Anh đã gặp em ở trường tuần trước.

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Breakdown of Anh đã gặp em ở trường tuần trước.

• đã: already
• gặp: to meet
• anh: I

Questions & Answers about Anh đã gặp em ở trường tuần trước.

Why are anh and em used in this sentence instead of tôi and bạn?

In Vietnamese, anh and em are kinship terms used as personal pronouns to show relative age, gender, or intimacy:

• Anh here functions as “I” when a male speaker talks to someone younger (often a female).
• Em means “you” when the listener is younger or in a close relationship.
  Using neutral pronouns like tôi (I) and bạn (you) would sound more formal or distant.

What is the role of đã in đã gặp?

Đã is the perfective/aspect marker indicating that the action is completed in the past.

• It signals that the meeting definitely happened.
• Without đã, the verb gặp could be interpreted as habitual, general, or present tense.

Since there’s the time expression tuần trước, can I drop đã and just say Anh gặp em ở trường tuần trước?

Yes, in casual speech you can omit đã because tuần trước (“last week”) already implies past tense. However:

• Including đã makes the completion of the action explicit and is stylistically more precise.
• Omitting đã gives a more colloquial, informal tone.