# Trong khi đó: meanwhile / whereas in Vietnamese (B2)

> Trong khi đó opens a sentence that sets a second fact beside the first, for contrast: Giá xăng giảm. Trong khi đó, giá điện lại tăng. Petrol prices fell.

Source: https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/trong-khi-do/ · Updated 2026-10-17

**meanwhile / whereas**

Pattern: `[statement]. Trong khi đó, [contrasting statement]`

Level: B2 (our estimate) · Register: formal

Typed without accents: trong khi do

*Trong khi đó* opens a sentence that sets a second fact beside the first, for contrast: *Giá xăng giảm. Trong khi đó, giá điện lại tăng.* Petrol prices fell. Electricity prices, on the other hand, went up. English might say "meanwhile", "whereas" or "by contrast".

It usually starts a new sentence, or the second half after a comma or semicolon. The two halves often point in different directions: one figure rises and another falls, one city copes and another struggles. *Lại* (instead, contrary to what you'd expect) often appears in the second half to stress the surprise.

It can also be "meanwhile" in time: two things going on at once in different places. *Trong khi đó, tại miền Trung, mưa lớn vẫn tiếp diễn.* Meanwhile, in central Vietnam, heavy rain continued.

Compare *trong khi* without *đó*. *Trong khi* + a statement joins two halves inside one sentence (*trong khi giá điện tăng*, while electricity prices rose), and in speech it's simply "while". *Trong khi đó* stands at the front and points back to the whole previous sentence.

It's one of the most common connectors in news reports, on every news site, and frequent in papers. In conversation, the everyday equivalent is *còn*: *Xăng giảm, còn điện thì tăng.* Petrol's down, but electricity's up.

## Examples

- Giá lúa trong nước giảm nhẹ. Trong khi đó, giá gạo xuất khẩu vẫn giữ ổn định. — Domestic paddy prices dipped slightly. Export rice prices, meanwhile, held steady.
- Thành phố cần thêm 3.000 giáo viên, trong khi đó mỗi năm chỉ khoảng 1.200 sinh viên sư phạm ra trường. — The city needs 3,000 more teachers, whereas only about 1,200 teaching graduates come out each year.
- Trong khi đó, tại miền Trung, mưa lớn vẫn tiếp diễn. — Meanwhile, in central Vietnam, heavy rain continued.
- Điểm số của nhóm thử nghiệm cải thiện rõ rệt; trong khi đó, nhóm đối chứng hầu như không thay đổi. — The test group's scores improved markedly, whereas the control group's barely changed.

## Compare

- [While: trong khi, and khi … đang for an interrupted action](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/trong-khi-while/): while
- [And / whereas, switching to someone else: còn (… thì)](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/con-whereas/): whereas / as for
- [On the contrary: ngược lại, trái lại](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/nguoc-lai-contrary/): on the contrary, conversely

Previous in News, official and academic writing: [Making it possible: tạo điều kiện (cho) + person + verb](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/tao-dieu-kien-enable/)
Next in News, official and academic writing: [Most of, the majority: phần lớn, đa số](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/phan-lon/)

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