Thủ thư ở thư viện.

The librarian is at the library.

Breakdown of Thủ thư ở thư viện.

• ở: at
• thư viện: the library
• thủ thư: the librarian

Questions & Answers about Thủ thư ở thư viện.

What part of the sentence is the subject, and what part is the location?

The subject is thủ thư and the location phrase is ở thư viện.

So the structure is:

• thủ thư = librarian
• ở = at / in
• thư viện = library

A very natural way to think of it is:

• [person] + ở + [place]

So this sentence follows a very common Vietnamese pattern for saying where someone or something is.

Why is there no word for is in the sentence?

Vietnamese often does not use a word equivalent to English is in sentences about location like this.

In English, you say:

• The librarian is at the library.

In Vietnamese, you can simply say:

• Thủ thư ở thư viện.

Here, ở already does the job of expressing location, so you do not need an extra is.

This is very normal in Vietnamese.

What exactly does ở mean here?

In this sentence, ở means at, in, or located at.

It is one of the most common Vietnamese words for location.

Examples of the same pattern:

• = I am at home.