Tất cả (Pro)

Situations

S1: Students are visiting the Củ Chi tunnels.

Tất cả sẽ đi.
(They are all going.)

Tất cả refers to all students in the class.

S2: Mai chooses 3 shirts in a store.

Tôi mua tất cả.
(I will buy all of them.)

Tất cả refers to the 3 shirts she chose.

Definition

Tất cả, as a pronoun, refers to all units of a group or class. It can be used as the subject or object of a sentence.

  • tất cả and cả: Tất cả refers to every individual unit of a group, whereas cả indicates the complete group considered as a single unit. Cả cannot be used as the subject of a sentence.
[1] Tất cả / *Cả sẽ đi. (Everyone will go.)
[2a] Tôi mua tất cả. (I buy every loaf of bread individually.)
[2b] Tôi mua cả. (I buy the whole basket as one unit.)

Cf. cả (p. 23).