How to Say Yes in Vietnamese: 6 Words You Actually Need

Here's the thing about learning Vietnamese: you'll probably start by looking up how to say yes in Vietnamese. Makes sense. It's basic, right? You need it constantly.

And then you discover Vietnamese doesn't actually have a single word for "yes."

Not like English, where "yes" covers everything from agreeing to your boss to texting your friend "ya." Vietnamese makes you think about who you're talking to and what kind of question they asked before you can even respond.

This trips up basically every student at first. But once you understand the system, it's actually pretty logical. Let me walk you through each way to say yes in Vietnamese and when to use them.

The Two Types of "Yes" in Vietnamese

The Vietnamese language splits affirmative responses into two main categories:

1. Factual confirmation (có) When someone asks you a yes/no question about facts—"Do you have a brother?" or "Do you like coffee?"—you respond with có.

Bạn có thích cà phê không? (Do you like coffee?) → Có. (Yes.)

Có literally means "to have" or "to exist," but in this context it functions as your factual "yes." It's the correct way to say yes when you're providing confirmation of something true. Use có in most situations where you're answering a straightforward question.

2. Acknowledgment and agreement (dạ, vâng, ừ, được) When someone calls your name, asks you to do something, or needs you to acknowledge them—that's a different situation entirely. You don't use có here.

Instead, you pick from a set of words based on who you're talking to. This is where the Vietnamese politeness system kicks in.

The Formal Way to Say Yes: Dạ and Vâng

Vietnamese culture bakes respect and social hierarchy directly into the language. The word you choose tells the other person exactly how you view your relationship with them.

Dạ – The respectful, polite way to say yes. Dạ is used when speaking with anyone older than you, authority figures like a teacher or parent, customers (if you work in service), or formal situations. It's pronounced like "ya" but short and clipped, with a falling tone that stops abruptly.

When do you use dạ? Pretty much any context where you'd speak formally in English—talking to elders, professional settings, showing respect to someone you've just met.

Vâng – Also a formal way to respond, appropriate in the same situations as dạ. Northern Vietnamese speakers tend to use vâng more, while Southern speakers prefer dạ. They're functionally interchangeable, but you'll hear regional preferences depending on where you are in Vietnam.

You can even combine them: dạ vâng doubles up the politeness and is common when speaking to a parent or someone significantly older.

The Casual Way to Say Yes: Ừ

Ừ – This is the casual, informal way to say yes in Vietnamese. Use ừ with friends, younger people, or people you're very close with. It's pronounced like the French "u" with a falling tone—sounds a bit like "uh" with a downward pitch.

Here's the critical tip: if you use ừ with someone older than you or in formal situations, you're being rude. Like, noticeably rude. Not "oh the foreigner doesn't know better" rude—actually rude.

Ừ is used in casual conversation only. Save it for friends your age or younger.

Được: The Neutral Reply

Được means "okay" and works as the most neutral way to say yes. You can use được pretty widely without offending anyone—it's appropriate whether you're talking to someone older or younger, in casual or semi-formal contexts.

Think of được as your safe middle ground when you're not sure which other word fits the situation.

Quick Reference: Which Word to Use

When in doubt, use dạ. You might sound overly polite with your buddies, but you won't accidentally disrespect someone's grandmother.

The Polite Particle: Ạ

Want to sound even more respectful? Add ạ to the end of your response.

That little ạ at the end is like adding "sir" or "ma'am" to everything—it softens the statement and shows extra politeness. You'll hear it constantly in formal Vietnamese, especially when speaking to elders or in professional contexts. Native Vietnamese speakers use this particle automatically when showing respect.

Verb Repetition: How Native Speakers Actually Respond

Here's something most Vietnamese courses don't teach you early enough: native speakers often don't even use separate "yes" words. They just repeat the verb from the question.

Anh có hiểu không? (Do you understand?) → Hiểu. (Understand.) ← This means "yes"

Bạn có đi không? (Are you going?) → Đi. or Có đi. (Going. / Yes, going.)

This verb repetition pattern is the correct, natural way to reply in conversation. Once you start noticing it in real Vietnamese—whether you're watching a video, listening to a podcast, or browsing YouTube—you'll hear it everywhere. It sounds way more native than constantly saying có.

Getting the Tones Right

Vietnamese has six tones, and the "yes" words use several of them. If you get the wrong tone, you might say something completely different.

If you haven't gotten familiar with Vietnamese tones yet, that's probably worth doing before you stress too much about which "yes" to use. The tones matter more than most beginners realize—messing them up doesn't just give you an accent, it makes you speak different words entirely.

Northern vs. Southern Differences

If you're starting to learn Vietnamese, you'll eventually need to pick a dialect focus. The North (Hanoi) and South (Ho Chi Minh City) have different preferences:

Northern speakers tend to use vâng more frequently and maintain all six tones distinctly.

Southern speakers prefer dạ for respectful acknowledgment. Southern Vietnamese also effectively merges two tones into one, meaning speakers work with five tones instead of six.

Both will understand you regardless of which dialect you learn. But if you're planning to live in the south, learning Northern-accented "yes" words might sound a bit odd to locals, and vice versa.

Responding to Negative Questions

This is where Vietnamese gets confusing for English speakers.

In English, if someone asks "Don't you like beer?" and you do like beer, you say "Yes" (meaning yes I do like it).

Vietnamese doesn't work the same way. The response logic is different, and even native Vietnamese speakers sometimes need to clarify by adding a full sentence like "Không, có chứ" (No, I do) or "Không, tôi không thích" (No, I don't like it).

If you're early in your journey to learn how to say yes in Vietnamese, just know this exists and don't panic when it trips you up. It trips up everyone.

The "Okay" Shortcut

Good news: the English word "okay" has been absorbed into Vietnamese. Even older generations use it casually now. If you blank on which affirmative word to use mid-conversation, "okay" will get you through.

That said, it won't help you sound fluent, and it definitely won't work in formal situations. Think of it as your emergency backup, not your go-to.

Learning to Use These Words Naturally

Look, you can memorize all the rules above and still freeze up the first time a Vietnamese person asks you something. That's normal. The gap between "knowing" and "using" is huge when you learn a language.

The fix? Hearing these words used naturally, over and over, until your brain stops translating and just knows that dạ is what you say when an older person addresses you.

That's where immersion content comes in. Vietnamese dramas, YouTube videos, podcasts—anything where real people are having real conversations. You'll hear dạ and vâng constantly, in contexts that make the hierarchy system click in a way no textbook explanation can.

Understanding how spaced repetition works helps too. It's one thing to learn these words once—it's another to actually retain them and use them correctly in the appropriate situation weeks later.

Putting It Into Practice

Migaku's browser extension lets you watch Vietnamese content with interactive subtitles—look up any word instantly, hear it pronounced by the actual speaker, and add it to your spaced repetition deck without breaking the flow of what you're watching. It's how you turn passive video watching into actual vocabulary acquisition.

The mobile app syncs everything, so you can review your "yes" words (and everything else) during dead time. And because you learned them from real contexts—not flashcard definitions—you'll actually remember which situations call for which word. You'll understand when dạ có makes sense versus when a simple ừ is appropriate.

There's a 10-day free trial if you want to try it out. Given how much natural Vietnamese exposure you need to internalize this stuff, having a system that turns that exposure into retained knowledge makes a real difference when you're learning to speak like a native.