Everyday Spoken Burmese
Everyday Spoken Burmese is for those seriously learning to understand and speak Burmese in a short time. It covers the most fundamental building blocks of the colloquial Myanmar Language.
Burmese language has parts of speech known as particles and post-positional markers which play critical roles in sentence structures. Heavy emphasis is placed on those words. Color-coding is used to make grammar study easier. Explanation is concise. Words are carefully selected for completeness. One cannot fully understand Burmese until those words are understood.
Download Everyday Spoken Burmese in PDF format.
Revision: E
Date: 2021-01-17
File Size: 2,145 KB
Number of Pages: 112
# ↑↓ | ENGLISH ↑↓ | BURMESE ↑↓ | ROMANIZE ↑↓ |
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1 | Confirmation word | တယ် | deare2 |
2 | Question word | လား | la3 |
3 | Intention | မယ် | meare2 |
4 | Question | မလား | ma1-la3 |
5 | Expectation | လိမ့်မယ် | lain1 meare2 |
6 | About to happen | တော့မယ် | dau1 meare2 |
7 | Do this now | တော့ | dau1 |
8 | Negative pair | မ -- ဘူး | ma1-xxxx bu3 |
9 | No longer | မ--တော့ဘူး | ma1-xxxx dau1 bu3 |
10 | Do you still want to | ဦးမလား | ome3 ma1-la3 |
11 | Making a suggestion with polite | ပါ | ba2 |
12 | Don't | မ -- နဲ့ | ma1-xxxx neare1 |
13 | With | နဲ့ | neare1 |
14 | Pronouns | နာမ်စား | nun2-za3 |
15 | This | ဒါ | da2 |
16 | Here | ဒီမှာ | de2 hma2 |
17 | Already | ပြီ | byi2 |
18 | Still | သေးတယ် | thay3 deare2 |
19 | Not yet | မ---သေးဘူး | ma1-xxxx thay3-bu3 |
20 | Plurals | ဗဟုဝုစ်ကိန်း | ba1-hu1-woat-kain3 |
21 | Concern words | ရဲ့လား | yeare1 la3 |
22 | Possessive | ရဲ့ | yeare1 |
23 | Only if you are sure | မှ | hma1 |
24 | Conditional if | ရင် | yin2 |
25 | In that case | ဆိုရင် | hso2-yin2 |
26 | If this is the case | ဒါဖြင့် | da2-pfyin1 |
27 | But | ဒါပေမဲ့ | da2-bay2-meare1 |
28 | Do this first | အရင် | a-yin2 |
29 | Pre-requisite | မ --- ခင် | ma1-xxxx khin2 |
30 | Without | မ -- ဘဲ | ma1-xxxx beare3 |
31 | A sure request | ခဲ့ပါ | kheare1 ba2 |
32 | A promise | ခဲ့မယ် | kheare1 meare2 |
33 | Have just done | ခဲ့တယ် | kheare1 deare2 |
34 | Experienced before | ဖူးတယ် | pfu3 deare2 |
35 | Even (I/him/this) | တောင် | doun2 |
36 | Present Participle | နေတယ် | nay2 deare2 |
37 | Middle of something | နေတုန်း | nay2 dome3 |
38 | The continuity | ထား | hta3 |
39 | Only and exactly this | ပဲ | beare3 |
40 | Only and just him | သာ | dtha2 |
41 | Want word | ချင် | chin2 |
42 | Of course | တာပေါ့ | da2 bau1 |
43 | Whatever | တာ | da2 |
44 | Extreme degree | လိုက်တာ | lite da2 |
45 | Better than expected | သားပဲ | dtha3 beare3 |
46 | A positive statement | တာပဲ | da2 beare3 |
47 | Question Words | ဘာ - လဲ | ba2 xxx leare3 |
48 | Question Words | ဘယ်- လဲ | beare2 leare3 |
49 | Question Word | တုံး | dome3 |
50 | May this happen | ပါစေ | ba2 zay2 |
51 | Please let me | ပါရစေ | ba1-ya1 zay2 |
52 | Unexpected | ပါလား | ba2 la3 |
53 | Look- try and see - with care | ကြည့် | kji1 |
54 | Experience or asking for intention | လို့ | lo1 |
55 | Multiple meanings | လိုက် | lite |
56 | Let's do something | စို့ | zo1 |
57 | Let's try something | ရအောင် | ya1 oun2 |
58 | Possibility or Possession | ရ | ya1 |
59 | In order to | အောင် | oun2 |
60 | He says xxxx | တဲ့ | deare1 |
