Kìa (De Pro)

Situations

S1: Mr. and Mrs. Tân are strolling along Vũng Tàu beach in the morning; the rising sun is very beautiful. Tân's wife exclaims to him:

Anh nhìn kìa! Mặt trời đẹp quá!
(Look at that! The sun is very beautiful!)

S2: Nam's company welcomes a group of foreign visitors. The visitors are getting out of the cars. The secretary says to Nam:

Kìa, khách đến rồi!
(There come the visitors!)

Definition

Kìa, as a pronoun, is used at the beginning or the end of the sentence to indicate a thing far from the speaker that can be seen. At the same time, it draws the attention of the listener to that thing.

  • Kìa belongs to the system of demonstrative nouns: này, nọ, kia, ấy, đấy, đó. These words are distinguished from each other by distance (far / near), visibility (can be seen / can't be seen), and level (concrete / abstract) of the thing mentioned in relation to the position of the speaker and the listener. Cf. ấy1 (p. 11), đây1 (p. 123), đấy1 (p. 131).