Vietnamese for Dental Clinics: Vocabulary, Pronouns and Polite Phrases

On your second day in a dental clinic in Ho Chi Minh City, a woman in her fifties sits down in the chair and says, 「Cô bị đau răng hai hôm nay rồi.」 You understand đau răng, a toothache, and hai hôm, two days. What you might miss is that she has called herself cô, and that the word you answer with, cô or em or chị, depends on how she sees your age and your role.

Vietnamese grammar helps you here: no conjugation, no articles, no gender. The difficulty at the chair sits elsewhere. Pronouns come from family words, tones turn one word into several, and the regional words for the same part of the mouth differ between the north and the south.

This article is for dentists, hygienists, assistants and students who work with Vietnamese-speaking patients: foreign staff in Vietnam, volunteers on dental missions, and dental professionals of Vietnamese heritage who speak Vietnamese at home but not in the clinic. You get vocabulary by situation, five grammar points, three model dialogues and a practice plan.

• Before the first patient: pronouns, tones and two regional words
• Vocabulary by situation
• Five grammar points for the chair
• Three model dialogues
• How to practise
• Frequently asked questions
• One thing to do this week

Before the first patient: pronouns, tones and two regional words

Pronouns in the clinic

Vietnamese uses family words for you and me. In a clinic, staff usually call a patient anh (a man a bit older than themselves), chị (a woman a bit older), cô or chú (around a parent's age), bác (older still), and em (a younger patient or a teenager). Staff often call themselves em with patients who are older, and a dentist may use bác sĩ as a title in place of a pronoun.

As a foreign speaker you can say tôi for yourself and still choose the right word for the patient. Avoid bạn with an older patient, because it is a word for peers. When you are unsure, ask the patient, 「Em gọi chị là chị được không ạ?」, which means may I call you chị.

Tones that matter in a dental clinic

Every syllable carries a tone, and a wrong tone produces a different word. Three pairs matter in a dental clinic, so learn them with the word and not separately.

Say them aloud against a recording before you meet patients. Tones are the part of Vietnamese where an hour of listening beats an hour of reading.

Two regional words

You will hear both lợi and nướu for the gum, and lợi is more common in the north while nướu is more common in the south. Patients also say cạo vôi răng or lấy cao răng for scaling. Staff understand both, so learn the one you hear around you first and recognise the other. When you write a quote for a patient, use the term printed on the clinic's own price list.

Vocabulary by situation

The four tables follow one course of treatment. The 42 words in the game at the end of the article all appear here, plus a few extras such as bảo hành and siết niềng. The example sentences use chị for the patient and em for the staff member, which is the pattern you hear most often.

Reception and booking

Symptoms and examination

Patients often describe pain with a few simple words: đau (hurts), ê (sensitive), buốt (a sharp cold pain), nhức (aching). You can ask 「Đau kiểu nào ạ, ê hay nhức?」, which means what kind of pain, sensitive or aching.

X-rays and treatment

Quotes, payment and aftercare

Five grammar points for the chair

1. Announcing what you will do: em, verb, nhé

Telling a patient what you are about to do keeps them calm. The pattern is the pronoun for yourself, the verb, and nhé at the end to soften it into a polite heads-up.

• Em tiêm thuốc tê nhé.
• Em chụp phim X quang trước nhé.
• Chị há miệng rộng hơn một chút nhé.

Learners often drop nhé and say Em tiêm thuốc tê, which sounds like a bare statement. Adding nhé costs one syllable and turns it into a courtesy. In the south you may hear nha instead.

2. Bị, có … không and đã … chưa

To say that something bad is happening to the patient, use bị: bị đau, bị sâu, bị sưng. To ask yes or no questions about symptoms, wrap the verb in có … không. To ask whether something has happened yet, use đã … chưa.

• Chị có bị chảy máu khi đánh răng không?
• Chị đã uống thuốc giảm đau chưa?
• Răng này chị bị đau từ bao lâu rồi?

Answers repeat the verb or use có, không, rồi and chưa. A patient who says 「Có」 to a có … không question means yes, and 「Chưa」 to đã … chưa means not yet. A common mistake is to answer a có … không question with just 「Vâng」, which is ambiguous because it can simply mean that they heard you.

