Hết presents a quantity, resource, stretch, or set as exhausted: nothing relevant remains. It can be a predicate (Hết pin rồi “The battery is dead”), follow a verb (đọc hết “read all of it”), or introduce the domain exhausted (hết tuần “the end of the week / once the week is over”). Its defining feature is exhaustive extent, not merely that an action stops.
This page contrasts hết with xong, which marks event completion. Cessation with thôi is reserved for the next dedicated page. If someone ăn xong, the eating event is finished; if someone ăn hết bánh, all the cake is consumed; if someone thôi ăn, they stop eating. These may coincide in a situation, but they answer different questions.
Hết as a predicate: nothing remains
As the main predicate, hết says that a resource, period, supply, or condition has run out or ended. The exhausted theme commonly precedes hết, although impersonal announcements often begin with hết.
Điện thoại hết pin rồi, cho tôi mượn sạc nhé.
My phone's battery is dead; may I borrow your charger?
Vé buổi tối hết rồi, chỉ còn suất chiều.
Tickets for the evening are sold out; only the afternoon showing remains.
Hết giờ rồi, các em nộp bài nhé.
Time is up; please hand in your work.
Hết tiền, hết nước, hết chỗ, and hết hạn are extremely common. English changes verbs—run out of, be sold out, expire, be over—where Vietnamese retains the exhaustion schema.
Thẻ này hết hạn vào cuối tháng sau.
This card expires at the end of next month.
The time reference is supplied by the context. Hôm qua máy hết pin lúc trưa is past; mai thẻ hết hạn is future. Hết itself does not conjugate for tense.
V + hết: exhaust the object or domain
After an action verb, hết gives that verb exhaustive scope over the relevant theme or domain. With an explicit object, the usual pattern is V + hết + object.
Bọn trẻ ăn hết nồi cơm chỉ trong mười phút.
The children ate all the rice in the pot in only ten minutes.
Tôi đã đọc hết tài liệu anh gửi nhưng vẫn chưa thấy con số đó.
I read all the material you sent, but I still didn't find that figure.
Chị ấy kiểm tra hết danh sách khách hàng chỉ trong một buổi sáng.
She checked the entire customer list in just one morning.
The scope of hết is context-sensitive. Đọc hết sách trên bàn means every relevant book on the table, or all of the material contained in those books, depending on the situation. Nói hết means “say everything / finish saying all that one has to say,” not merely stop speaking.
Cứ nói hết suy nghĩ của em đi, anh sẽ không ngắt lời.
Go ahead and say everything you think; I won't interrupt.
With people, hết can distribute over the whole group: Mọi người về hết rồi “Everyone has gone home.” This post-object or clause-late position is natural when the set is already identifiable.
Khách về hết rồi nên mình bắt đầu dọn nhé.
All the guests have gone home, so let's start cleaning up.
Xong versus hết: event boundary versus exhaustive extent
The contrast is clearest when both are possible.
| Form | Question answered | Typical implication |
|---|---|---|
| đọc xong cuốn sách | Did the reading event reach its endpoint? | the planned book-reading is complete |
| đọc hết cuốn sách | How much of the book was covered? | no part was left unread |
| ăn xong | Is the eating event finished? | the eater is done |
| ăn hết cơm | How much rice was consumed? | no rice remains in the relevant portion |
| làm xong việc | Is the task complete? | the task endpoint was reached |
| làm hết việc | How many assigned tasks were done? | all relevant work was covered |
Tôi ăn xong rồi nhưng trong bát vẫn còn cơm.
I've finished eating, but there is still rice in my bowl.
This sentence proves that xong does not entail hết. Conversely, Tôi ăn hết phần rau does not necessarily mean the whole meal is finished; only the vegetable portion is exhausted.
Time, aspect, and discourse scope
Vietnamese time reference is built from event type, discourse sequence, temporal adverbials, and optional aspect markers—not from one marker per English tense.
| Form | Contribution | Relation to hết |
|---|---|---|
| đã ăn | prior realization | does not say all food was consumed |
| đang ăn | ongoing phase | compatible with some food still remaining |
| sẽ ăn | projected eating | may combine as sẽ ăn hết |
| ăn rồi | completed/relevant change | does not itself quantify the object |
| từng đi | past experience | not exhaustive travel |
| mới đến / vừa đến | recent arrival | recency rather than extent |
| chưa xong | event endpoint unreached | different from chưa hết “not all gone/over” |
| sắp mưa | imminence | no exhaustion meaning |
| vẫn còn | something continues to remain | semantic opposite of exhaustion |
Markers combine when their meanings are compatible. Tôi sẽ đọc hết hồ sơ tối nay projects exhaustive reading. Đến trưa, nước vẫn chưa hết locates a non-exhausted supply at a past or future reference point supplied by context. Nước đã hết highlights prior realization of “no water remains.”
