An item is unavailable. That could mean the shop has run out of it, the shop never sells it, or only the requested color is unavailable. A useful question should distinguish those possibilities instead of treating every negative answer as the same “no.”
For ordinary availability contexts, còn points to what remains or is still available. Hết points to exhaustion: the relevant stock, amount or time has run out. The phrase around the word establishes what is being counted. Hearing hết is a reason to identify that scope before abandoning every alternative.
All inventories and exchanges in this article are constructed examples. They make no claim about a real shop, event, price or restocking schedule. They illustrate general Vietnamese rather than a Southern-exclusive rule.
Ask about remaining stock, not just existence
Ở đây có bút màu không? Are there colored pens here?
Ở đây còn bút màu không? Are there still any colored pens available here?
The second question makes remaining availability relevant. It fits a situation where the item may have been available and you want to know whether some are left. The first is broader: it simply asks about the presence of colored pens.
A reply can give more than a polarity:
Còn hai cái. There are two left.
This short sentence omits the pen noun because it is already the topic. With several items under discussion, say the item again: Bút màu còn hai cái (“There are two colored pens left”). Keeping the topic clear matters more than squeezing every reply down to one word.
Hết can apply to one option
A fictional stationery shelf has blue pens but no red pens:
Customer: Còn bút đỏ không? Are any red pens left?
Assistant: Bút đỏ hết rồi. Còn bút xanh lam. The red pens have run out. There are blue pens left.
The assistant has exhausted one set, red pens. They have not said that every pen or every product is unavailable. A teaching example in PNE’s elementary shopping lesson similarly distinguishes an exhausted color/size option from a remaining option. The shelf here and its wording are original.
You can make the remaining quantity explicit: Bút xanh lam còn hai cái. The useful learning unit is the whole noun-plus-quantity relationship. Còn alone cannot tell you whether the remaining option meets your needs.
“We don’t sell it” says something different
Ở đây không bán bút màu. We don’t sell colored pens here.
Bút màu hết rồi. The colored pens have run out.
The first denies that selling activity at this place. The second reports exhaustion of the relevant stock. PNE’s shopping communication lesson separates “not sold here” from “out of stock.”
Neither answer tells you when an item will be available again. Hết rồi does not promise restocking tomorrow. If that matters, it requires another question or explicit information from the seller. For this lesson, do not fill the missing future fact with a hopeful translation.
Remaining time uses the same boundary idea
An invented craft session has ten minutes left:
Còn mười phút. There are ten minutes left.
When its allotted time ends:
Hết giờ rồi. Time is up.
PNE’s classroom expressions document this remaining-time versus exhausted-time contrast. “Time is up” states the boundary; it does not by itself specify every rule for what someone must do next.
Do not confuse hết with every kind of finishing. In Tôi đọc hết cuốn sách (“I read the entire book”), hết follows the action and concerns the whole amount. Xong emphasizes finishing a task. TUFS treats both postverbal expressions. The object and construction still matter.
An original availability ledger
Use only these invented facts:
- Blue pens: two remaining
- Red pens: zero remaining after earlier availability
- Notebooks: three remaining
- Paintbrushes: this stall does not sell them
- Craft-session time: ten minutes remaining
Exercise: answer without adding a promise
- Còn bút xanh lam không?
- Còn bút đỏ không?
- Còn mấy cuốn vở?
- Ở đây có bán cọ không?
- Còn bao nhiêu phút?
- A customer concludes from answer 2 that there are no pens of any color. Is that conclusion supported by the ledger?
Answers and scope
- Còn hai cái. Two blue pens remain; the question supplies the color.
- Bút đỏ hết rồi. The red-pen stock is exhausted.
- Còn ba cuốn. Three notebooks remain; cuốn keeps the counted unit clear.
- Ở đây không bán cọ. This is a not-carried item, not an exhausted stock line.
- Còn mười phút. The remaining amount is time.
- No. Còn bút xanh lam (“There are blue pens left”) corrects the overbroad conclusion.
The ledger helps you practice a precise habit: repeat the set that has run out, the set that remains and any quantity you actually know. Leave the rest open until the conversation supplies it.