61 | What are you waiting for? xxxx | လေ | lay2 |
62 | Very | သိပ် | thate |
63 | Can /possible/ capable | နိုင် | nine2 |
64 | Still possible | နိုင်သေး | nine2 dthay3 |
65 | No longer possible | မ -- နိုင်တော့ဘူး | ma1- --- nine2 dau1 bu3 |
66 | Do something first | နှင့် | hnin1 |
67 | Location indicator in/on/at | မှာ | hma2 |
68 | Skill and Knowledge | တတ် | tut |
69 | Has done the act of | သွား | thwa3 |
70 | From where or the subject is | က | ga1 |
71 | To | ကို | go2 |
72 | Direction to or from a person | ဆီ | hsi2 |
73 | Do something for someone | ပေး | pay3 |
74 | Every | တိုင်း | dine3 |
75 | Without a care or concern | ပစ် | pyit |
76 | Mistakenly or by chance | မိ | mi1 |
77 | Seldom | ခဲ | kheare3 |
78 | Also / too | လည်း | leare3 |
79 | Also | ကော | gau3 |
80 | Completion of action | ပြီး | pyi3 |
81 | Simultaneous activities | ရင်း | yin3 |
82 | Something happens while | တုန်း | dome3 |
83 | Because | ကြောင့် | joun1 |
84 | Becoming | လာ | la2 |
85 | As | လို | lo2 |
86 | Something like | လိုလို | lo2-lo2 |
87 | Same | တူ | tu2 |
88 | Exactly like | အတိုင်း | a-tine3 |
89 | Almost / nearly | နီးပါး | ni3-ba3 |
90 | Near | နား | na3 |
91 | Exact amount | တိတိ | ti1-de1 |
92 | Perfect fit | ကွက်တိ | kwet-ti1 |
93 | Just right | အနေတော် | a-nay2-dau2 |
94 | More than | ထက် | htet |
95 | Over | ကျော် | kjau2 |
96 | Approximately | လောက် | lout |
97 | Until | အထိ | a-hti1 |
98 | For | အတွက် | a-twet |
99 | For | ဖို့ | pfo1 |
100 | Dare to | ရဲ | yeare3 |
101 | Stay behind / left behind | ရစ် | yit |
102 | Fully satisfied | ဝ | wa1 |
103 | Each | စီ | si2 |
104 | All | လုံး | lone3 |
105 | Earlier time | တုန်းက | dome3-ga1 |
106 | Since that time | ကတည်းက | ga1-deare3-ga1 |
Confirmation word တယ် | deare2
This ending postpositional marker indicates that something is positive and agreeable, or simply states something "is" what it is in the present state described by the adjective. It describes what you experience with the five senses and what you feel and think.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
ဟုတ်တယ် | hote deare2 | Yes (correct) |
ပူတယ် | pu2 deare2 | It's hot. |
လှတယ် | hla1 deare2 | You're pretty. |
Question word လား | la3
This ending particle word is a simple question mark.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
ပူလား | pu2 la3 | Is it hot? |
ပူတယ် | pu2 deare2 | Yes. |
Intention မယ် | meare2
The activity indicated by the verb is going to happen in the near future. There is intention to do something.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
သွားမယ် | thwa3 meare2 | I'm about to go. Good bye! |
ယူမယ် | yu2 meare2 | I will take it. I intend to take it. |
Question မလား | ma1-la3
Asking for intention described by the verb. The word မ | ma1 before the question mark လား | la3 is a short spoken sound of မယ် | meare2.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
ယူမလား | yu2 ma1-la3 | Do you want it? Do you intend to take it? |
ယူမယ် | yu2 meare2 | Yes. |
Expectation လိမ့်မယ် | lain1 meare2
The event indicated by the verb is going to happen in the near future, but one has no control over it. There is expectation or anticipation, not intention like မယ် | meare2.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
