Vietnamese verbs and time — no conjugation, just markers

One form, always

ăn (eat) is always ăn. I eat, she ate, they will eat — the verb never changes. The person and the time come from other words in the sentence.

Time words like hôm qua (yesterday) do the work English puts on the verb.

The three core markers: đã, đang, sẽ

Time anchors — the easy way

Drop a time word in and the sentence sorts itself out. These are the highest-frequency anchors:

Why context matters more than markers

English grammar forces every verb to declare its tense. Vietnamese doesn't — and that's a feature, not a gap. The marker appears when the speaker wants to emphasize completion, progress, or intention:

• Tôi ăn rồi — 'I ate already' (rồi marks it as done, very common colloquially).
• Tôi đã ăn — the same completion, a bit more explicit.
• Hôm qua tôi ăn phở — time word alone; nobody asks 'ate or eat?'.

Summary

Verbs never change; đã/đang/sẽ mark completed, in-progress, future when time words or context don't already make it clear; time anchors like hôm qua and ngày mai do most of the daily work. Next: questions and negation — how to say no and ask anything.

Mini practice