How to Describe a Pest Problem in Vietnamese

A technician, a building guard or a landlord needs three things from you: what, where, and since when. Everything else is detail that can be sorted out once somebody is standing in the room.

These are sentences you can read from a phone screen. Vietnamese is tonal and your pronunciation will be imperfect, which matters far less than people fear — showing the written sentence works even when saying it does not.

What: the basic sentence

The pattern is Nhà tôi có [species] — my home has [species]. So: Nhà tôi có gián (cockroaches), có kiến (ants), có chuột (rats), có muỗi (mosquitoes), có mối (termites), có rệp (bed bugs).

For an apartment rather than a house, Căn hộ tôi có gián. For an office, Văn phòng tôi có gián.

Where: the room

Add ở plus the place. Nhà tôi có gián ở bếp — cockroaches in the kitchen. Useful places: bếp kitchen, nhà vệ sinh bathroom, phòng ngủ bedroom, phòng khách living room, ban công balcony, gầm bồn rửa under the sink, sau tủ lạnh behind the fridge.

Since when, and how many

Khoảng một tuần rồi — about a week now. Khoảng một tháng rồi — about a month. Mới hôm qua — only yesterday.

For quantity, Rất nhiều means a lot, Chỉ một hai con means only one or two. Con is the counting word for animals, so ba con gián is three cockroaches.

Eight sentences that cover most situations

• Nhà tôi có gián ở bếp, khoảng một tháng rồi. — Cockroaches in my kitchen, about a month.
• Tôi thấy chuột trên trần nhà. — I hear or see rats in the ceiling.
• Có mùi hôi từ cống. — There is a bad smell from the drain.
• Anh chị có thể đến khi nào? — When can you come?
• Bao nhiêu tiền? — How much does it cost?
• Có an toàn cho trẻ em và thú cưng không? — Is it safe for children and pets?
• Bao lâu thì được vào lại phòng? — How long until we can go back in the room?
• Xin cho tôi báo giá bằng văn bản. — Please give me the quotation in writing.

The photograph does most of the work

A clear photograph with something for scale removes the entire language problem for identification, which is the part where a misunderstanding costs the most. A coin, a fingertip or a bottle cap next to the insect is enough.

Photographs of the location matter as much as photographs of the insect. A picture of the cabinet under the sink, the floor drain, or the wall where the trail runs tells a technician more than three sentences in any language.

Talking to a building guard

Building security in Vietnamese towers is usually the fastest route to building management, and guards are used to relaying messages. Keep it to one sentence and one place: Tầng 11, căn hộ 03, có mùi hôi từ cống — floor 11, apartment 03, bad smell from the drain. Writing the floor and unit number down removes the part most likely to go wrong.

What not to worry about

Tones. Your Vietnamese will not be tonally accurate and everyone knows why. Context carries an enormous amount — nobody hearing a foreigner point at a kitchen and say something like gián is going to conclude you meant "indirect". Say the words, show the screen, show the photograph, and the conversation works.

Related reading

The full word list is in our Vietnamese-English glossary. For the visit itself see what to tell the technician, and for buildings, talking to building management. To skip the language entirely, book without speaking Vietnamese. Our parent company handles Vietnamese-language enquiries directly through its service list.

Global Pest Control is the English-language arm of Khử Trùng Toàn Cầu. You can write to us in English and we will speak Vietnamese to whoever needs it.

Common questions

Will a technician speak any English?

Some do and many do not, and it varies by company rather than by price. What we do is send the report in both languages and make sure somebody on the call speaks English, so the technical conversation happens with you and the working conversation happens in Vietnamese.

Is it rude to communicate by writing rather than speaking?

Not at all, and it is extremely common here between foreigners and Vietnamese colleagues. Typing into a translation app and showing the screen is completely normal and nobody will think anything of it. Writing numbers down is particularly worth doing, since numbers are the thing most often misheard in either direction.

How do I say the problem is urgent?

Gấp means urgent — Việc này gấp, this is urgent. Use it sparingly, because it is taken literally here and a request marked urgent tends to be answered by rescheduling somebody else. For a genuine emergency, Xin đến sớm nhất có thể, please come as soon as possible, is the more natural phrasing.