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Common English Words and Expressions in Burmese

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File: lesson2b-summary.zip
Revision: B
Date: 2019-10-08
File Size: 1.23 MB

What's in the Zipped file?

  • Short versions of more than 60 Audio files.
  • A summary text file with audio file names in English, Burmese script and Romanization.
  • A CSV file of the above text file that can be opened with most spreadsheet programs.
  • An Excel spreadsheet of the above text file for easy sorting.

In Revision B, romanization of some words are modified to be closer to the actual spoken sounds and to be consistent with Myanmar English Dictionary.

The first part of lesson 2 is about greetings, basic expressions, questions and answers in Burmese. This second part addresses common English words and how to say those in Burmese. Those one-liners and ice-breakers make lively conversation in English. There is something to take note. Due to culture differences, what is common in English may not necessarily be common in Burmese, and a common phrase in English may even sound odd when directly translated into Burmese.

Still, the need to express feelings are common although people in different cultures use different words. You feel happy. You feel sorry. You feel angry. You like something. You don't like something. You want something. You don't want something. You want to do something. You don't want to do something. You agree. You disagree. Those basic human feelings are common despite different words to express those. When I can't find words for direct translation, I will fall back to the intention and feeling behind the spoken words to find the Burmese equivalent.

Conversation in Burmese

Words & Phrases

Common English words and expressions are depicted in a storyline where new words are associated with the story for better memory retention. Human memory performs better in storing and recalling of a story that makes sense than random words of the same Megabytes. New words will have meaning when they find the right places to "hook". Sortable list below is for overview and for self-test afterwards.

# ↑↓ Words / Phrases ↑↓
1Absolutely!
2all
3and
4any
5Are you comfortable?
6at
7Awesome!
8call
9can
10Certainly.
11Cool!
12Could you do something for me?
13Definitely!
14Don't bother.
15Don't worry.
16Fantastic!
17few
18for
19Great!
20have/don't have
21have/have never
22Have a good one!
23Have a nice day!
24How come?
25I can't believe this is happening!
26I don't know.
27I have no idea.
28I know.
29I love it!
30I see.
31I understand.
32I wish
33I'll think about it.
34in
35Is that so?
36It doesn't matter.
37May I?
38Maybe
39most
40Never mind.
41Nice day, isn't it?
42No Kidding.
43No problem.
44No way.
45Not bad.
46occasionally
47Of course!
48Of course not!
49OK!
50on
51once in a while
52Perhaps
53Piece of Cake.
54Really?
55She's hot.
56some
57sometimes
58Sure.
59take
60That's right.
61This cannot be happening.
62to
63Unbelievable!
64What do you expect?
65What do you think?
66will
67with
68Yes.
69Your guess is as good as mine.

Yes / That's right

Traffic jam is getting worse, lately.

ဟုတ် | hote - to be true (verb)

တယ် | deare2 - affirmative ending word (postpositional marker)

ဟုတ်တယ် | hote deare2 - That's right.

of course / I understand

That's why I'm fed up with driving everyday.

ဟုတ် | hote - to be true (verb)

တာ | da2 - modifies the verb to noun: something true (particle)

ပေါ့ | bau1 - ending word to show the way things are (particle)

ဟုတ်တာပေါ့ | hote da2 bau1 - Of course!

for

ဦးလေးတင် | u3-lay3 tin2 - Uncle Tin (noun)

အတွက် | a-twet - for (postpositional marker)

လက်ဆောင် | let-hsoun2 - present (noun)

ဦးလေးတင် အတွက် လက်ဆောင် | u3-lay3 tin2 a-twet let-hsoun2 - Present for Uncle Tin

OK / certainly / sure

Oh, thank you very much. How about some drinks? Do you guys drink wine?

| ya1 - to be permitted (verb)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

တယ် | deare2 - affirmative ending word (postpositional marker)

ရပါတယ် | ya1 ba2 deare2 - Sure.

May I?

I can't open this bottle. Let me try.

