# Hai vợ chồng / hai anh em in Vietnamese (A1)

> To talk about two people as a pair, put hai (two) before the word for their relationship: hai vợ chồng (husband and wife), hai mẹ con (mother and child)…

Source: https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/hai-vo-chong/ · Updated 2026-10-17

**X and his wife / my brother and I**

Pattern: `hai + vợ chồng / anh em / mẹ con + (name or pronoun)`

Level: A1 (our estimate) · Register: everyday

Typed without accents: hai vo chong, hai anh em

To talk about two people as a pair, put *hai* (two) before the word for their relationship: *hai vợ chồng* (husband and wife), *hai mẹ con* (mother and child), *hai anh em* (an older brother and a younger sibling), *hai chị em* (an older sister and a younger sibling).

Add a name or a person word after it to say whose pair it is: *hai vợ chồng anh Minh* (Minh and his wife), *hai mẹ con chị Lan* (Lan and her child). With yourself in it, *hai vợ chồng tôi* is "my wife and I" or "my husband and I". There's no *và* (and), and the *hai* is often dropped: *vợ chồng tôi*.

With more people, change the number: *ba anh em* (three siblings).

The pairs have a fixed order and don't swap: *vợ chồng*, *anh em*, *chị em*, *mẹ con*, *ba mẹ* (in Hà Nội *bố mẹ*), *ông bà*. The older person usually comes first; *vợ chồng*, with the wife first, is simply how it's said.

## Examples

- Saigon: Hai vợ chồng tôi mới dọn qua đây. | Hà Nội: Hai vợ chồng tôi mới chuyển đến đây. — My wife and I have just moved here.
- Hai anh em tôi đều làm ở Sài Gòn. — My brother and I both work in Saigon.
- Hai mẹ con chị Lan đi chợ rồi. — Lan and her child have gone to the market.
- Nhà em có ba anh em. — There are three children in my family.

## Compare

- [Brother, sister, son, daughter: trai / gái after the family word](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/trai-gai/): male / female (kin)
- [And (listing): và](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/va-and/): and

Previous in Things, counting and numbers: [Counting things: number + classifier + noun (hai con chó)](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/num-clf-noun/)
Next in Things, counting and numbers: [Describing words come after the noun: nhà lớn, not lớn nhà](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/adj-after-noun/)

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