Learn Hardcore Vietnamese: Đây không phải rác hữu cơ mà là rác tái chế. - This is not organic waste but recyclable waste.

Breakdown of Đây không phải rác hữu cơ mà là rác tái chế.

What does đây mean in this sentence?

Here, đây means this or this thing here, not just here as a location.

So Đây không phải... is like saying This is not... while pointing at something.

Vietnamese đây can sometimes mean here, but in this sentence it is being used to identify an object.

Why is it rác hữu cơ and rác tái chế, with the describing words after rác?

Because in Vietnamese, modifiers often come after the noun.

So:

A very literal word-for-word order would feel like trash organic and trash recyclable.

This is normal Vietnamese word order, and English speakers often need time to get used to it.

How does không phải ... mà là ... work?

This is a very common Vietnamese pattern meaning not X, but Y.

In this sentence:

So the full pattern is used to reject one classification and replace it with the correct one.

It is especially common when correcting someone or identifying something accurately.