ဧည့်သည်လာလိမ့်မယ် | eare1-theare2 la2 lain1 meare2 | Visitors will be here anytime soon. la2 = to come |
မိုးရွာလိမ့်မယ် | mo3-ywa2 lain1 meare2 | It's going to rain. |
About to happen တော့မယ် | dau1 meare2
တော့ | dau1 is a verb-suffix particle to indicate that the action is imminent or about to happen in the near future.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
စားတော့မယ် | sa3 dau1 meare2 | I am about to eat. |
စားတော့မလား | sa3 dau1 ma1-la3 | Are you going to eat now? |
စားတော့မယ် | sa3 dau1 meare2 | Yes. |
သွားတော့မယ် | thwa3 dau1 meare2 | I am about to go. |
သွားတော့မလား | thwa3 dau1 ma1-la3 | Are you about to go? |
သွားတော့မယ် | thwa3 dau1 meare2 | Yes. |
Do this now တော့ | dau1
တော့ | dau1 without မယ် | meare2 is a persuasion or an advice to do something immediately.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
သွားတော့ | thwa3 dau1 | Go now. It's time. |
အိပ်တော့ | ate dau1 | Sleep now. It's time. |
တော့ | dau1 can also be used as an emphasis between two repeating verbs or adjectives. But, there is unmentioned negative side to it.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
တော်တော့တော်ပါတယ် | tau2 dau1 tau2 ba2 deare2 | (She) is bright alright. |
ကောင်းတော့ကောင်းပါတယ် | koun3 dau1 koun3 ba2 deare2 | It's good, but...(expensive, etc.) |
Negative pair မ -- ဘူး | ma1-xxxx bu3
This is how you say "no" in Burmese.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
မလိုဘူး | ma1-lo2 bu3 | No need. I don't need it. |
မကြိုက်ဘူး | ma1-kjite bu3 | I don't like it. |
ကြိုက်လား | kjite la3 | Do you like it? |
မကြိုက်ဘူး | ma1-kjite bu3 | No. |
ကြိုက်တယ် | kjite deare2 | Yes. |
ဝယ်မယ် | weare2 meare2 | I will buy it. |
ပူလား | pu2 la3 | Is it hot? |
မပူဘူး | ma1-pu2 bu3 | No. |
ပူတယ် | pu2 deare2 | Yes. |
No longer မ--တော့ဘူး | ma1-xxxx dau1 bu3
Immediate plan has changed if immediate action before တော့ | dau1 is combined with negative pair မ -- ဘူး | ma1 xxxx bu3.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
မစားတော့ဘူး | ma1-sa3 dau1 bu3 | I am not eating anymore. |
မသွားတော့ဘူး | ma1-thwa3 dau1 bu3 | I am not going anymore. |
မလိုတော့ဘူး | ma1-lo2 dau1 bu3 | I don't need it anymore. |
Do you still want to ဦးမလား | ome3 ma1-la3
The person asking the question expects somewhat a negative answer.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
စားဦးမလား | sa3 ome3 ma1-la3 | Do you still want to eat it? |
မစားတော့ဘူး | ma1-sa3 dau1 bu3 | No. (no longer) |
စားဦးမယ် | sa3 ome3 meare2 | Yes. (still) |
Making a suggestion with polite ပါ | ba2
This polite word softens the tone.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
စား | sa3 | Eat! |
စားပါ | sa3 ba2 | Please eat! |
စားပါဦး | sa3 ba2 ome3 | Won't you please eat? |
စားပါဦး အဘ | sa3 ba2 ome3 a-ba1 | Won't you please eat, Grandpa? |
Don't မ -- နဲ့ | ma1-xxxx neare1
Someone is telling you not to do something. Polite ပါ | ba2 softens the tone from ordering tone to a suggestion to prevent something unpleasant.
AUDIO | Romanization | English |
---|---|---|
မစားနဲ့ | ma1-sa3 neare1 | Don't eat that. |
မစားပါနဲ့ | ma1-sa3 ba2 neare1 | Please don't eat that. |
မစားပါနဲ့ ဦးလေး | ma1-sa3 ba2 neare1 u3-lay3 | Please don't eat that, Uncle. |
Color Codes: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, particles, postpositional markers, interjections.