Con and cháu: how children are addressed in Vietnamese

Con means "child," as in a son or daughter, and cháu means "grandchild," "niece" or "nephew." In everyday Vietnamese, both words also work as pronouns: parents call their kids con, and a child calls themselves con to a parent or cháu to most other adults.

So a single word can mean "you," "I" or "my kid" depending on who is talking. Once you see the pattern, it becomes one of the most logical parts of the language.

How do you pronounce con and cháu?

• Con sounds like "kawn," with a flat, level tone.
• Cháu sounds like "chow" with a rising tone (the sắc mark).

Don't confuse cháu with chào (hello), which has a falling tone and a different vowel ending. A polite greeting from a child, Cháu chào bà ạ, uses both.

Who uses con?

Con belongs to the parent and child relationship.

• A parent to a child: Con ăn cơm chưa? (Have you eaten, kiddo?) Here con means "you."
• A child to a parent: Con đi học đây ạ. (I'm heading to school.) Here con means "I," and the parent is called ba, bố or má, mẹ, depending on region and family.
• Talking about your children: con tôi (my child), con trai (son), con gái (daughter), con út (youngest child), con cả or con đầu (eldest).

Con also stretches beyond the immediate family. Grandparents sometimes call their grandchildren con, especially in the South. Older relatives and family friends may use it with kids they're close to, and in some religious settings a priest or monk may address followers as con.

One thing to keep separate: con is also the classifier that comes before most animals, as in con mèo (cat) and con chó (dog). That's a grammar word, not "child," and context always makes it clear. We cover the cat side of that in "Con mèo": cat words and cat sayings in Vietnamese.

Who uses cháu?

Cháu is the word for the next generations once you step beyond your own kids.

• Grandparents to grandchildren: Cháu của bà ngoan quá. (Grandma's grandchild is so good.)
• Aunts and uncles to nieces and nephews: a chú or cô calls a niece cháu.
• Children to non-parent adults: this is the big one. A child speaking to a neighbor, a shopkeeper or a friend's mom calls themselves cháu and calls the adult cô, chú, bác, ông or bà.

That last use carries into adulthood. A 25-year-old talking to someone their parents' age will often still say cháu. See Cô, chú, bác: how to address older adults in Vietnamese for the matching words.

Vietnamese also has more specific forms when needed: cháu nội (a son's child), cháu ngoại (a daughter's child) and chắt (great-grandchild).

What does "con cháu" mean?

Put together, con cháu means "children and grandchildren," or more broadly "descendants." It shows up in sayings and family speech about the generations that follow, such as hopes that the con cháu will do well, or reminders that con cháu should remember their roots. It pairs naturally with ông bà, the ancestors, which we explain in Ông and bà: grandparents and elders in Vietnamese.

What about em and bé?

Two other words often apply to children:

• Em: younger sibling, and the general word for anyone younger than you. An older child calls a younger one em, and teachers often call older students em. Students commonly call themselves em to their teacher, though very young children may say con. Usage varies by school and region.
• Bé: "little one" or "baby." Adults say bé ơi to get a small child's attention, and toddlers sometimes refer to themselves as bé. It's also a common household nickname.

Common phrases with con and cháu

• Con yêu mẹ. (I love you, Mom.) Child speaking.
• Mẹ thương con. (Mom loves you.) Parent speaking.
• Cháu cảm ơn chú ạ. (Thank you, uncle.) Child to a man around their dad's age.
• Nhà bà có mấy cháu? (How many grandchildren do you have, ma'am?)

If you're a parent teaching your child Vietnamese, start with con and cháu in greetings: having a kid say Cháu chào bác ạ to visiting relatives builds the habit faster than any vocabulary list.