Classifiers are considered to be one of the most complicated parts of speech in learning Vietnamese language. In a sentence, classifier functions as a noun when it is followed by another noun.

In English we say one pen, two pens, three pens, etc. However, bút in Vietnamese must be accompanied by the classifier cây. Therefore, a pencil in English is một cây bút in Vietnamese. Never do people say một bút, hai bút, but một cây bút, hai cây bút … Similarly, listed below are 3 useful classifiers which are commonly used.

Cái ‘item’ has become one of the most common classifiers for daily life things such as:  cái bàn ‘table’, cái chén ‘small bowl’, cái giuờng ‘bed’, cái cửa sổ ‘window’, cái gương ‘mirror’.

Con ‘child’ is a classifier which indicated a single creature such as con chó ‘dog’, con bướm ‘butterfly’, con dao ‘knife’, con sông ‘river’

Bó ‘bunch’, several common terms are bó hoa ‘bunch of flowers’, bó rau muống ‘bunch of morning glory’ and bó lúa ‘bundle of rice’.