Generally, toi and ban is fine and gender-neutral, but kinda weird to use among friends.
BTW "ban" meaning friend, is pronounced like "but" in the north with a silent "n".
Em refers to a girl and also a guy younger than you. So in a restaurant, i might call a younger male waiter "em oi...!"
Chi is usually an elder sister.
Khong phai can also mean "incorrect" or "not right". Eg in a situation I might make a mistake while filling in a form and exclaim: "Ay da... kg phai!" (da is pronounced "za")
What I know is more northern-centric, meaning I learnt my stuff in Hanoi (a bit like Beijing Mandarin, which everyone says shld be standard). May or may not apply in Saigon. Haha... am i making things complicated?
Quote:
Originally Posted by nozila
True. But if you want to get into the whole formal speaking aspect of conversation, I guess you could include this...
to a stranger
"toi ten la nozila, ban ten la ji?"
my name is nozila, (friend) what is your name?
now that would be speaking to a total stranger.
also, perhaps you might take into consideration age differences which also uses the terms Anh and Em
"anh di hoc, em lam ji vay?"
Im going to school, what are you doing?
In the above sentence, the age of the person speaking (anh) and to whom them are speaking to (em) hasnt been gender specified. But you would think Anh is a guy and Em is a girl.
so, what would happen if I say...
"em di hoc, chi lam ji vay?"
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