Employing descriptive approach and qualitative analysis, this paper focuses on comparing Vietnamese generic sentences with English ones in order to look for similarities and differences in the ways each of the languages chooses to express the meaning of their generic sentences. The comparison indicates that there is no exact equivalence between their three types of generic sentences. Specifically, both Vietnamese and English have generic sentences beginning with a [+definite] article; but Vietnamese has no single article which can be considered as an exact equivalent of <i>the</i> — the sole [+definite] article which goes with a variety of English nouns: respectively preceding a [+singular count] noun, a [+singular group] noun, and a [+plural count] noun, <i>the</i> is equivalent to the<i> zero</i> article, <i>các </i>— the [+definite], [+plural count] article, and <i>những</i> — the [+indefinite], [+plural count] quantifier in Vietnamese. Both Vietnamese and English have generic sentences beginning with the <i>zero</i> article; but the <i>zero</i> article in Vietnamese is [+definite] while the <i>zero</i> article in English is always [+indefinite]. The <i>zero</i> article is also prominent because it witnesses the fact that universalism and uniqueness operate quite well in the two natural languages in question. The universal<i> </i>is shown by their generic sentences’ identical internal structure, which is the topic/subject noun phrase always beginning with a certain kind of article plus the frequent [+stative] verb in the comment/predicate verb phrase. The unique asserts that each of the two languages is beautiful in its own way and deserves the patience and understanding of any language user, native and non-native. Except for the existence of the<i> </i>Vietnamese <i>classifier</i>, the first type of generic sentences including only those beginning with an [+indefinite], [+singular] article, which is <i>một</i> in Vietnamese or <i>a(n)</i> in English, exemplifies the similarities between the two languages; their differences lie in the other two types. Interchangeability among the three types of generic sentences is determined by the characteristics of their subject/topic noun phrase or the meaning of their predicate/comment verb phrase.