“Where can I rent a bicycle in the city?” in Vietnamese

When to use it

Use it in a town like Hoi An or Hue when you want to ride around by bike.

The sentence in English: “Where can I rent a bicycle in the city?”

In “Where can I rent a bicycle in the city?” ‘Where’ comes first, ‘can’ precedes ‘I’, and ‘in the city’ closes the sentence.

Where

adverbquestion word asking about place

can

auxiliary verbcan · tense: present · modal verb of ability or permission

I

pronounpersonal pronoun, always written with a capital letter

rent

verbrent · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · main verb after "can"

a

determinerindefinite article

bicycle

nounnoun; often shortened to "bike"

in

prepositionpreposition

the

determinerdefinite article

city

nounnoun

The sentence in Vietnamese: “Trong thành phố, tôi có thể thuê xe đạp ở đâu?”

In “Trong thành phố, tôi có thể thuê xe đạp ở đâu?” the setting ‘trong thành phố’ (in the city) is fronted and set off by a comma. ‘xe đạp’ (bicycle) is literally a pedal vehicle, and ‘ở đâu’ (where) is last.

Trong

preposition'in, inside'

thành

nounfirst syllable of thành phố

phố

nounwith thành: 'city'

tôi

pronoun'I', the one renting

có

auxiliary verbcó thể · tense: unmarked · 'can', between subject and verb

thể

auxiliary verbcó thể · tense: unmarked · second half of có thể, before thuê

thuê

verbthuê · tense: unmarked · 'rent', pay to use for a while

xe

noun'vehicle'; xe đạp = bicycle

đạp

noun'pedal'; literally a pedal vehicle

ở

preposition'at'

đâu

pronoun'where', at the end

What changes from one language to the other: English × Vietnamese

English fronts ‘Where’; Vietnamese ends with ‘ở đâu’ and can front the setting. Vietnamese has no articles.

Example conversation