Feedback

OK I know greetings in Vietnamese is really complicated, and we Vietnamese people also frequently make mistakes in daily talk, too.

I'll try my best to explain to you, Vietnamese pronouns (?) base on 2 things: the gender and the age. There are four types of age: grandparents/ parents/ yourselves/ your kids.

If the person is a "he",
- and he is your grandparents age: use this words: "ông", and you call yourselves: "con", "cháu" (both are fine but "con" is more common.)
- and he is your parents age: "bác" (older than your parents), "chú" (younger than your parents), "cậu" is ONLY used when he is maternal relative to you, if you are talking with strangers, don't ever bother, you can call yourselves: "con", "cháu" (both are fine but "con" is more common.)
- and he is your age: older than you but younger than your parents: "anh", exact your age: bạn, cậu, his name. you can call yourselves: mình, tớ, or use your name as a cute way to call yourselves. For ex: my name is May, and your name is Tony, I can make a sentence like this: May muốn nói chuyện với Tony. That's fine and kind cute.

If the person is a "she",
- and she is your grandparents age: use this words: "bà", and you call yourselves: "con", "cháu" (both are fine but "con" is more common.)
- and she is your parents age: "bác" (older than your parents), "cô" (younger than your parents), "dì" (much more common than "cô" when you speaks with stranger, it is how you maternal female relative and somehow it's more friendly), you can call yourselves: "con", "cháu" (both are fine but "con" is more common.)
- and she is your age: older than you but younger than your parents: "chị"; exact your age: bạn, cậu (speaking only, you have to be careful in writing, it's not complete wrong, but it is easy to be misunderstood), her name. you can call yourselves: mình, tớ, or use your name as well.

In the the person is younger than you, calling them is much simple, no matter what gender are them:
- they are younger than you and much older than your kid: "em"
- they is your kid's/grandkid's age: con/cháu.
and your can use the opposite way to call yourselves: like, "ông", "bà", "bác", "chú", "cô", "dì","anh", "chị".

In our daily life, it's not that accurate. In fact, if the person is not my grandparents' age obviously, I always call them: "anh" & "chị", to make them feel that they look young. If they are bothered, they will correct you and then you just have to say "sorry you look too young". Foreign people come to Vietnam try to be polite by calling the vendors "cô", call themselves "con", but, it's sometimes kinda too polite to be normal. Just call them "anh", "chị", that's fine.

Feedback

Very Good