Lốp xe bị hỏng.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

• lốp ≈ lope (but shorter, with a rising tone)
• xe ≈ seh / syeh depending on accent
• bị ≈ bee with a heavy, low tone
• hỏng ≈ something like hawng with a dipping/rising tone

A simple English-friendly approximation is:

lope seh bee hawng

A few notes:

• x in southern and standard spelling is pronounced like s.
• Vietnamese tones matter, so even if the consonants and vowels are close, wrong tones can make the word sound different.
• The final -ng in hỏng is the normal ng sound as in sing.

Word by word:

• lốp = tire
• xe = vehicle / car / bike, depending on context
• bị = to suffer, to be affected by, often used in negative situations
• hỏng = broken, damaged, not working properly

So lốp xe means vehicle tire / tire, and bị hỏng means is damaged / got damaged / is broken.

In Vietnamese, the main noun often comes first, and the modifying noun comes after it.

So:

• lốp xe = tire of a vehicle → vehicle tire
• the main thing is lốp (tire)
• xe tells you what kind of tire it is

This is similar to how Vietnamese often builds noun phrases:

• nhà bếp = kitchen
• cửa sổ = window
• sách giáo khoa = textbook

So lốp xe is the natural order.

Bị often shows that something happens to the subject, usually something unwanted, negative, or unfortunate.

So in Lốp xe bị hỏng:

• the tire is the thing affected
• hỏng is the bad result
• bị adds the idea that this happened to it

It can feel a bit like:

• The tire got damaged
• The tire was damaged
• The tire ended up broken

So bị is not just a direct translation of was. It adds a negative/affected meaning.

Yes. Lốp xe hỏng is completely natural.

The difference is roughly:

• Lốp xe hỏng = The tire is broken / The tire’s broken
• Lốp xe bị hỏng = The tire got damaged / The tire was damaged, with more emphasis on the negative event affecting it

In everyday speech, Vietnamese often drops bị if the meaning is already clear.

It is often taught that way, and that is partly true, but that is not the whole story.

Bị can appear in passive-like sentences, especially when the event is negative:

• Xe bị mất = The vehicle was lost / got stolen
• Anh ấy bị đánh = He was beaten

But bị is not just a mechanical passive marker. It usually carries an unfortunate or adverse feeling.

So in Lốp xe bị hỏng, it is better to think:

• not just passive
• but also affected in a bad way

Not necessarily.

Hỏng is a general word meaning:

• broken
• damaged
• not functioning properly

For a tire specifically, if you want to say it is flat or punctured, Vietnamese often uses more specific words, such as:

• lốp xe bị xẹp = the tire is flat
• lốp xe bị thủng = the tire is punctured

So Lốp xe bị hỏng is broader. It means the tire is damaged, but it does not tell you exactly how.

Vietnamese usually does not require articles like a, an, or the.

So lốp xe can mean:

• a tire
• the tire
• tires in some contexts

The exact meaning depends on context.

In this sentence, English often translates it as The tire is damaged because that sounds natural in context, but Vietnamese does not have to mark that explicitly.

By itself, Lốp xe bị hỏng does not mark tense clearly.

It could mean:

• The tire is damaged
• The tire got damaged
• The tire was damaged

Vietnamese often leaves tense to context, or adds time words if needed:

• Hôm qua lốp xe bị hỏng. = Yesterday the tire got damaged.
• Bây giờ lốp xe bị hỏng rồi. = Now the tire is damaged / has broken.

So you should not expect every Vietnamese sentence to show tense the way English does.

Not necessarily.

You can say:

• Lốp xe bị hỏng.

That is perfectly natural.

You could also say:

• Cái lốp xe bị hỏng.

Adding cái can make the noun phrase feel more specific or more conversational, depending on context. But in a simple statement like this, it is often omitted.

Vietnamese classifiers are common, but they are not required in every sentence.

Yes.

Xe is a broad word that can refer to:

• car
• motorbike
• bicycle
• vehicle in general

So lốp xe is somewhat general unless the context tells you what kind of vehicle you mean.

If you want to be more specific, you can say:

• lốp xe đạp = bicycle tire
• lốp xe máy = motorbike tire
• lốp ô tô = car tire

Yes. Lốp xe is the subject.

So the structure is:

• Lốp xe = the tire
• bị hỏng = is damaged / got damaged

Vietnamese does not need a dummy subject like English it. The sentence is already complete.

Usually, in normal conversation, it refers to a specific tire understood from context.

So most often:

• Lốp xe bị hỏng = The tire is damaged

But because Vietnamese nouns do not automatically mark singular vs. plural, context is important. If needed, speakers can make number clearer with extra words.

For example:

• Một cái lốp xe bị hỏng. = One tire is damaged.
• Mấy cái lốp xe bị hỏng. = Several tires are damaged.

By itself, the sentence is usually interpreted as singular if the situation suggests one specific tire.

Depending on context, natural translations include:

• The tire is damaged.
• The tire is broken.
• The tire got damaged.
• The vehicle’s tire is damaged.

If the problem is specifically that the tire has lost air, English might prefer The tire is flat, but that is more specific than hỏng, so it is not always the best translation.