3. Counting teeth: classifiers and tooth numbers

Teeth take the classifier chiếc or cái: một chiếc răng, hai chiếc răng. The adjective follows the noun, so a loose tooth is chiếc răng lung lay. Dentists also number teeth, and you will hear răng số 6 for the first molar. Add the side and the jaw: bên trái, bên phải, hàm trên, hàm dưới.

• Chiếc răng số 6 hàm dưới bên trái bị sâu.
• Hai chiếc răng khôn đều mọc lệch.
• Chị đau ở răng nào, trên hay dưới ạ?

The common error is word order: răng lung lay chiếc, with the classifier at the end. Remember that the classifier comes first and the description comes last.

4. Telling patients what not to do: đừng, chưa nên, không nên

After a procedure you tell patients what to avoid. Đừng is a direct request, chưa nên means not yet, and không nên means better not. Add nhé to make the request gentle.

• Chị đừng nhai bên trái nhé.
• Chị chưa nên ăn đồ nóng hôm nay.
• Chị không nên súc miệng mạnh.

Used alone, Đừng nhai can sound curt. A polite version sounds like Chị đừng nhai bên trái nhé, with the pronoun at the start and nhé at the end.

5. Trước khi, sau khi and khi: timing words

Aftercare instructions use time words before the verb. Trước khi means before, sau khi means after, and khi means when. The time phrase comes first in the sentence, and the instruction follows.

• Trước khi hết tê, chị uống thuốc giảm đau.
• Sau khi nhổ răng, chị cắn gạc khoảng hai mươi phút.
• Khi chị thấy sưng nhiều, chị gọi cho phòng khám.

Learners often put the time phrase at the end, as in English: Chị uống thuốc trước khi hết tê. That is grammatical but less common in instructions. Both are understood, so the issue is naturalness, not correctness.

Three model dialogues

Read both roles aloud, then cover the English column and try to say your own part.

Fitting a crown

A monthly braces adjustment with a teenager

Notice how the orthodontist calls the patient em and herself bác sĩ, and how the patient answers dạ.

Paying at the desk

The amount here is only an example of how to say a number, not a price. Pay attention to the order: the total, the method, the invoice, then the next visit.

How to practise

Start by playing the dental set in Falling Stars or Pop It. Play a few rounds until you can see the word and say its meaning, then go back to the tables above and read each example aloud. Learn the tone together with the word, not afterwards.

Next, listen. Choose an episode from the Vietnamese podcasts, listen one sentence at a time and write it down, then compare it with the transcript. Dictation shows you where you mishear, especially the tones and the particles at the end of the sentence. For a structured route, see the courses, and use the vocabulary test to see where you stand.

Outside WELE, VietnamesePod101 has dialogues with audio at several levels, and the book Colloquial Vietnamese by Dana Healy is a clear guide to everyday grammar. For clinic terms, the best source is often the clinic's own printed price list and consent forms, so ask to read them before your first patient. When you want a benchmark, the Vietnamese placement test on WELE shows your current level.

Clinic shifts leave little room for long study sessions, so short regular sessions are usually easier to keep up than one long session at the weekend. If you want a neighbouring profession, see Vietnamese for nurses, or browse all Vietnamese by profession and the dental page.

Frequently asked questions

How do you say dentist and dental clinic in Vietnamese?

Dentist is nha sĩ or bác sĩ nha khoa, and a dental clinic is phòng khám nha khoa or simply nha khoa. Patients usually address the dentist as bác sĩ, a title that also works as a pronoun.

Do dentists in Vietnam speak English?

Some do, and clinics that treat many foreign patients often have English-speaking staff. This varies by clinic, so do not assume. If you work in a clinic where patients speak Vietnamese, the vocabulary above is what you will actually use.

How do I ask whether something hurts?

Ask 「Chị có đau không ạ?」 for a general question, or 「Ở đây có đau không ạ?」 while you touch the tooth. A patient who says 「Có」 means it hurts, and 「Không」 means it does not.

Should I learn the northern or the southern accent?

Learn the accent of the city where you work. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City differ in tones and in some words, but patients in both places understand the other accent, and the grammar in this article is the same in both.

Can I use a translation app for consent?

A translation app can help with a time or an address. For consent, risks and costs, use a qualified interpreter or a form translated with care, because one wrong word in that part can cause a serious misunderstanding.

One thing to do this week

Pick one sentence you would say every day, such as 「Em tiêm thuốc tê nhé」, and say it aloud until the tone on each syllable comes out without effort. Then open Falling Stars and meet the words around it.