The dictionary word for please is làm ơn, and xin vui lòng is the formal please you'll see on signs and hear in announcements. In everyday Vietnamese, though, a request turns polite through xin, the right word for "you" and a soft ạ at the end. At a Hanoi food stall, the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism (VNAT) has you call em ơi and ask for một cái này (one of these), with no please word at all.
That's the short answer to how to say please in Vietnamese. The longer one is more useful, because Vietnamese spreads politeness across the whole sentence instead of parking it in one English word. For the wider survival kit, start with our guide to essential Vietnamese phrases.
Làm Ơn: The Dictionary Please That Sounds a Little Stiff
Literally, the phrase means doing someone a kindness. The Soha Tra Từ Vietnamese-Vietnamese dictionary defines it as doing a good deed that helps another person through a difficulty, and as a request formula it carries the label kiểu cách: formal, somewhat mannered. Soha's own examples show where it belongs:
- Làm ơn cho tôi mượn cái bút: please lend me a pen.
- Anh làm ơn cho hỏi: could you please tell me (to a man a bit older than you).
That second example is the one to learn. Lost in Hanoi's Old Quarter or hunting for a bus stop in Hue, you stop a stranger with it (swap in chị for a woman) and any Vietnamese listener hears that you're asking a favor. Where the phrase goes wrong is at a Saigon noodle stall or a Da Nang hotel desk, bolted onto every small request.
⚠️ Don't treat làm ơn as an all-purpose please. Use it for genuine favors in Vietnam (directions, a hand with a bag, a photo at Hoan Kiem Lake) and let the address word and ạ carry the politeness everywhere else.
Xin: The Humble Opener for Requests
The Cambridge English-Vietnamese dictionary gives two Vietnamese words for please in its sense of a word added to a request to make it polite: xin and hãy. Soha's Vietnamese entry for xin calls it the word that opens a request to show modesty and courtesy, and lists a second job in thanks and invitations:
- Xin giữ trật tự: please keep order.
- Xin mọi người chú ý: everyone's attention, please.
- Xin cảm ơn: thank you.
- Xin mời vào: please come in.
Vietnamese also tuck it inside the apology tôi xin lỗi (I'm sorry), which the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism (VNAT) phrase list respells as "sin loy."
The US Defense Language Institute's Vietnamese course builds its polite requests the same way. Its lines for asking for the total bill and for asking someone to get out of a car both open with the word, which the course spells "seen." The same DLI chapter notes that Vietnamese say thưa before a person's name or title to show respect.
Xin Vui Lòng: The Please on Signs, Tickets and Screens
In Vietnam this is the please you'll read more often than you hear. The Soha dictionary defines vui lòng as being glad at heart, so the sense is be willing, be so kind as to. Cambridge translates English "kindly", in its please sense, the same way.
Put xin in front and you get the register of Vietnamese announcements and service notices:
- Xin quý khách vui lòng cho xem vé: would passengers kindly show their tickets (Soha's example for xin).
- Vui lòng chờ trong giây lát: please wait a moment, shown by the Airports Corporation of Vietnam website while a page loads.
Said out loud at a Saigon stall it sounds like reading from a notice. Recognize it on screens and signs, and use xin, cho and ạ when you speak.
Mời: Please as in Come In, Sit Down and Have Some
Vietnamese use this please when someone else is offering. The Soha dictionary defines mời as asking someone to do something politely, with a second sense for eating or drinking:
- Mời anh đến nhà tôi chơi: please come over to my place.
- Đưa tay mời ngồi: holding out a hand to invite someone to sit.
- Chị mời nước: please have some water.
So when a Vietnamese host in Hoi An waves at a chair and says it, they mean "please, sit," and when a glass comes toward you with the same word, it's an offer. Answer with VNAT's cảm ơn (thank you).
Politeness Without Please: Address Words and the Particle Ạ
This is the part most English phrase lists skip, and it's the part that makes you sound polite. A 2013 study in the journal Pragmatics by Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh and Le Ho Gia Anh found native Vietnamese speakers mostly use plain imperatives with equals and "can you" questions with people of higher status. Address terms, honorifics, modal particles and appeals to the listener soften them, not a please word. Tellingly, VNAT's phrase list for travelers has no entry for please at all.