ကျွန်တော် (ကျွန်မ) | kja1-nau2 (kja1-ma1) - I (I, female term) (pronoun)

စမ်း | sun3 - try (verb)

ကြည့် | kji1 - try and see (verb suffix particle)

မယ် | meare2 - will (colloquial postpositional marker)

ကျွန်တော် စမ်းကြည့်မယ် | kja1-nau2 sun3 kji1 meare2 - May I?

Use kja1-ma1 if you are female.

Piece of Cake

Push down two sides like this and pull the cork up. It's quite easy.

လွယ် | lweare2 - easy (adjective)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

တယ် | deare2 - ending affirmation word (colloquial postpositional marker)

လွယ်ပါတယ် | lweare2 ba2 deare2 - Piece of cake!

absolutely / definitely

Strongly agree to what someone just said.

ဟုတ် | hote - to be true (verb)

ပါ့ | pa1 - colloquial emphasis word (particle)

ဟုတ်ပါ့ ဟုတ်ပါ့ | hote pa1 .. hote pa1 - Absolutely!

Doubling makes it stronger.

I love it

How's Ayetharyar Wine? Do you like it? It's from Taunggyi area near Inle Lake.

ကြိုက် | kjite - to like something (verb)

တယ် | deare2 - ending affirmation word (colloquial postpositional marker)

ကြိုက်တယ် | kjite deare2 - I love it.

That's the answer to the question: ကြိုက်လား | kjite la3 - Do you like it?

Not bad!

Not bad, huh?

| ma1 - negation prefix (particle)

ဆိုး | hso3 - bad (adjective)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

ဘူး | bu3 - negative ending word (particle)

မဆိုးပါဘူး | ma1-hso3 ba2 bu3 - Not bad!

Of course not!

I heard you drink everyday.

ဘယ် | beare2 - how can? which way? (adjective)

ဟုတ် | hote - to be true (verb)

ပါ့ | pa1 - emphasis to agree on the verb (particle)

| ma1 - negate the verb (particle)

လဲ | leare3 - ending question mark (particle)

ဘယ်ဟုတ်ပါ့မလဲ | beare2 hote pa1 ma1-leare3 - Of course not!

Sometimes / Occasionally / Once in a while

Once a week? Once a month?"

တစ်ခါတလေ | ta1-kha2 ta1-lay2 - Once in a while (adverb)

မှ | hma1 - only when (conjunction)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

တစ်ခါတလေမှပါ | ta1-kha2 ta1-lay2 hma1 ba2 - Only once in a while.

No problem / It doesn't matter

Oops, I spilled some wine on your book.

ကိစ္စ | kate-sa1 - business; issue (noun)

| ma1 - negation prefix (particle)

ရှိ | shi1 - have; to be present (verb)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

ဘူး | bu3 - negative ending word (particle)

ကိစ္စမရှိပါဘူး | kate-sa1 ma1-shi1 ba2 bu3 - No problem!

Never mind / Don't bother

There, I wiped the photo album with the tissue. The table is still wet. Bring some more napkins.

နေ | nay2 - situation to stay as it is (verb)

ပါစေ | ba2-zay2 - a sense of letting go and let it be (postpositional marker)

တော့ | dau1 - "about time for this to happen" ending words (particle)

နေပါစေတော့ | nay2 ba2-zay2 dau1 - Never mind!

Cool / Awesome / Fantastic

When did you take that photo? Wow! Take a look at that car!

မိုက် | mite - foolish; stupid (adjective)

တယ် | deare2 - ending affirmation word (colloquial postpositional marker)

ကွ | kwa1 - tone of excitement and enthusiasm (particle)

မိုက်တယ်ကွ | mite deare2 kwa1 - Cool!

mite is a slang word used by young people. What the older generation sees as foolish is seen as cool to the youngsters. There is no age-limit to this usage though. Let's watch what "cool" means.

How to say "Cool" in Burmese

Testing to see if I can get better video quality for my website. How do you say "cool" in Burmese.

