Cả (Adj.)

Situations

S1: Tomorrow, Mầm Non school will go to Vũng Tàu, everybody will go.

Ngày mai, cả trường đi Vũng Tàu.
(Tomorrow, the whole school will go to Vũng Tàu.)

In this situation, trường is considered as a unit (though it is a group of many parts, like teachers, schoolchildren, office employees). So it can go with the adjective cả.

S2: Bình was on the street when it suddenly rained. He was wet from head to toe.

Bình bị ướt cả người.
(Bình is all wet / soaked all over / wet to the skin.)

Người here is considered as a unit (the body), so it can be combined with cả.

Definition

Cả, as an adjective, is placed before unit nouns (such as chiếc, quyển, nước, tỉnh, etc.) to indicate the whole of the unit.

  • Cả and tất cả are both used to indicate the whole of a unit / a group, but they have different nuances. Cf. tất cả (p. 355).

  • Cả and toàn: Toàn is also used to indicate all of the parts of a group. Furthermore, toàn means of the same nature, not a mixture of different kinds of things. Toàn and cả can be interchanged in some situations but not all. Cf:

[1] Toàn / Cả khu vực này bị cúp điện.
(There is no electricity in this whole area.)
[2] Cả / *Toàn nhà nó bị ngộ độc thức ăn.
(His whole family got food poisoning.)

Cf. toàn (p. 377).

  • Toàn bộ, toàn thể, etc. also used to indicate all of the parts, all of the members of a group; but when they are combined with nouns, they imply a subtle difference: cả can go only with unit nouns, whereas toàn bộ can go not only with unit nouns but also with nouns of general meaning, such as cuộc đời (life), quyển sách (book)....

  • Toàn thể goes with unit nouns of at least two syllables (usually referring to people) such as giáo viên, bác sĩ, dân tộc. Cf:

[3] Cả / *Toàn bộ / *Toàn thể nhà đi vắng.
(The whole family is out.)

(Nhà, a monosyllabic word, here is considered as one unit.)

[4] Cả / Toàn thể / Toàn bộ công ty được nghỉ 3 ngày.
(The whole company has a three-day holiday.)

(Công ty is understood as one unit or one group.)

[5] Tôi đã đọc cả / toàn bộ / *toàn thể quyển sách ấy rồi.
(I read that whole book.)

(Quyển sách is a noun phrase that consists of two syllables, in which quyển is a unit noun.)