Lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đang đau.

Vietnamese often leaves out possessive words like my when the owner is obvious from context, especially with body parts.

So this sentence naturally means something like:

• My back, knees, shoulders, and muscles hurt
• or The back, knees, shoulders, and muscles are hurting in context

If you really want to say my, you can, but it is often unnecessary:

• Lưng tôi, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đang đau
• or more naturally: Tôi đang đau lưng, đau đầu gối, đau vai và đau cơ bắp

Vietnamese is often less explicit than English about possession when talking about the body.

đang shows that something is happening right now or is currently ongoing.

So:

• đau = hurt / painful
• đang đau = are hurting right now / are currently painful

Compare:

• Lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đau.
  = The back, knees, shoulders, and muscles hurt / are painful.
  This can sound more general or less focused on the present moment.

• Lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đang đau.
  = The back, knees, shoulders, and muscles are hurting right now.

With physical discomfort, đang is very common when you want to stress the present condition.

It behaves a bit like both, which is very common in Vietnamese.

In English, you often need different structures:

• hurt can be a verb
• painful is an adjective
• be in pain is another structure

In Vietnamese, đau can describe a state directly without needing a word like to be.

So:

• Tôi đau đầu. = I have a headache / My head hurts.
• Chân tôi đau. = My leg hurts.
• Lưng đang đau. = The back is hurting.

It is often best to think of đau as a stative word meaning hurt / painful / ache depending on context.

Because Vietnamese usually does not use là before adjectives or states like đau.

English says:

• My back is sore
• My knees are painful

Vietnamese simply says:

• Lưng đau
• Đầu gối đau

là is mainly used to connect nouns, like:

• Tôi là giáo viên. = I am a teacher.

But you would not say:

• Lưng là đau ✘

So in this sentence, đau directly describes the condition.

Vietnamese nouns usually do not change form for singular or plural.

So:

• đầu gối can mean knee or knees
• vai can mean shoulder or shoulders
• cơ bắp can mean muscle or muscles

You understand the number from context.

In this sentence, English naturally translates them as plurals because body parts like knees, shoulders, and muscles are often understood collectively.

If Vietnamese wants to make plural especially clear, it can add words like:

• những
• các

But with body parts in a sentence like this, that is usually unnecessary.

Here is the breakdown:

• lưng = back
• đầu gối = knee
• vai = shoulder
• cơ bắp = muscle / muscles
• và = and
• đang = currently / in the process of
• đau = hurt / ache / be painful

A useful thing to notice is that many Vietnamese body-part expressions are fixed vocabulary items, so it is usually better to learn them as whole units:

• đầu gối = knee
• cơ bắp = muscle

Even if a part looks analyzable, learners usually benefit most from memorizing the full expression.

It is understandable and natural enough, especially as a straightforward description.

However, in everyday speech, people often prefer structures centered on the person:

• Tôi bị đau lưng, đau đầu gối, đau vai và đau cơ bắp.
• Tôi đang bị đau lưng, đau đầu gối, đau vai và đau cơ bắp.

These feel a bit more like:

• I have back pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, and muscle pain
• My back, knees, shoulders, and muscles are hurting

The original sentence focuses on the body parts themselves as the topic:

• Lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đang đau.

That is still perfectly reasonable.

đau simply states the pain:

• Lưng tôi đau. = My back hurts.

bị đau adds the idea of suffering from or being affected by pain:

• Tôi bị đau lưng. = I have back pain / I’m suffering from back pain.

With body pain, both are common, but they are used in slightly different sentence patterns:

• Lưng tôi đau.
• Tôi đau lưng.
• Tôi bị đau lưng.

All are possible, though the nuance and structure differ.

A simple learner rule:

• use X đau = X hurts
• use Tôi bị đau X = I have pain in X

Vietnamese allows more than one way to express this idea.

The given sentence uses the body parts as a list, followed by the shared condition:

• Lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đang đau.

This is like saying:

• Back, knees, shoulders, and muscles are hurting.

Another common pattern is to repeat đau with each body part:

• đau lưng, đau đầu gối, đau vai và đau cơ bắp

This sounds more like a list of pains or symptoms.

So the difference is mainly one of structure and emphasis:

• Lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đang đau.
  Focus on the body parts

• Tôi đang đau lưng, đau đầu gối, đau vai và đau cơ bắp.
  Focus on the person experiencing those pains

This works like English list structure.

Vietnamese commonly lists items with commas, then uses và before the final one:

• lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp

This is just like:

• back, knees, shoulders, and muscles

You do not normally repeat và between every item.

Yes.

• Lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đau.
• Lưng, đầu gối, vai và cơ bắp đang đau.

Both are grammatical.

The version with đang emphasizes that the pain is currently happening.
The version without đang can sound a little more neutral, general, or less time-specific.

In real conversation, both are common, depending on what the speaker wants to highlight.

The tones matter a lot here. A rough guide:

• lưng — level tone on lưng
• đầu gối — đầu has a falling tone; gối has a rising-creaky tone
• vai — no marked tone, level
• cơ bắp — cơ level; bắp has a sharp falling tone
• đang — level
• đau — level

A few pronunciation notes:

• đ is not the same as English d; in standard Vietnamese it sounds more like an English d
• plain d in Vietnamese is different
• gối and bắp are especially worth practicing because of their tones
• đau has a diphthong-like vowel sound, somewhat like ow in English, but not exactly

If you want to sound natural, learning the tones correctly is just as important as learning the consonants and vowels.

Here it is clearly physical pain because the words name body parts:

• lưng = back
• đầu gối = knee
• vai = shoulder
• cơ bắp = muscles

Vietnamese đau can be used for emotional pain too, but the context changes the meaning:

• đau lòng = heartbroken / emotionally hurt
• đau khổ = suffer / be miserable

In this sentence, because it lists physical body parts, the meaning is definitely bodily pain.