Posted by Naing Tinnyuntpu on Sunday, April 17, 2016
Myanmar girls & Uranium dancer group

She's hot!

And, who is she?

ဟော့ | hau1 - sensational and exciting

တယ် | deare2 - ending affirmation word (colloquial postpositional marker)

ဟေ့ | hay1 - Hey (particle)

ဟော့တယ်ဟေ့ | hau1 deare2 hay1 - Hey, (she's) hot!

hau1 is the English slang word "hot" in the same sense used by the Burmese hip-hop generation. The last word hay1 can be omitted.

Hot

ဟော့ | hau1 is the English slang word "hot" in the same sense used by the Burmese hip-hop generation. Here is an example. Ha ha, yeah, right. Whatever.... I will say whatever to fit the clip to my free online storybook. [49 seconds]

Posted by Naing Tinnyuntpu on Thursday, May 5, 2016
Myanmar girls & Uranium dancer group

What do you think?

Let me see. I have no idea how that photo got in there. She looks like an actress or something.

ဘယ်လို | beare2 lo2 - how (colloquial adverb)

ထင် | htin2 - think (verb)

လဲ | leare3 - ending question mark (particle)

ဘယ်လိုထင်လဲ | beare2 lo2 htin2 leare3 - What do you think?

No way / This cannot be happening

Umm, now I remember. She was my teacher.

| ma1 - negation prefix (particle)

ဖြစ် | pfyit - to be; occur; happen (verb)

နိုင် | nine2 - probable (verb suffix particle)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

ဘူး | bu3 - negative ending word (particle)

မဖြစ်နိုင်ပါဘူး | ma1-pfyit nine2 ba2 bu3 - No way!

I see / Is that so?

That was long time ago, and she taught me a lot of things.

| au2 - surprise (interjection)

ဟုတ် | hote - to be true (verb)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

ဪ ဟုတ်လား | au2 hote la3 - Is that so?

and / with

ဒါ | da2 - this (pronoun)

ဘယ်သူ | beare2-dthu2 - who? [which + he/she] (adjective)

နဲ့ | neare1 - with (colloquial conjunction)

လဲ | leare3 - ending question mark (particle)

ဒါဘယ်သူနဲ့လဲ | da2 beare2-dthu2 neare1 leare3 - Who is that with you?

In Burmese, the conjunction "and" in "You and I" uses the same "with" word, i.e., နဲ့ | neare1

from

မလေးရှား | ma1-lay3-sha3 - Malaysia (noun)

က | ga1 - from (postpositional marker indicating place)

သူငယ်ချင်း | tha1-ngeare2-jin3 - friend (noun)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

မလေးရှားက သူငယ်ချင်းပါ | ma1-lay3-sha3 ga1 tha1-ngeare2-jin3 ba2 - A friend from Malaysia.

Your guess is as good as mine / I have no idea / I don't know

Yeah, I heard a lot about Malaysia in the News. Do you think they will have a new prime minister?

| ma1 - negation prefix to the verb (particle)

သိ | thi1 - to know (verb)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

ဘူး | bu3 - negative ending word (particle)

မသိပါဘူး | ma1-thi1 ba2 bu3 - I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine.

Unbelievable / I can't believe this is happening

Can you believe the situation they have? I thought things like that would never happen in Malaysia.

| ma1 - negation prefix (particle)

ယုံ | yone2 - believe; to trust (verb)

နိုင် | nine2 - probable; capable (verb suffix particle)

စရာ | za1-ya2 - converts the verb into noun: "something unbelievable" (particle)

ပဲ | beare3 - ending word to show the way things are (particle)

မယုံနိုင်စရာပဲ | ma1-yone2 nine2 za1-ya2 beare3 - Unbelievable, isn't it?

Don't worry

My eldest son is working there. I call him up often to see if he is OK.

| ma1 - negation prefix (particle)

ပူ | pu2 - be worry (verb)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

နဲ့ | neare1 - colloquial negative imperative ending word (particle)

မပူပါနဲ့ | ma1-pu2 ba2 neare1 - Don't worry.

