Cha tôi khá nghiêm.

me

Breakdown of Cha tôi khá nghiêm.

• cha: the father
• khá: quite
• nghiêm: strict

Questions & Answers about Cha tôi khá nghiêm.

What does each word in Cha tôi khá nghiêm mean?

• cha = father
• tôi = I / me; here it helps mean my
• khá = quite, rather, fairly
• nghiêm = strict, serious, stern

So the sentence structure is basically:

father + my + quite + strict

which in natural English becomes My father is quite strict.

Why is there no word for is in this sentence?

Vietnamese often does not use a verb like to be when an adjective describes the subject.

So:

• Cha tôi khá nghiêm = My father is quite strict

This is normal Vietnamese sentence structure.
With adjectives, Vietnamese commonly goes:

subject + adjective

For example:

• Anh ấy cao = He is tall
• Cô ấy đẹp = She is beautiful

So there is no missing word here.

Why does tôi come after cha? Does it really mean my father?