A Vietnamese-English Pest Control Glossary

Machine translation handles Vietnamese pest control documents badly, because the key words are short, common, and mean something different in this context. Mối becomes "relationship", gián becomes "indirect", and a quotation turns into nonsense.

These are the words that actually appear, grouped the way you will meet them. Diacritics matter — mối is termite, mới is new, mọi is every — so they are given in full.

The species

• gián — cockroach. gián Đức German cockroach, gián Mỹ American cockroach.
• kiến — ant. kiến ba khoang is the paederus rove beetle, not an ant despite the name.
• mối — termite. mọt — wood-boring beetle or grain weevil.
• muỗi — mosquito. ruồi — fly. rệp — bed bug. bọ chét — flea. ve chó — dog tick.
• chuột — rat or mouse, the same word for both. chuột cống is the sewer rat.
• nhện — spider. thằn lằn — house gecko. rắn — snake. ong — bee or wasp.
• côn trùng — insect, the general word. sinh vật gây hại — pest, in a technical document.

What is being done

• diệt — to kill or exterminate. The commonest word in any company name here.
• phun — to spray. phun tồn lưu residual spray, phun sương / phun khói fogging.
• bả — bait. gel bả gel bait, trạm bả bait station.
• bột — powder or dust. thuốc — the product, literally medicine.
• khử trùng — disinfection or fumigation, used broadly.
• phòng — to prevent. phòng mối is prevention; diệt mối is treatment of an existing colony.
• xử lý — to treat or deal with. kiểm tra — to inspect. bảo hành — warranty.

Places in the building

These appear constantly in reports because the report describes where the technician went. bếp kitchen, nhà vệ sinh or WC bathroom, ban công balcony, tầng hầm basement, kho store or warehouse, trần ceiling, trần giả false ceiling, hộp kỹ thuật service riser, cống drain or sewer, ga thoát sàn floor drain, gầm tủ under a cabinet, sau tủ lạnh behind the fridge.

Two that cause confusion: nhà is house or home generally, and căn hộ is specifically an apartment. A quotation for nhà phố is for a townhouse.

Words in a quotation

On the commercial side: báo giá quotation, đơn giá unit price, thành tiền line total, diện tích area in square metres, lần a visit or occurrence, hợp đồng contract, định kỳ periodic or scheduled, đợt a round of treatment, VAT / thuế tax, chưa bao gồm VAT excluding VAT.

Bảo hành 6 tháng means a six-month warranty. Miễn phí means free of charge, and appears next to follow-up visits in a good quotation.

Words on a product label

hoạt chất is the active ingredient and is the single most useful thing on a label, because the active ingredient name is usually international — cypermethrin, deltamethrin, imidacloprid — and readable regardless of the surrounding Vietnamese. hàm lượng is concentration, liều lượng is the dose rate, pha loãng means dilute, số đăng ký is the registration number.

Độc means toxic and an toàn means safe; a label saying an toàn cho người và vật nuôi claims safety for people and pets, which is a marketing statement rather than a regulatory one.

Three phrases worth being able to say

If you say nothing else, these three cover most situations. Nhà tôi có gián — my home has cockroaches, substituting any species word. Xin cho tôi xem báo giá — please show me a quotation. Có an toàn cho trẻ em không? — is it safe for children?

Related reading

For putting these into sentences see how to describe a pest problem in Vietnamese, and for documents, reading a quotation and reading a product label. If you would rather not do any of this, book pest control without speaking Vietnamese. Our parent company works entirely in Vietnamese at its full service list.

Global Pest Control is the English-language arm of Khử Trùng Toàn Cầu. Everything we issue comes in English and Vietnamese on the same page, so you can hand it to a landlord unchanged.

Common questions

Why does every company here have "diệt" in its name?

Because it is the plain everyday word for killing pests, and the market advertises on that promise. It is worth knowing that a company named for extermination may still be doing careful integrated work — the naming convention is about how Vietnamese customers search rather than about method.

Is Google Translate good enough for a quotation?

For the structure, roughly. For the species and the methods, no, because the key terms are short common words with unrelated everyday meanings and translation loses the diacritics that distinguish them. Read the numbers and the layout with translation, and check the species and method words against a list like this one.

What is the difference between "phòng mối" and "diệt mối"?

Prevention against treatment, and they are entirely different jobs with different prices. Phòng mối is a soil or structural barrier applied before or during construction to stop termites reaching the building; diệt mối is dealing with a colony that is already there. A quotation that mixes the two without separating them is worth querying.