Tương ở trên bàn.

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Breakdown of Tương ở trên bàn.

• trên: on (on top of)
• bàn: the table
• tương: the soybean paste

Questions & Answers about Tương ở trên bàn.

Is Tương a person’s name here, or just a regular noun?

It could be either one in writing, because Vietnamese capitalizes the first word of a sentence whether it is a name or not.

So Tương ở trên bàn. could mean:

• Tương is on the table. if Tương is a person’s name
• The sauce/paste is on the table. if tương is a regular noun

You usually tell from context, not from capitalization alone.

What does ở mean in this sentence?

Here, ở marks location. It is doing the job of is at / is in / is on.

So in this sentence, ở tells you where tương is located.

A useful way to think of it is:

• X ở Y = X is at/in/on Y

Also, ở can have other meanings in other contexts, such as to live/stay, but here it is simply about location.

Why does the sentence use both ở and trên? Aren’t they both about location?

They work together, but they are not the same.

• ở = marks that something is located
• trên = specifies the position on / above

So:

• ở says