"Chúng tôi là con người."

Translation: We are human.

[AnCatDubh]

I’m confused. Why does this need a classifier? Or, alternatively, why is there no plural marker?

[Sylvia_Nguyen]

The way I interpret it, "chúng tôi là con người" = "we are human" whereas "chúng tôi là người" = "we are people".

[AnCatDubh]

In this case, shouldn’t the classifier be redundant?

[Sylvia_Nguyen]

I find Vietnamese to be funny like that. Adding or removing key words may or may not make a huge difference in meaning.

In this case (and also my opinion), it's not redundant because "con ngườI" and "ngườI" are distinct words that are related but have different uses. Very much how "human" and "people" are related but have different meanings in English.

I never think classifiers to be redundant though. One could say "tôi có gà ở nhà" and you may understand them because you knew the context of the conversation. From the outside, it could either mean "I have chicken at home" or "I have chickens at home". In Vietnamese, it's just more natural to have classifiers anyway: "tôi có thịt gà ở nhà" versus "tôi có con gà ở nhà".

Sorry I tend to make long posts. I'm not a strong writer, but I try to do my best to make it digestible. Hope that helps!

[KirynSilverwing]

I think the classifiers are very important. Using the animal classifier when referring to humans is a very logical approach.

[Mu6OVm]

As "con" means also son/daughter I guess the classifier applies to things that are born.

Which is even more logical and poetic.

I find interesting that the classifier applies even to ghosts "con ma".

[Komerinam]

Yes we are!

[SmartLatios]

Is "We are the humans" wrong?

[Mu6OVm]

To say "the humans" you will need the plural word.

[BoxcarAndy]

and we need to be loved, just like everybody else does.

[Mu6OVm]

Và chúng tôi cần yêu được, như mọi ai khác.

(I don't know if the above is correct, I just tried)