Mà (Conj 2)

Situations

S1: Lan's father suggests going to Ngọc Sương restaurant, but Lan suggests another one:

Sao mình không đi nhà hàng Cánh Buồm đi? Ở đó ngon mà rẻ lắm.
(Why don't we go to Cánh Buồm? It's good and it's very cheap.)

Here, rẻ adds to the quality of the restaurant being ngon (good).

S2: After eating at Cánh Buồm, the mother complained:

Nhà hàng này ngon mà mắc quá!
(The food in this restaurant is delicious; however, it is too expensive!)

Typically, if something is good, it is expensive. Unlike mà1, this mà does not express a reality contrary to logic; it indicates an additional quality. Therefore, we can say both ngon mà rẻ and ngon mà mắc.

Definition

Mà, as a conjunction, is used to indicate an additional quality or an addition to what has been suggested or supposed.

  • mà and nhưng: In S1, we cannot say ngon nhưng rẻ because rẻ expresses an additional quality, not a contrast. In S2, mà (additional) can be replaced with nhưng (contrastive). In spoken Vietnamese, mà in S2 is usually replaced with nhưng mà.

  • mà and lại / mà lại: In S1, mà can be replaced with lại / mà lại. It does not express a reality contrary to logic but carries the meaning of an additional quality. Lại is not used to replace mà in S2. Cf. lại2 (p. 183).