A ditransitive situation involves three central participants: someone acts, something is transferred or communicated, and someone receives it. In Tôi cho Lan một quyển sách “I give Lan a book,” tôi is the giver, Lan the recipient, and một quyển sách the theme. Vietnamese has no case endings that label these roles, so predicate choice and word order make the relationships clear.
English alternates between give Lan a book and give a book to Lan. Vietnamese has several corresponding patterns, but they are not one universal transformation. Cho, tặng, gửi, đưa, and “show/tell” constructions select their own frames. Learn the participants together with each predicate.
This page builds on neutral Verb–Object Order. With two post-predicate participants, lexical selection becomes even more important than the basic one-object template.
The three-part event
| Predicate | Common frame | Example | Typical meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| cho | giver + cho + recipient + theme | Tôi cho Lan một quyển sách. | give |
| tặng | giver + tặng + recipient + theme | Tôi tặng mẹ một bó hoa. | give as a present |
| gửi | sender + gửi + theme + cho + recipient | Tôi gửi tài liệu cho chị. | send |
| đưa | actor + đưa + theme + cho + recipient | Đưa chìa khóa cho tôi. | hand/take over |
| cho ... xem | presenter + cho + recipient + xem + theme | Cho tôi xem ảnh. | show / let see |
| nói cho ... biết | speaker + nói cho + recipient + biết + content | Nói cho tôi biết địa chỉ. | tell / let know |
Lúc nãy tôi cho em bé một cái bánh.
A moment ago I gave the child a cake.
Anh Nam tặng vợ một bó hoa nhân ngày sinh nhật.
Nam gave his wife a bouquet for her birthday.
In both sentences, the human recipient directly follows cho or tặng, and the transferred thing follows the recipient. The unchanged predicate does not agree with any participant and does not encode past time; context or words such as đã and rồi supply temporal viewpoint when needed.
Cho: giving, provision, and permission
As a full transfer predicate, cho commonly uses giver + cho + recipient + theme.
Bà cho cháu hai trăm nghìn đồng để mua sách.
Grandma gave her grandchild two hundred thousand đồng to buy books.
Tôi đã cho anh ấy số điện thoại của chị Lan rồi.
I've already given him Lan's phone number.
When the recipient is understood, cho can occur with just the theme: Tôi cho một ít “I'll give [you/them] a little.” When the theme is understood, Tôi cho Lan rồi can mean “I gave it to Lan already.” Context, not a hidden pronoun ending, recovers the missing participant.
Cho also marks permission or causation before another participant and predicate:
Cho tôi xem thực đơn với.
Let me see the menu, please.
Mẹ cho các con đi chơi đến chín giờ.
The mother lets the children go out until nine.
Here tôi and các con are not recipients of a physical object. They are the participant permitted to xem or đi chơi. The continuation tells you whether cho means transfer or permission.
Tặng: a socially framed gift
Tặng presents the theme as a gift, award, dedication, or honor rather than neutral transfer. Two useful arrangements are tặng + recipient + theme and tặng + theme + cho + recipient.
Công ty tặng mỗi nhân viên một chiếc áo mưa.
The company gave each employee a raincoat as a gift.
Tôi mua cuốn sách này để tặng cho cô giáo cũ.
I bought this book to give to my former teacher.
In the second sentence, the theme cuốn sách này is already the object of mua, and để tặng cho cô giáo cũ expresses its intended recipient. Cho before the recipient is natural in this theme-oriented frame.
Formal public language may use trao “present/award”:
Hiệu trưởng trao học bổng cho ba sinh viên xuất sắc.
The principal awarded scholarships to three outstanding students. (formal)
Trao ... cho ... is common in ceremonies and news writing (formal). It would sound overly official for casually handing a friend a charger.
Gửi and đưa: sending versus handing over
Gửi emphasizes dispatching something to a destination or recipient. Đưa emphasizes physically handing, passing, or taking something to someone. Both commonly put the theme before a phrase headed by cho.
Tôi vừa gửi hợp đồng cho khách hàng qua email.
I've just sent the contract to the client by email.
Chị gửi cho tôi địa chỉ khách sạn nhé.
Please send me the hotel's address.
Anh đưa hộ chiếu cho nhân viên ở quầy kiểm tra.
Please hand your passport to the employee at the inspection counter.
Đưa tôi cái bút một lát được không?
Could you pass me the pen for a moment? (informal)
These examples show two natural arrangements: gửi/đưa + theme + cho + recipient and gửi/đưa + (cho) recipient + theme. In the second, cho is present in gửi cho tôi địa chỉ but absent in the colloquial đưa tôi cái bút. A short pronoun or address term favors the recipient-first arrangement; with longer phrases, theme + cho + recipient often keeps the roles easier to process.
English send someone something does not license an identical double-object order with every Vietnamese predicate. Nor should cho be inserted twice. Choose one established frame.
Showing: cho someone xem something
Vietnamese commonly expresses “show” as causing or allowing someone to see: cho + recipient + xem + theme.
Cho tôi xem vé của anh được không?
Could you show me your ticket?
Tối qua chị Mai cho chúng tôi xem ảnh chuyến đi Đà Lạt.
Last night Mai showed us photos from her trip to Da Lat.
The recipient comes after cho, xem names the perception, and the thing shown follows xem. The internal logic is “give/allow the recipient to see the theme.” Another natural expression is đưa + theme + cho + recipient + xem:
Anh đưa email đó cho tôi xem nhé.