Are you comfortable?

I'll bring some snacks. We don't have air-conditioner here. Do you want me to turn on the fan?

အဆင်ပြေ | a-hsin2-pyay2 - go without a hitch; be convenient (verb)

ကြ | ja1 - verb suffix reference to more than one person (particle)

ရဲ့ | yeare1 - show of concern (particle)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

အဆင်ပြေ ကြ ရဲ့လား | a-hsin2-pyay2 ja1 yeare1 la3 - Are you comfy?

Drop the word ကြ | ja1 if talking to just one person.

Nice day, isn't it?

No need. The weather is just nice.

ဒီနေ့ | de2 nay1 - today (noun)

သိပ် | thate - so; very (colloquial adverb)

| ma1 - negation prefix (particle)

ပူ | pu2 - warm weather; hot (adjective)

ဘူး | bu3 - negative ending word (particle)

ဒီနေ့သိပ်မပူဘူး | de2 nay1 thate ma1-pu2 bu3 - Nice day, isn't it?

In Myanmar, people don't usually talk about good warm weather with a lot of sunshine without blizzard condition. Not too hot is just nice.

to

Today's not bad. But, I feel like the weather in Yangon is warmer and warmer every year. It must be the effects of deforestation and global warming.

ပြင်ဦးလွင် | pyin2-u3-lwin2 - Pyin U Lwin formerly known as Maymyo (noun)

ကို | go2 - to (postpositional marker indicating destination)

လာ | la2 - come (verb)

လည် | leare2 - visit (verb)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

ပြင်ဦးလွင်ကိုလာလည်ပါလား | pyin2-u3-lwin2 go2 la2 leare2 ba2 la3 - Why don't you come visit Pyin U Lwin, then?

In English, "to" is not needed here.

have / have never

ရောက် | yout - reach (verb)

ဖူး | pfu3 (bu3) - verb suffix: done it before(particle)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

ရောက်ဖူးလား | yout pfu3 la3 - Have you been there?

Lit: have reached there previously? The particle suffix word ဖူး | pfu3 after the verb is not having something in possession. It roughly means "have experienced before" to whatever the verb before it.

Examples:

ရောက်ဖူးတယ် | yout pfu3 deare2 - I have been there. MP3 Audio File

စားဖူးတယ် | sa3 bu3 deare2 - I have tasted (eaten) that before. MP3 Audio File

သောက်ဖူးတယ် | thout pfu3 deare2 - I have tasted (drunk) that before. MP3 Audio File

ကြားဖူးတယ် | kja3 bu3 deare2 - I have heard about that before. MP3 Audio File

လုပ်ဖူးတယ် | loat pfu3 deare2 - I have done that before. MP3 Audio File

တွေ့ဖူးတယ် | tway1 bu3 deare2 - I have met someone (or seen something) before. MP3 Audio File

If you have never done or experienced something before, use this format:

မ xxxx ဖူးဘူး | ma1-xxxx pfu3 bu3

Example:

မရောက်ဖူးဘူး | ma1-yout pfu3 bu3 - I have never been there before. MP3 Audio File

Many of today's Myanmar hip hop generation singing stars start their careers early in their teenage years. Watch young Eint Chit | အိမ့်ချစ် | ain1 chit says တွေ့ဖူးတယ် | tway1 bu3 deare2"I have seen you before." The Force is strong with this sweet girl. She's gifted. It's not the vocal alone or the look that make her special, and Coca Cola Myanmar Marketing Director Rommel P. Fuentebella must have known that, too. The expressive power of music flows naturally within her, so much so that the audience can no longer tell if she is acting, or if the lyrics in some of the songs that she wrote on her own are from her real life experience.

waiလျှံ | William was also in his teens as he does the rap in this clip. He also wrote this on his own, of course. The year was 2009. Although rapping alone is not so popular among the mainstream Myanmar music lovers, it becomes a force to be reckoned with when mixed with pop and instruments in hip hop style like this.

