Grammar15: “Please give me ~” & “Please allow me to ~” (Cho tôi ~)

When shopping or ordering food at a restaurant, the phrase “please give me ~” is commonly used to express what you want. In Vietnamese, classifiers are used to distinguish different types of objects. In this lesson, we will introduce how to correctly express what you want in Vietnamese.

The “Cho tôi ~” (Please give me ~) 

Sentence structure:

Explanation:

In the above structure, “Cho tôi ~” means “Please give me ~”. Normally, a second-person subject is placed before “cho”, but in this case, the subject can be omitted.
The word “cho” is a verb meaning “to give”, so a literal translation of the phrase would be “You, please give me ~”.

Classifiers (Measure Words) in Vietnamese

Vietnamese classifiers function similarly to the definite article “the” in English while also serving as measure words. Below is a summary of commonly used classifiers:

Classifier	Meaning	Examples
con	Living beings	con chó (dog), con mèo (cat), con cá (fish)
cái	Inanimate objects	cái bàn (table), cái túi (bag), cái nhà (house)
ly	Glass, drink containers	ly trà (cup of tea), ly cà phê (cup of coffee)
cây	Trees, long/thin objects	cây bút bi (pen), cây cột điện (electric pole)
cuốn / quyển	Books	cuốn sách (book), quyển truyện tranh (comic book)

Counting Numbers (0–100) in Vietnamese

• Numbers 11 and above → “mười” (10) comes first, followed by a single-digit number.
• Special Case: For 15, instead of using “năm”, the form “lăm” is used.
• Tens (20, 30, etc.) → Instead of “mười”, the word “mươi” is used after the leading digit.
• Numbers 21, 31, etc. → the word “mốt” is used instead of “một”.
  Following these rules, you can count up to 100 (một trăm) in Vietnamese.

Expanding the “Cho tôi ~” Sentence

To give more details about what you want, you can add classifiers and numbers to the sentence.

Sentence Structure:

“Cho tôi ~” with Verbs (Requesting Permission to Do Something)
Sentence structure: