Unfortunately, this will sometimes also return clips with empty subtitles or a single caption like "Subscribe to our channel!". So, it does take a bit of time to search. 1. MCVMedia productions The single best resource for clips with Vietnamese subtitles is MCV. This channel consistently provides captions on almost every show - sometimes even bilingual English/Vietnamese. Many of the formats are related to l...
Read more