Questions & Answers about Khỉ ăn ở trên cây.
What is the basic grammar of Khỉ ăn ở trên cây?
The sentence is built like this:
- Khỉ = subject
- ăn = verb
- ở trên cây = location phrase
So the pattern is basically Subject + Verb + Place.
That is very common in Vietnamese. English often does something similar too, as in Monkeys eat in the tree or The monkey is eating in the tree.
Why is there no word for a or the before khỉ?
Vietnamese does not use articles the way English does. A bare noun like khỉ can mean:
- a monkey
- the monkey
- monkeys
- or monkeys in general
Context tells you which one is meant.
If you want to be more specific, Vietnamese can add other words, for example:
- một con khỉ = a/one monkey
- con khỉ = the monkey or a particular monkey
- những con khỉ / các con khỉ = monkeys
Is khỉ singular or plural here?