Buổi sáng, tôi thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh để kịp họp ở công ty.

In the morning, I sometimes shower quickly to be in time for a meeting at the company.

Breakdown of Buổi sáng, tôi thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh để kịp họp ở công ty.

• tôi: I
• ở: at
• để: to
• kịp: to be in time
• nhanh: quickly
• buổi sáng: the morning
• tắm: to shower
• công ty: the company
• họp: to have a meeting
• thỉnh thoảng: sometimes

Questions & Answers about Buổi sáng, tôi thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh để kịp họp ở công ty.

What does Buổi sáng literally mean, and why is it used instead of just sáng?

Buổi sáng literally is “the morning period” (with buổi working like a classifier for parts of the day).

You could say:

• Buổi sáng, tôi… – In the morning, I…
• Sáng, tôi… – Also possible and common in speech.

Buổi sáng sounds a bit more complete and neutral; sáng alone is more casual/shortened. Both are correct here.

Do I need a word like vào (as in vào buổi sáng) the way English uses “in the morning”?

No; Buổi sáng by itself already means “in the morning” in this sentence position.

You can say:

• Buổi sáng, tôi… – Completely natural.
• Vào buổi sáng, tôi… – Also correct, a bit more explicit/formal sounding.

In everyday speech, people very often drop vào and just say Buổi sáng, … or Sáng, ….

Can I move Buổi sáng to another place in the sentence?

Yes. Common options:

• Buổi sáng, tôi thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh… (as given)
• Tôi thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh buổi sáng… – understood, but a bit less natural; usually you’d say buổi sáng earlier.
• Tôi thỉnh thoảng buổi sáng tắm nhanh… – possible but sounds slightly awkward.

Most natural is to put the time at the beginning or right after the subject:

• Buổi sáng tôi thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh…
• Tôi buổi sáng thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh… (less common than the first one)

The given word order is very typical: [time], [subject] [frequency] [verb]…

Where does thỉnh thoảng go in the sentence? Could I move it?

In Vietnamese, adverbs of frequency like thỉnh thoảng usually come:

• After the subject and before the main verb:

  • Tôi thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh…

You can sometimes move it to the start for emphasis:

• Thỉnh thoảng buổi sáng, tôi tắm nhanh… – Sometimes in the morning, I shower quickly…

But you generally don’t break up the verb and its modifier like this:

• ✗ Tôi tắm thỉnh thoảng nhanh… – unnatural/wrong.

So: keep thỉnh thoảng right before the verb phrase tắm nhanh (unless you’re fronting it for emphasis).

What is the difference between thỉnh thoảng and other words like đôi khi or thường?

All of these are frequency adverbs, but with different nuances:

• thỉnh thoảng – sometimes, occasionally.
• đôi khi – sometimes; very close to thỉnh thoảng, interchangeable in most contexts.
• thường / thường xuyên – often / frequently.
• hay (in this use) – often, “tend to”.

In this sentence, you could replace thỉnh thoảng with đôi khi with almost no change in meaning:

• Buổi sáng, tôi đôi khi tắm nhanh… – also natural.

In tắm nhanh, is nhanh an adverb or an adjective? Why is there no extra word like “quickly”?

Vietnamese doesn’t have a special adverb form like English quick/quickly.

Nhanh is an adjective meaning fast/quick, and it also functions as an adverb:

• tắm nhanh – literally “bathe fast” → take a quick shower / shower quickly

If you really want an “adverb phrase” form, you can say:

• tắm một cách nhanh
• tắm một cách nhanh chóng

But in everyday Vietnamese, tắm nhanh is the most natural and common.

What exactly does để mean in để kịp họp?

Để introduces purpose (like “in order to / so that” in English):

• tắm nhanh để kịp họp – shower quickly in order to be in time for the meeting

Structure:

• [Action 1] để [Action 2]
  → do A to achieve B / so that B can happen

So để is not “for” in the sense of a preposition; it’s a conjunction linking an action to its purpose.

