Verbs

Good news: in Vietnamese, verbs are not conjugated. Each verb only has one form. For tenses, time is often indicated through context or specific time markers. Let's take the verb "làm" (to do/make/work), "ăn" (to eat), and "đi" (to go) as examples to demonstrate how to form sentences in the present, past, and future tenses.

Present Tense

In the present tense, Vietnamese does not require a specific marker to indicate the present action; it's often understood from the context or the general present time indicators like "bây giờ" (now), "hôm nay" (today), or the absence of past or future markers.

• Ăn (to eat): "Tôi ăn phở." (I eat pho.)
• Làm (to do/make/work): "Tôi đang làm bài tập." (Now I am doing the homework.)
• Đi (to go): "Hôm nay chúng tôi đi Sapa." (Today we go to Sapa.)

Past Tense

For past tense in Vietnamese, you might use "đã" (did) to indicate that an action has occurred. However, it's often omitted if the context already makes the time clear.

• Làm (to do/make/work): "Hôm qua tôi đã làm bài tập." (Yesterday, I did the homework.)" %}
• Ăn (to eat): "Tôi đã ăn phở sáng nay." (I ate pho this morning.)
• Đi (to go): "Tuần trước chúng tôi đã đi Sapa." (Last week, we went to Sapa.)

Future Tense

For future actions, "sẽ" (will) is used to denote that something is going to happen.

• Làm (to do/make/work): Future: "Tôi sẽ làm việc này vào ngày mai." (I will do this work tomorrow.)
• Ăn (to eat): Future: "Chúng tôi sẽ ăn sushi vào cuối tuần." (We will eat sushi at the weekend.)
• Đi (to go): Future: "Họ sẽ đi đến Hà Nội vào tháng tới." (They will go to Hanoi next month.)

Contextual Clues and Time Markers

Vietnamese often leverages the context and time expressions such as "hôm qua" (yesterday), "tuần trước" (last week), "ngày mai" (tomorrow), and "tháng tới" (next month) to convey when an action takes place. This is especially true in spoken language, where the temporal context is typically understood by the conversation's participants.