I have seen you before

Many of today's Myanmar hip hop generation singing stars start their careers early in their teenage years. Watch young Eint Chit | အိမ့်ချစ် | ain1 chit says တွေ့ဖူးတယ် | tway1 pfu3 deare2 -- "I have seen you before." The Force is strong with this sweet girl. She's gifted. It's not the vocal alone or the look that make her special, and Coca Cola Myanmar Marketing Director Rommel P. Fuentebella must have known that, too. The expressive power of music flows naturally within her, so much so that the audience can no longer tell if she is acting, or if the lyrics in many of the songs that she wrote on her own are from her real life experience. waiလျှံ | William was also in his teens as he does the rap in this clip. He also wrote this on his own, of course. The year was 2009. Although rapping alone is not so popular among the mainstream Myanmar music lovers, it becomes a force to be reckoned with when mixed with pop and instruments in hip hop style like this. [54 seconds]

Posted by Naing Tinnyuntpu on Sunday, June 5, 2016

have / don't have

အိမ် | ain2 - house (noun)

ရှိ | shi1 - have; be available (verb)

တယ် | deare2 - affirmative ending word (postpositional marker)

အိမ်ရှိတယ် | ain2 shi1 deare2 - I have a house.

The word ရှိ | shi1 means something in possession, as well as the presence or availability of something tangible. Unlike in English, this word cannot be used to express your headache, or about taking breakfast or having some kind of experience.

If you don't have something, use this format:

xxxx မရှိဘူး | xxxx ma1-shi1 bu3 - I don't have xxxx.

Example:

ပိုက်ဆံမရှိဘူး | pike-hsun2 ma1-shi1 bu3 - I don't have money. MP3 Audio File

No kidding / Really?

It's now a guest-house after renovation.

တကယ် | da1-geare2 - really (adverb)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

တကယ်လား | da1-geare2 la3 - No kidding!

in /at / on

မြို့ | myo1 - town (noun)

ထဲ | hteare3 - in; inside (postpositional marker)

မှာ | hma2 - at (postpositional marker indicating location)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

မြို့ထဲမှာလား | myo1 hteare3 hma2 la3 - In downtown?

Inside the town: မြို့ထဲ | myo1 hteare3 means downtown.

လမ်းမကြီး | lun3 ma1 ji3 - Highway (noun)

ပေါ် | pau2 - on (postpositional marker)

မှာ | hma2 - at (postpositional marker indicating location)

လမ်းမကြီးပေါ်မှာ | lun3 ma1 ji3 pau2 hma2 - On the main Highway.

ဒီ | de2 - this (pronoun)

မှာ | hma2 - at (postpositional marker)

ကြည့် | kji1 - look (verb)

ဒီမှာကြည့် | de2 hma2 kji1 - Take a look at this.

Pyin Oo Lwin Horse Cart

I wish

သွား | thwa3 - go (verb)

တော့ | dau1 - referring to "go"; as for (particle)

သွား | thwa3 - go (verb)

ချင် | chin2 - suffix "want" to the verb (particle)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

တယ် | deare2 - ending affirmation word (colloquial postpositional marker)

သွားတော့ သွားချင်ပါတယ် | thwa3 dau1 thwa3 chin2 ba2 deare2 - I wish I could go.

The word "wish" should not be directed translated in this context. The Burmese equivalent meaning is "I want to go, but something is holding me back", where သွားချင်တယ် | thwa3 chin2 deare2 means "I want to go". Polite ပါ | ba2 word makes the sentence less abrupt.

What do you expect?

What's stopping you? Don't you have the time?

ထုံးစံ | htone3-zun2 - custom; as usual (noun)

အတိုင်း | a-tine3 - as; like; similar to (particle)

ပဲ | beare3 - ending word to show the way things are (particle)

ထုံးစံအတိုင်းပဲ | htone3-zun2 a-tine3 beare3 - What do you expect?

