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Questions & Answers about Hãy chào Lan.
What does hãy do in this sentence?
Hãy marks the sentence as a command, suggestion, or encouragement. In Hãy chào Lan, it gives the sense of Please greet Lan or Go ahead and greet Lan.
A few useful points:
- hãy is often more common in careful, written, instructional, or slightly formal language.
- It can sound gentler or more deliberate than a bare command.
- In very casual everyday speech, Vietnamese speakers often use other patterns instead of hãy.
So grammatically it is an imperative marker.
Why is Lan placed after chào?
Because Vietnamese usually puts the verb before its object.
In Hãy chào Lan:
- hãy = imperative marker
- chào = greet / say hello to
- Lan = the person being greeted
So the order is basically:
hãy + verb + object
That is why Lan comes after chào, not before it.
Does chào mean hello, or does it mean to greet?