Lan quay lưng.

• Lan is the subject. It is a personal name, usually a female name.
• quay means turn.
• lưng means back.

So structurally, this is basically:

• Lan = subject
• quay lưng = predicate

Many learners first understand quay lưng as turn one’s back. That is a very useful way to learn it.

Vietnamese often leaves out possessive words like my, your, his, her when the meaning is obvious, especially with body parts.

So quay lưng literally looks like turn back, but it naturally means turn one’s back.

This is very common in Vietnamese. The language often relies on context instead of adding an extra possessive word.

You can think of it both ways:

1. Word-by-word

   • quay = turn
   • lưng = back

2. As a common expression

   • quay lưng = turn one’s back

For learners, it is often best to remember quay lưng as a common chunk, because it is used very naturally that way.

In a simple learner-friendly explanation, yes: you can treat lưng as the noun that goes with quay.

But in real usage, quay lưng behaves a lot like a set expression. Native speakers are not necessarily analyzing it every time as a fully separate verb-plus-object combination; they often just use it as the natural phrase for turn one’s back.

So grammatically, it is helpful to say quay is the verb and lưng is the noun, but in practice you should memorize quay lưng together.

Vietnamese verbs do not change form for tense the way English verbs do.

So quay can mean different times depending on context:

• present
• past
• future
• habitual

If you want to make time clearer, Vietnamese often adds words like:

• đã for past
• đang for ongoing action
• sẽ for future

Examples:

• Lan đã quay lưng. = Lan turned her back.
• Lan đang quay lưng. = Lan is turning her back.
• Lan sẽ quay lưng. = Lan will turn her back.

Without one of these, the time is understood from context.

Yes.

It can be:

• Literal: Lan physically turns her back.
• Figurative: Lan rejects, abandons, or refuses to support someone or something.

That figurative meaning is very common in Vietnamese, just as turn one’s back is in English.

So context matters a lot.

No, it does not have to be incomplete.

Lan quay lưng. can stand alone if the context is already clear, especially for the literal meaning.

If you want to say who or what she is turning away from, Vietnamese can add more information, for example:

• Lan quay lưng với tôi.
• Lan quay lưng lại với tôi.

For location or direction, you might also see other wording depending on what exactly you want to say.

So the short sentence is fine; it just leaves the rest to context.

A helpful rough guide is:

• quay ≈ kway or quai
• lưng has the vowel ư, which does not exist exactly in English

A rough approximation:

• quay lưng ≈ kway luhng, but this is only approximate

A few useful notes:

• qu in Vietnamese is usually pronounced like kw.
• ay in quay is somewhat like the vowel sequence in eye, though not exactly the same.
• ư in lưng is a central vowel that English speakers usually need practice with.
• Neither word has a tone mark, so both carry the ngang tone, a level tone.

If you are learning pronunciation seriously, the hardest part here is usually ư in lưng.

Because Lan is a proper name.

In Vietnamese, personal names normally appear directly, without an article:

• Lan quay lưng.
• Minh đến rồi.
• Hoa đang học.

That is similar to English, where you would normally say Lan turned her back, not the Lan turned her back.

Yes, very naturally.

Examples:

• Lan đã quay lưng. = Lan turned her back.
• Lan đang quay lưng. = Lan is turning her back.
• Lan sẽ quay lưng. = Lan will turn her back.

This is one of the most important grammar patterns in Vietnamese: instead of changing the verb form, you usually add separate time/aspect words.

Usually, yes.

Lan is very commonly a female name in Vietnamese. So many learners will naturally understand the subject as female.

Still, names do not function like grammar markers, so the sentence itself does not change structurally because of gender. Vietnamese verbs also do not change based on gender.