Có ít khán giả.

There are few spectators.

Breakdown of Có ít khán giả.

• có: there is/are
• khán giả: the spectator or audience
• ít: little; few

Questions & Answers about Có ít khán giả.

Why does the sentence start with có?

In this sentence, có is being used in its existential sense: there is / there are.

So Có ít khán giả literally works like:

• Có = there is/there are
• ít khán giả = few audience members / few spectators

This is a very common Vietnamese pattern for saying that something exists or is present:

• Có người ở đây. = There is someone here.
• Có nhiều xe. = There are many vehicles.
• Có ít khán giả. = There are few spectators.

This có is not the same as the full verb to have in every context, even though it is often translated that way in other sentences.

Why is there no subject in the sentence?

Because Vietnamese often allows subjectless existential sentences when the meaning is obvious.

English usually needs there in sentences like There are few spectators, but Vietnamese does not need a dummy subject like there. It can simply say:

• Có ít khán giả.

So the structure is not really subject + verb + object here. It is more like:

• có
  • noun phrase

This is one reason Vietnamese can feel more compact than English.

What exactly does ít mean here?