As usual. Status quo. Nothing surprising. Those are equivalent in meaning to "What do you expect?"

How come?

Besides, I don't have the money.

ဟင် | hin2 (interjection to show puzzlement) - How come?

Simple Why? could be also used in place of "how come?" The interjection hin2 could do the same job to express your puzzlement.

take

Don't I need to fly to Mandalay first? How much is Yangon to Mandalay airfare now?

အဝေးပြေးကား | a-way3-pyay3 ka3 - Highway bus (noun)

စီး | si3 - ride (verb)

သွား | thwa3 - go (verb)

လို့ | lo1 - to take the action as mentioned (particle)

| ya1 - "can be done"; indication of capability or utility (particle)

တယ် | deare2 - affirmative ending word (postpositional marker)

အဝေးပြေးကား စီးသွားလို့ရတယ် | a-way3-pyay3 ka3 si3 thwa3 lo1 ya1 deare2 - You can take the highway bus.

ကင်မရာ | kin2-ma1-ra2 - Camera (noun)

ပါ | ba2 - also (particle denoting inclusion)

ယူ | yu2 - take (verb)

သွား | thwa3 - go (verb)

ကင်မရာပါယူသွား | kin2-ma1-ra2 ba2 yu2 thwa3 - Take camera with you, also.

In Burmese, "take" means physically taking something. You can also "take" a husband or a wife meaning to get married, as well as decide to "take" a child, which means to have a child. The word is ယူ | yu2. Unlike English, you don't "take" the bus that heavy with your hand. Neither can you "take" photo nor "take" care of anything abstract with the word ယူ | yu2, except to do something painstakingly by "taking" one's time.

[Added Note: That was before cellphones with high pixel cameras became more affordable in Myanmar.]

Great!

You can stay in my guest-house for free.

ဒါဆို | da2 hso2 - If you say so [this + say] (pronoun + verb)

ကောင်း | koun3 - good (adjective)

သား | dtha3 - emphasis: "I see" (particle)

ပဲ | beare3 - ending word to show the way things are (particle)

ဒါဆို ကောင်းသားပဲ | da2 hso2 koun3 dtha3 beare3 - Great!

give

It can be cold at night. Bring some warm clothing, too.

ဒါဆို | da2 hso2 - If you say so [this + say]

လိပ်စာ | late-sa2 - address (noun)

ပေး | pay3 - give (verb)

ဦး | ome3 - immediate or near future action suggested or hinted (particle)

ဒါဆိုလိပ်စာပေးဦး | da2 hso2 late-sa2 pay3 ome3 - Give me your address, then.

can

By the way, do you have a website for your guest-house? You should post some photos on the Internet.

ဝက်ဘ်ဆိုက် | wet-site - Website (noun)

ရေး | yay3 - write (verb)

တတ် | tut - modifies the verb to indicate capability; can; able to (particle)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

ဝက်ဘ်ဆိုက် ရေးတတ်လား | wet-site yay3 tut la3 - Can you write websites?

The word တတ် | tut after the verb is the "can" word to show knowledge, skill, and capability. E.g., ရေကူးတတ်တယ် | yay2-ku3 tut deare2 - I can swim.

will

It's my hobby since the days of Netscape browser and Geocities homepages.

ကျွန်တော် | kja1-nau2 - I [male term] (pronoun)

ရေး | yay3 - write (verb)

ပေး | pay3 - do something for or on behalf of someone (verb suffix particle)

မယ် | meare2 - will (colloquial postpositional marker)

ကျွန်တော်ရေးပေးမယ် | kja1-nau2 yay3 pay3 meare2 - I'll write one for you.

Use kja1-ma1 if you are female.

မယ် | meare2 is roughly equivalent to "will" to indicate future action in positive affirmative sense. It cannot be used in negative sense "will not" or as a question word "Will you".

any / few / some / most / all

Most hotels have at least a facebook page. But, how many of them have websites?