Show me that email, please.
Here đưa foregrounds presenting the item, while xem states the intended action. English packages the event into the single verb show; Vietnamese often makes the participant structure overt.
Telling: content has several shapes
Communication may transfer information, a story, or words. The predicate and content type determine the frame.
Anh nói cho tôi biết chuyện gì đã xảy ra.
Tell me what happened.
Bà kể cho các cháu nghe một câu chuyện cũ.
Grandmother told the grandchildren an old story.
Nói cho ... biết literally organizes the event around causing the recipient to know. Kể cho ... nghe organizes it around narrating for the recipient to hear. In both, cho + recipient precedes a perception/knowledge predicate, and the content comes later.
For simply speaking with someone, Vietnamese often uses nói với + person, not a ditransitive transfer frame:
Tôi cần nói với chị về lịch làm việc tuần sau.
I need to talk to you about next week's work schedule.
The person after với is an interlocutor, and về introduces the topic. Do not force every English use of tell, say, and talk into one Vietnamese pattern.
Beneficiaries are not always recipients
The phrase cho + person can also mean “for someone's benefit,” even when no object is transferred to that person.
Mẹ nấu cơm cho cả nhà.
Mother cooks a meal for the whole family.
The family benefits from the cooking, but cơm is the object of nấu. This is different from Mẹ cho con một bát cơm “Mother gives the child a bowl of rice,” where con is a recipient inside the transfer frame.
Compare also existential and possessive có:
Tôi có một câu hỏi, còn ở đây có ai trả lời được không?
I have a question; is there anyone here who can answer it?
The two có clauses establish possession and existence, not transfer. A clause can involve several people without being ditransitive.
A natural exchange
A: Em gửi tài liệu cho chị chưa? B: Em gửi rồi. Em cũng đưa anh Nam một bản in và cho anh ấy xem phần ngân sách. A: Tốt. Lát nữa nói cho chị biết anh ấy có góp ý gì nhé.
A: Have you sent me the documents yet? B: Yes. I also gave Nam a printed copy and showed him the budget section. A: Good. Later, tell me what comments he has.
The dialogue moves through gửi + theme + cho + recipient, đưa + recipient + theme, cho + recipient + xem + theme, and nói cho + recipient + biết + content. No single English-style “double-object rule” generates all four.
Quick decision aid
- Neutral giving? Start with cho + recipient + theme.
- A present or award? Use tặng, or trao ... cho ... in formal ceremonial contexts.
- Dispatching a file, message, or parcel? Use gửi + theme + cho + recipient; gửi cho + recipient + theme is also common.
- Physically passing an item? Use đưa + theme + cho + recipient or, with a short recipient, đưa + recipient + theme.
- Showing? Use cho + recipient + xem + theme.
- Telling information? Consider nói cho + recipient + biết + content; for narration, kể cho + recipient + nghe + story.
- Is the person merely benefiting from an action? Cho + person may be benefactive rather than a transfer recipient.
Common Mistakes
1. Copying English to with an unnecessary destination marker.
❌ Tôi cho đến Lan một quyển sách.
Incorrect calque: đến does not mark the recipient of cho here.
✅ Tôi cho Lan một quyển sách.
I give Lan a book.
The recipient follows transfer cho directly.
2. Applying one order to every transfer predicate.
❌ Tôi gửi cho tài liệu chị Lan.
Incorrect participant order.
✅ Tôi gửi tài liệu cho chị Lan.
I send the documents to Lan.
With gửi, the clear everyday frame is theme followed by cho + recipient.
3. Translating show as bare thấy.
❌ Tôi thấy anh ảnh này.
Incorrect: thấy means see/perceive, not ‘show someone something’ in this frame.
✅ Tôi cho anh xem ảnh này.
I'll show you this photo.
Vietnamese presents the recipient as the person allowed or caused to xem.
4. Confusing recipient and beneficiary.
❌ Trong ‘Mẹ nấu cơm cho cả nhà’, cả nhà là vật được nấu.
Incorrect analysis: the family benefits; the rice/meal is what is cooked.
✅ Mẹ nấu cơm cho cả nhà.
Mother cooks a meal for the whole family.
Semantic roles matter more than simply counting post-predicate phrases.
5. Adding tense endings to a transfer predicate.
❌ Hôm qua tôi gửi-ed email cho chị.
Incorrect English-style past ending.
✅ Hôm qua tôi gửi email cho chị rồi.
I sent you the email yesterday.
The form gửi stays unchanged; hôm qua and rồi establish the temporal viewpoint.
Key Takeaways
Vietnamese ditransitive meanings are built from predicate-specific frames. Cho/tặng + recipient + theme, gửi/đưa + theme + cho + recipient, cho + recipient + xem + theme, and nói cho + recipient + biết + content are high-value patterns. Participant omission and alternative orders are possible in context, but lexical valency—not an imported English double-object rule—determines what sounds natural.
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Start learning Vietnamese →Related Topics
- Verb–Object OrderA1 — Place a neutral Vietnamese direct object after its predicate, and recognize when topicalization, affected-subject constructions, or information structure produces a marked order.
- Valency and Lexical Complement PatternsA2 — Learn Vietnamese predicates together with the participants, prepositions, predicate phrases, and clauses they select instead of copying English argument frames.
- Có: Possession, Existence, and ExperienceA1 — How có builds possession, existence, availability, and experience frames without conjugating like English ‘have.’
- 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.’