Learn Hardcore Vietnamese: Thỉnh thoảng tôi muốn ở nhà, không đi du lịch hay đến công ty. - Sometimes I want to stay at home, not travel or go to the company.

Thỉnh thoảng is an adverb of frequency (sometimes), and putting it at the beginning is very natural in Vietnamese to set the time/frequency frame:

Thỉnh thoảng tôi muốn ở nhà… – Sometimes I want to stay home…

It can also move:

Tôi thỉnh thoảng muốn ở nhà… – also correct, but it sounds a bit less smooth and a little heavier in the middle.
Tôi muốn thỉnh thoảng ở nhà… – possible, but this slightly emphasizes “I want to sometimes stay home” rather than “Sometimes, I want to stay home”.

Default and most natural in everyday speech here: Thỉnh thoảng tôi… at the start.

Why do you need ở in ở nhà? Why not just tôi muốn nhà?

In Vietnamese, ở is a verb meaning to be (at), to stay, to live.

ở nhà literally = be/stay at home
tôi muốn ở nhà = I want to stay at home

You can’t say tôi muốn nhà here, because nhà is a noun (house, home), and Vietnamese usually needs a verb before a noun in this kind of structure. Muốn (want) expects a verb phrase after it:

muốn + VERB
- muốn ở nhà (want to stay home)
- muốn đi du lịch (want to travel)
- muốn ăn phở (want to eat phở)

So ở is necessary to make nhà part of a verb phrase ở nhà (“stay at home”).

Why is tôi not repeated in the second part (không đi du lịch hay đến công ty)?

Vietnamese often drops repeated subjects when it’s clear from context.

The full, very explicit version would be:

Thỉnh thoảng tôi muốn ở nhà, (tôi muốn) không đi du lịch hay đến công ty.

But repeating tôi muốn sounds unnatural and redundant. The listener automatically understands that tôi (I) is still the subject of the whole sentence.

So the natural pattern is:

[Subject] + [main clause], [subject omitted] + [extra things about the same subject].

Here:

Subject: tôi
Main clause: tôi muốn ở nhà
Extra info: không đi du lịch hay đến công ty (still about tôi)

What exactly does không đi du lịch hay đến công ty mean? Is it “or” or “and”?

Literally:

không đi du lịch hay đến công ty
= not travel or go to the company/office

In English, we’d phrase this as:

not travel *or go to the office
→ which actually means neither travel **nor go to the office*.

So hay here is or, but combined with không it has the sense of “neither … nor …” in English.

The structure:

không A hay B ≈ not A or B → neither A nor B

What’s the difference between hay and hoặc here? Could I say không đi du lịch hoặc đến công ty?

Both hay and hoặc can mean or, but their usage differs:

hay
- More common in spoken, casual, everyday language.
- Often used in questions: Bạn muốn cà phê hay trà?
- Also used in statements like this sentence.
hoặc
- Slightly more formal, often used in writing, lists, instructions.

In your sentence:

không đi du lịch hay đến công ty → Very natural, casual.
không đi du lịch hoặc đến công ty → Grammatically okay, but sounds more formal/technical and less idiomatic in this everyday context.

Most natives would choose hay here.

Why is there a comma before không đi du lịch hay đến công ty?

The comma marks a pause and separates two closely related parts:

Thỉnh thoảng tôi muốn ở nhà,
không đi du lịch hay đến công ty.

You can think of it as:

Sometimes I want to stay at home — not travel or go to the office.

Grammatically, it’s one sentence, but the comma helps:

show the contrast: ở nhà vs (not) đi du lịch / đến công ty
make the rhythm more natural in speaking.

You will also see versions without a comma in informal writing, but the comma is good style.

Does đi du lịch mean something different from just du lịch?

Both are used, but there is a nuance:

du lịch = to travel (as an activity, tourism)
đi du lịch = literally go travel, but in practice this is how people usually say to travel / to go on a trip in everyday speech.

In this sentence:

không đi du lịch sounds more natural than không du lịch.
không du lịch isn’t wrong, but it sounds a bit more “dictionary-like” or formal.

In daily conversation, people almost always say đi du lịch.

Why is it đến công ty and not something like ở công ty or tới công ty?

All of these are possible, but they say slightly different things:

đến công ty = go to the company / office (focus on going/arriving)
tới công ty = also go to the company (very similar to đến, often interchangeable)
ở công ty = be at / stay at the company

In this sentence, the idea is “not travel or go to the office”, so đến công ty (or tới công ty) is appropriate because it’s about the action of going.

You could say không đi du lịch hay tới công ty as well; đến is just the more typical choice here.

Is công ty here more like “company” or “office” in English?

Literally, công ty = company.

But in everyday speech, đến công ty or đi công ty usually means go to my workplace / go to the office, not just “go to the company (as a corporate entity)”.

So:

Contextual translation: go to the office / go to work
Literal translation: go to the company

If you specifically want “office” as a physical place, you can also say văn phòng, but đi công ty is very common for go to work.

Does this sentence talk about the present, past, or future? There’s no tense marking.

Vietnamese verbs do not change form for tense. Time is shown by:

time words (e.g. hôm qua, ngày mai, bây giờ)
adverbs of frequency like thỉnh thoảng

Here:

Thỉnh thoảng suggests a general, habitual situation.
So the natural reading is present habitual:
Sometimes I (generally) want to stay home, not travel or go to the office.

If you add a time word, the time becomes explicit:

Hôm qua thỉnh thoảng tôi muốn ở nhà… – sounds odd (yesterday + sometimes)
Dạo này thỉnh thoảng tôi muốn ở nhà… – These days, sometimes I want to stay home… (present period)

Could I say Đôi khi tôi muốn ở nhà… instead of Thỉnh thoảng? Any difference?

Yes, you can. Both are natural:

Thỉnh thoảng
Đôi khi

Both mean sometimes, occasionally.

Subtle feel:

Thỉnh thoảng – very common, neutral.
Đôi khi – also common; some speakers feel it’s a tiny bit more “literary” or emotional in some contexts, but in most everyday sentences they’re interchangeable.

So:

Đôi khi tôi muốn ở nhà, không đi du lịch hay đến công ty.
is perfectly fine and natural.