When to use it
Use it when you must write to a French-speaking office and ask how it is done properly.
The sentence in English — “How do you write a formal letter in French?”
In “How do you write a formal letter in French?” generic ‘you’ and ‘do’ are needed, and ‘French’ is capitalised.
- How
- adverbquestion word asking about the way or manner
- do
- auxiliary verbdo · tense: present · auxiliary that makes the question
- you
- pronounpersonal pronoun used for people in general
- write
- verbwrite · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · main verb after "do you"
- a
- determinerindefinite article
- formal
- adjectiveadjective
- letter
- nounnoun
- in
- prepositionpreposition
- French
- nounnoun; the name of the language, always capitalised
The sentence in Vietnamese — “Viết thư trang trọng bằng tiếng Pháp như thế nào?”
In “Viết thư trang trọng bằng tiếng Pháp như thế nào?” the verb ‘viết’ (write) opens the sentence with no subject. A language is ‘tiếng’ plus the country: ‘tiếng Pháp’ (French), and ‘như thế nào’ (how) closes it.
- Viết
- verbviết · tense: unmarked · 'write', first, with no subject
- thư
- noun'letter'
- trang
- adjectivefirst syllable of trang trọng
- trọng
- adjective'formal', after thư
- bằng
- preposition'in (a language)'
- tiếng
- noun'language', before the country name
- Pháp
- proper noun'France'; tiếng Pháp = French
- như
- adverbin như thế nào 'how'
- thế
- pronounpart of như thế nào
- nào
- determinercloses the 'how' question
English × Vietnamese — What changes from one language to the other
English has a language word, ‘French’; Vietnamese combines ‘tiếng’ with the country, and puts ‘trang trọng’ (formal) after the noun.
Example conversation
— Viết thư trang trọng bằng tiếng Pháp như thế nào?
— How do you write a formal letter in French?
— Mở đầu bằng “Thưa ông bà” và viết ngắn gọn.
— Start with “Madame, Monsieur” and keep it short.