# Tuy nhiên / song: however in Vietnamese (B2)

> Tuy nhiên means "however". It starts a new sentence, followed by a comma, and sets what comes next against what came before: Doanh thu tăng 12%.

Source: https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/tuy-nhien-however/ · Updated 2026-10-17

**however**

Pattern: `[statement]. Tuy nhiên, [statement] · [A], song + [B] · Song, [statement]`

Level: B2 (our estimate) · Register: formal · Medium: written

Typed without accents: tuy nhien, song

Situations: [At work](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/?use=work)

Variants:

- tuy vậy
- dù vậy
- mặc dù vậy

*Tuy nhiên* means "however". It starts a new sentence, followed by a comma, and sets what comes next against what came before: *Doanh thu tăng 12%. Tuy nhiên, lợi nhuận lại giảm.* Revenue rose 12%. However, profit fell. It can also follow a comma in the middle of a long sentence.

*Song* is a shorter written "but, yet". It usually joins two halves of one sentence: *Dự án đã được duyệt, song vẫn chưa khởi công*, the project was approved but hasn't started. Sometimes it opens a sentence: *Song, …* Don't confuse it with *song song*, which means parallel or at the same time.

*Tuy vậy*, *dù vậy* and *mặc dù vậy* (even so) do the same job. *Lại* after the subject often underlines the contrast, as in the first example.

You'll meet *tuy nhiên* in every kind of formal text: news, official reports, papers, and in presentations and meetings. *Song* is rarer and more literary.

In conversation, use *nhưng* or *mà*: *Doanh thu tăng, mà lời lại giảm.* *Tuy nhiên* in a chat sounds like a presentation slide. And keep it apart from *tuy … nhưng* (although … still), which works inside one sentence: *Tuy mắc nhưng ngon.*

## Examples

- Doanh thu quý III tăng 12%. Tuy nhiên, lợi nhuận lại giảm do chi phí vận chuyển cao. — Third-quarter revenue rose 12%. However, profit fell because of high shipping costs.
- Dự án đã được phê duyệt từ năm 2021, song đến nay vẫn chưa khởi công. — The project was approved in 2021, yet construction has still not begun.
- Kết quả bước đầu khá khả quan. Tuy vậy, cỡ mẫu còn nhỏ nên cần kiểm chứng thêm. — The initial results are fairly encouraging. Even so, the sample is small, so more testing is needed.
- Mưa lớn khiến nhiều tuyến đường ngập sâu. Dù vậy, chưa ghi nhận thiệt hại về người. — Heavy rain left many streets deeply flooded. Even so, no casualties have been reported.

## Words in this pattern

- [tuy nhiên](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/words/tuy-nhien/#s_tuy_nhien): however

## Compare

- [But: nhưng](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/nhung-but/): but
- [Although: mặc dù / tuy … nhưng](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/mac-du-although/): although
- [On the contrary: ngược lại, trái lại](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/nguoc-lai-contrary/): on the contrary, conversely

Previous in Linking ideas: [As a …: là + noun phrase, then the sentence](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/la-as-a/)
Next in Linking ideas: [If only: giá mà, phải chi](https://vietnamesebuddy.com/grammar/gia-nhu-if-only/)

---

Add to Vietnamese Buddy: https://app.vietnamesebuddy.com/waitlist?source=grammar%3Au_tuy_nhien_however
In the app, the grammar points from your own class material are kept with their status, and any word you meet while reading can go into your lexicon with its audio, ready to study.