Ngày mai tôi sẽ kiểm tra hết các phòng trước khi bàn giao chìa khóa.
Tomorrow I will check every room before handing over the keys.
Đến cuối buổi sáng, giấy vẫn chưa hết nên chúng tôi tiếp tục in.
By the end of the morning, the paper still had not run out, so we kept printing.
A dialogue where scope changes the answer
— Cậu đọc xong hồ sơ chưa? — Phần hợp đồng thì xong rồi, nhưng phụ lục chưa đọc hết. — Vậy đọc hết phụ lục trước nhé; tôi cần biết có điều khoản nào bị bỏ sót không.
— Have you finished reading the file? — I'm done with the contract section, but I haven't read all the appendices. — Then read all the appendices first; I need to know whether any clause was missed.
The first question treats the whole reading as a bounded task. The answer narrows xong to the contract section, then uses hết to say that the appendices have not been exhaustively covered. The final đọc hết matters because the speaker cares about omissions, not merely whether the reader has stopped.
Quick decision aid
| You want to say... | Use... | Example |
|---|---|---|
| a resource is depleted | NP + hết | Máy hết mực. |
| all of an object/set was affected | V + hết + NP | đọc hết thư |
| every member did something | group + V + hết | Mọi người đi hết. |
| an event/task reached its endpoint | V + xong | viết xong bài |
| something has not run out | chưa hết | Giờ nghỉ chưa hết. |
| something remains | còn | Còn ba vé. |
Common Mistakes
1. Using hết for any completed task. Use xong when no exhaustible quantity or set is in focus.
❌ Tôi sửa hết xe rồi.
Wrong for ‘I have finished repairing the motorbike’; it can instead suggest repairing all the vehicles in a relevant set.
✅ Tôi sửa xong xe rồi.
I have finished repairing the motorbike.
2. Using xong when “all” is the crucial meaning. The repair requires exhaustive scope over the food.
❌ Bọn trẻ ăn xong bánh nên không còn miếng nào.
Unclear for ‘ate all the cake’: xong closes the eating event but does not guarantee that no cake remains.
✅ Bọn trẻ ăn hết bánh nên không còn miếng nào.
The children ate all the cake, so there is none left.
3. Adding đã solely because English uses a past form. The past adverbial already locates the event.
❌ Hôm qua cửa hàng hết đã vé lúc mười giờ.
Incorrect: đã does not attach after hết as an English-style past-tense ending.
✅ Hôm qua cửa hàng hết vé lúc mười giờ.
Yesterday the shop sold out of tickets at ten.
4. Assuming rồi always equals the English perfect. Rồi highlights a new result; exhaustive meaning still comes from hết.
❌ Tôi đọc rồi tài liệu nên không bỏ sót trang nào.
Incorrect placement, and rồi does not mean that every page was covered.
✅ Tôi đọc hết tài liệu rồi nên không bỏ sót trang nào.
I've read all the material, so I didn't miss any pages.
Key Takeaways
- Hết means that a resource, amount, interval, route, or relevant set is exhausted.
- V + hết + NP gives exhaustive scope over the object; clause-late hết can distribute over an established group.
- Xong closes an event, hết exhausts its theme or domain, and thôi marks cessation.
- Chưa hết means “not exhausted/not over yet,” while chưa xong means “the task is not finished yet.”
- Hết is not tense. Context and time phrases locate exhaustion in the past, present, or future.
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- Xong and Event CompletionB1 — Use xong to mark the endpoint of a bounded action and to connect a completed event with what follows.
- Thôi and CessationB1 — Use thôi to abandon or cease an activity, while distinguishing this phase meaning from sentence-final thôi meaning ‘only’ or ‘that's all.’
- Còn and Remaining ContinuityB1 — Use còn to present people, things, time, or situations as remaining available or continuing at a reference point.
- Rồi after the PredicateA2 — Use post-predicate rồi to present a completed phase, a change of state, or a result that is now relevant.