What does kịp mean here, and how is it different from just saying “be on time”?

Kịp means “to be in time (for something), to manage to catch something before it’s too late.”

In this sentence:

• kịp họp ≈ be in time for the meeting / manage to make it to the meeting

Nuance:

• kịp focuses on not missing something (a meeting, a bus, a deadline).
• đúng giờ focuses on being punctual (“on time” in a clock sense).

Examples:

• Tôi phải đi ngay để kịp xe buýt. – I have to go now to catch the bus in time.
• Anh ấy luôn đến đúng giờ. – He always arrives on time (punctual).

Why is it kịp họp and not kịp cuộc họp? Are both correct?

Both are possible, but slightly different:

• kịp họp – “be in time to have the meeting / to attend the meeting” (verb họp = to meet, to have a meeting).
• kịp cuộc họp – “be in time for the meeting” (noun cuộc họp = the meeting event).

The original sentence uses họp as a verb:

• để kịp họp ở công ty – so that I can make it in time to (go to) the meeting at the company.

If you use the noun:

• để kịp cuộc họp ở công ty – also correct and natural; just slightly more explicit that you’re talking about “the meeting” as an event.

Why is there no subject before họp? Could we say để tôi kịp họp?

In Vietnamese, when two clauses share the same subject, the subject in the second clause is often omitted:

• Buổi sáng, tôi… tắm nhanh để kịp họp…
  → The subject tôi is understood for both tắm and kịp họp.

You can say:

• …để tôi kịp họp ở công ty.

This is grammatically fine and sometimes used for emphasis or clarity, but it’s not required. The shorter version without tôi is completely natural.

Why do we say họp ở công ty and not something like họp công ty?

Here:

• họp is the verb “to meet / to hold a meeting”
• ở công ty is a location phrase: “at the company / at the office”

Vietnamese usually needs a preposition like ở or tại before a place-name:

• họp ở công ty – have a meeting at the company
• ✗ họp công ty – sounds like “company-meeting” mashed together; unnatural as a location.

So ở công ty is like “at the company” in English, and ở is needed to mark location.

What is the difference between ở công ty and tại công ty?

Both can mean “at the company / at the office.”

• ở công ty – very common in everyday speech and writing; neutral and natural.
• tại công ty – sounds more formal or written, often used in official documents, announcements, or formal emails.

So in daily conversation, ở công ty is the usual choice.

How do we know this sentence is talking about a habit and not one specific morning? There is no tense marker like “do / did / will”.

Vietnamese doesn’t mark tense the same way English does. Here, we infer habitual aspect from context words:

• Buổi sáng – “in the morning” (general time)
• thỉnh thoảng – “sometimes”

Together they naturally give a habitual meaning:

• In the morning, I sometimes shower quickly…

If you want to make it clearly past or future, you can add markers:

• Past: Buổi sáng, tôi đã thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh để kịp họp ở công ty.
  (In the mornings, I sometimes used to shower quickly to make it in time for meetings at the company.)
• Future: Buổi sáng, tôi sẽ thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh để kịp họp ở công ty.
  (In the mornings, I will sometimes shower quickly to be in time for meetings at the company.)

But in many real situations, no marker + adverbs like thỉnh thoảng simply describe a habit.

Why does the sentence use tôi? Could other pronouns be used instead?

Tôi is a neutral, polite “I” suitable for most formal and semi-formal situations (with strangers, in writing, in class, etc.).

In actual conversation, Vietnamese people often choose a pronoun based on age/gender and relationship:

• em – “I” when talking up to an older person
• anh – “I” for a man talking to someone younger or to a woman of similar age
• chị – “I” for a woman talking to someone younger or a man of similar age
• con – for a child talking to parents, older relatives, etc.

So you might hear:

• Buổi sáng, em thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh để kịp họp ở công ty.
• Buổi sáng, anh thỉnh thoảng tắm nhanh để kịp họp ở công ty.

Grammatically the sentence structure stays the same; only the pronoun changes.