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Questions & Answers about Lan giống mẹ.
What part of speech is giống in Lan giống mẹ?
In this sentence, giống means to resemble / to be like.
Vietnamese words do not always fit neatly into English grammar categories. Here, giống behaves like a stative verb or predicate word, so Vietnamese does not need a separate verb like to be.
So:
- Lan giống mẹ = Lan resembles her mother / Lan is like her mother
You should think of giống as the main predicate of the sentence.
Why is there no word for is in the sentence?
Vietnamese often leaves out the verb to be when English would require it.
In Lan giống mẹ, the word giống already carries the idea of resembles / is like, so no extra is is needed.
Compare:
- English: Lan is like her mother
- Vietnamese: Lan giống mẹ
This is very normal in Vietnamese.
Why is there no word for her in mẹ?