Learn Hardcore Vietnamese: Cô ấy hỏi giáo viên bao giờ phải làm xong bài tập, nhưng rồi lại quên vì đang nghĩ về một vấn đề khác. - She asked the teacher when the homework had to be finished, but then forgot because she was thinking about another problem.

Word

Cô ấy hỏi giáo viên bao giờ phải làm xong bài tập, nhưng rồi lại quên vì đang nghĩ về một vấn đề khác.

Meaning

She asked the teacher when the homework had to be finished, but then forgot because she was thinking about another problem.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Lesson

Breakdown of Cô ấy hỏi giáo viên bao giờ phải làm xong bài tập, nhưng rồi lại quên vì đang nghĩ về một vấn đề khác.

Why does the sentence start with cô ấy instead of a single word for she?

Vietnamese pronouns often come from kinship or social terms, not a fixed set like English I / you / he / she.

cô ấy = that woman / she
cô can be a pronoun for a woman, often with a nuance of adult female identity
ấy helps point to a previously known person: that ..., which often corresponds to English she in context

So cô ấy is a very normal way to say she.

Why is there no word meaning did or a past tense marker?

Vietnamese usually does not have obligatory tense marking the way English does. Time is often understood from context.

In this sentence:

Even without a past tense ending, the sequence of events and context make the sentence clearly past in meaning.

If needed, Vietnamese could add time words like hôm qua (yesterday) or aspect markers in some contexts, but they are not required here.

How does hỏi giáo viên work? Why is there no word like to before the teacher?