Lan sắp chụp ảnh với mẹ, nên mọi người đang đợi cô ấy.

Sắp means about to or soon going to. It shows that the action has not happened yet, but it will happen very soon.

So:

• Lan sắp chụp ảnh với mẹ = Lan is about to take a photo with her mother.

By contrast, đang shows that an action is in progress right now:

• mọi người đang đợi cô ấy = everyone is waiting for her right now.

So in this sentence:

• sắp chụp = not started yet, but very soon
• đang đợi = happening now

Chụp ảnh is the common Vietnamese expression for take a photo / take pictures.

• chụp by itself can mean to snap, to photograph, or in other contexts even to grab/clutch
• ảnh means photo / तस्वीर / picture depending on context

Putting them together makes the meaning clear:

• chụp ảnh = take photos

In everyday Vietnamese, people often use the full phrase because it sounds natural and specific.

Here, với means with.

So:

• chụp ảnh với mẹ = take a photo with mother

It shows who Lan is taking the photo together with.

A useful point: với can have different meanings depending on context, but one very common meaning is with in the sense of being together with someone.

Examples:

• Đi với tôi. = Go with me.
• Nói chuyện với bạn. = Talk with you / talk to you.

Vietnamese often leaves out possessive words like her, his, my when the relationship is obvious from context.

So:

• Lan sắp chụp ảnh với mẹ naturally means Lan is about to take a photo with her mother

You could say:

• mẹ của cô ấy = her mother

But that is less natural here because Lan is already the subject, so listeners normally understand that mẹ refers to Lan’s mother.

This is very common in Vietnamese:

• Tôi đi với mẹ. = I’m going with my mother.
• Nam gặp bố. = Nam met his father.

Nên means so, therefore, or that’s why.

It links the first clause to the second clause:

• Lan sắp chụp ảnh với mẹ, nên mọi người đang đợi cô ấy.
• Lan is about to take a photo with her mother, so everyone is waiting for her.

It introduces a result or consequence.

A simple pattern is:

• A, nên B = A, so B

Examples:

• Trời mưa, nên tôi ở nhà. = It’s raining, so I stay home.
• Anh ấy bận, nên không đến được. = He is busy, so he can’t come.

Mọi người literally means something like everyone / all people, and it refers to a group.

In meaning, it is plural, but in Vietnamese it behaves like a single expression meaning everyone.

So:

• mọi người đang đợi cô ấy = everyone is waiting for her

Vietnamese verbs do not change for singular or plural, so there is no special verb form to worry about.

Also, mọi người is very common in everyday speech and can mean:

• everyone
• people
• everybody

depending on context.

Yes, chờ could also work here.

Both đợi and chờ can mean wait.

So these are both natural:

• mọi người đang đợi cô ấy
• mọi người đang chờ cô ấy

In many situations, they are interchangeable. Depending on region, habit, and style, one may be more common than the other for a particular speaker.

For a learner, it is safe to understand both as wait for.

Cô ấy means her here, referring to Lan.

It is included to show clearly who everyone is waiting for:

• mọi người đang đợi cô ấy = everyone is waiting for her

Sometimes Vietnamese can omit pronouns if the meaning is obvious from context, but in a sentence like this, keeping cô ấy sounds natural and clear.

Without it:

• mọi người đang đợi = everyone is waiting

That is grammatical, but it no longer tells you whom they are waiting for.

Yes, cô has several uses in Vietnamese, and that can be confusing at first.

In cô ấy, cô is being used as a third-person pronoun for a female person, often meaning:

• she
• her

And ấy means something like that.

So:

• cô ấy = she / her

In this sentence, cô ấy refers to Lan.

Vietnamese pronouns are strongly tied to age, social relationship, and style. Cô ấy is a normal way to refer to a woman or girl in many contexts, especially when speaking about someone not present.

Mostly yes.

The structure is:

• mọi người = everyone
• đang = currently
• đợi = wait
• cô ấy = her

So the order is:

subject + time/aspect marker + verb + object

That gives:

• mọi người đang đợi cô ấy
• everyone is waiting for her

This is quite close to English, except Vietnamese uses đang instead of changing the verb form to is waiting.

Yes. In many contexts, ảnh can mean:

• photo
• photograph
• picture

In this sentence, chụp ảnh strongly suggests a photo, because chụp is used for taking a photograph.

So while English may translate it as photo or picture, the Vietnamese phrase naturally points to a photograph.

By itself, it does not strictly tell you whether it is one photo or multiple photos.

• chụp ảnh can mean take a photo or take photos, depending on context.

In this sentence, because Lan is taking a photo with her mother, English often translates it as take a photo, but Vietnamese does not force the singular/plural distinction here.

If a speaker wanted to be more specific, they could add words for number or quantity.

Yes, but the meaning would be a little less specific.

• mọi người đợi cô ấy = everyone waits / everyone is waiting for her
• mọi người đang đợi cô ấy = everyone is waiting for her right now

Vietnamese often leaves out aspect markers when the time is understood from context. But adding đang makes the ongoing action clearer.

So the version with đang gives a stronger sense that the waiting is happening at this moment.