In Vietnam the address word does the heavy lifting. VNAT's etiquette guide points out that Vietnamese rarely say "excuse me." They call out a respectful "you" instead, chosen by age:
- Em ơi: someone younger than you, male or female.
- Chị ơi: a woman a bit older than you.
- Anh ơi: a man a bit older than you.
- Cô ơi: a woman old enough to be your aunt.
- Chú ơi: a man old enough to be your uncle.
- Bà ơi: a woman old enough to be your grandmother.
Then finish with ạ. The Soha dictionary defines ạ as a word that shows respect or warmth toward the listener, as in a child's respectful hello to a grandmother. A Vietnamese request that opens with the right address word and ends in ạ is doing everything an English please does. Our guides to Vietnamese names and forms of address and Vietnam etiquette dos and don'ts go further into who calls whom what.
⚠️ When you can't tell someone's age, guess older. VNAT's address words run by age, so the older form is the safer guess for a Hanoi stallholder or a Saigon motorbike-taxi driver. Save em for people who are clearly younger, like the servers in VNAT's street-food guide.
Yes Please: Vâng, Dạ and Cho Tôi
There's no single Vietnamese phrase for yes please, so you build one from two Soha entries. The Soha entry for vâng calls it the polite yes of agreement, and VNAT respells it "vuhng." The Soha entry for dạ says it answers when someone calls you or opens a reply politely, and marks it as a regional form of the same yes.
The second half is cho, which Vietnamese use for give or sell me. The Soha entry for cho shows it as the normal way to ask:
- Anh cho tôi chiếc mũ kia: give me that hat over there.
- Cho một cốc bia nhé: a glass of beer, then.
- Vâng, cho tôi một cái: yes, one for me, please.
That last line is our own construction from the Soha entries, not a quote from a Vietnamese phrasebook. Our post on yes and no in Vietnamese covers turning things down just as politely.
Pronunciation: Getting Làm Ơn and Xin Close Enough
Vietnamese is tonal, so the same syllable at a different pitch is a different word. Tuoi Tre News counts six tones in the standard northern dialect, five of them marked with a diacritic and the high, flat tone left unmarked. In the south the hỏi and ngã tones merge in speech, leaving five, which is one reason the same word sounds different in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
For please, the Tuoi Tre tone chart is kind to English speakers:
- Làm carries the huyền tone (the grave accent), which Tuoi Tre describes as low and falling gradually. Start a little below your normal voice and let it sag.
- Ơn has no tone mark, so it stays level. VNAT respells the ơn in cảm ơn as "uhhn," so làm ơn comes out roughly as "lahm uhn."
- Xin is level too, and VNAT's "sin loy" for xin lỗi shows the x sounds like an English s.
- Ạ carries the nặng tone, which drops quickly and ends in a catch in the throat in the north and lifts slightly in the south.
⚠️ Treat every English respelling as an approximation. "Lahm uhn" is our rough guide, not an official spelling; only VNAT's own respellings, such as "gauhm uhhn" for cảm ơn, come from a Vietnamese source.
Phrase Table: Polite Requests for Travelers
These come from VNAT's phrase list and street-food guide, plus the Soha entries above. Respellings are VNAT's where shown.
| You Want To | Say | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Call a server | Em ơi! | A confident call brings someone over |
| Order one of these | Cho tôi một cái này | Point as you say it |
| Order one serving | Một suất | Say it while pointing at the dish |
| Ask for the bill | Tính tiền | Eat first, pay later |
| Ask the price | Bao nhiêu tiền? | How much (money) is this? |
| Ask a stranger for help | Anh làm ơn cho hỏi | Use chị for a woman |
| Say no meat | Không thịt | Ăn chay means vegetarian food |
| Say thank you | Cảm ơn | "gauhm uhhn" |
| Say you're welcome | Không sao đâu | "kohng sao dwoh" |
| Say sorry | Tôi xin lỗi | "sin loy" |
Any line in the table gets politer with an address word in front and ạ at the end, on the pattern of the Soha example above. None of it needs a dictionary please.
A Few Parting Notes
If you learn only three things before Hanoi or Saigon, make them VNAT's address words, cho tôi for asking and cảm ơn for thanks. Keep the Soha dictionary's mannered please for real favors. Our guide on how to say hello in Vietnamese picks up where this one stops.
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