အကုန်နီးပါး | a-kone2 ni3-ba3 - most = [all + almost] (noun + particle)

ရှိ | shi1 - have (verb)

ကြ | ja1 - refers to more than one (particle)

တယ် | deare2 - affirmative ending word (postpositional marker)

အကုန်နီးပါး ရှိကြတယ် | a-kone2 ni3-ba3 shi1 ja1 deare2 - Most of them do.

How do you say "all" instead of "most"? The word "most" is "all" + "almost". So, just drop "almost" from the sentence.

အကုန် ရှိကြတယ် | a-kone2 shi1 ja1 deare2 - All of them do.

The word for "all" is အကုန် | a-kone2. So, when someone tells you အကုန်စား | a-kone2 sa3, he is telling you to eat all.

တချို့ | ta1-cho1 - some (pronoun)

အတော် | a-tau2 - quite (adverb)

ကောင်း | koun3 - good (particle)

တယ် | deare2 - affirmative ending word (postpositional marker)

တချို့ အတော် ကောင်းတယ် | ta1-cho1 a-tau2 koun3 deare2 - Some are quite good.

တည်းခိုခန်း | teare3-kho2 gun3 - Guest-house (noun) [to lodge + room]

တွေ | dway2 - plural to the noun (particle)

နည်း | neare3 - few (adjective)

သေး | thay3 - suffix for events that happened, still happening or will happen (particle)

တယ် | deare2 - affirmative ending word (postpositional marker)

တည်းခိုခန်းတွေ နည်းသေးတယ် | teare3-kho2-gun3 dway2 neare3 thay3 deare2 - Guest-houses are still few.

ကောင်း | koun3 - good (adjective)

တာ | da2 - converts good to noun: "something good" (particle)

ရှိ | shi1 - have (verb)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

ကောင်းတာရှိလား | koun3 da2 shi1 la3 - Any good one?

There is no word "any" in the above question, but ရှိလား | shi1 la3 is the same as asking if there is any.

Could you do something for me?

Let me turn on the wi-fi and Internet. I'll show you some.

ဒါမျိုး | da2 myo2 - this kind (pronoun + noun)

ရေး | yay3 - write (verb)

ပေး | pay3 - do something for or on behalf of someone (verb suffix particle)

နိုင် | nine2 - probable; capable (verb suffix particle)

| ma1 - colloquial question word: will (postpositional marker)

လား | la3 - ending question mark (particle)

ဒါမျိုး ရေးပေးနိုင်မလား | da2 myo2 yay3 pay3 nine2 ma1-la3 - Could you write something like this for me?

xxxx ပေးနိုင်မလား | xxxx pay3 nine2 ma1-la3 is the format for this kind of request where you can replace xxxx with your choice of verb such as drive, buy, pull, watch, do, repair, etc..

Refer to lesson 7 for list of verbs.

Maybe / perhaps / I'll think about it

Anyway, I am in town since Friday so we just drop by to say hello. Are you really coming to Pyin Oo Lwin?

စဉ်းစား | sin3-za3 - think (verb)

လိုက် | lite - emphasis to verb (particle)

ဦး | ome3 - first of all (particle)

မယ် | meare2 - will (colloquial postpositional marker)

စဉ်းစားလိုက်ဦးမယ် | sin3-za3 lite ome3 meare2 - I'll think about it

လာ | la2 - come (verb)

ချင် | chin2 - want (particle)

လာ | la2 - come (verb)

ခဲ့ | kheare1 - suffix to show something definite and concrete (particle)

မယ် | meare2 - will (colloquial postpositional marker)

လာချင်လာခဲ့မယ် | la2 chin2 la2 kheare1 meare2 - Maybe I'll go, after all.

In English, it sounds a bit better to use "go" from here than "come". The Burmese sentence above is from the perspective of the receiving party over there.

xxxx ချင် xxxx မယ် | xxxx chin2 xxxx meare2 with the repeat of the verb indicates that perhaps something will happen. Question: Is it going to rain? Answer: ရွာချင်ရွာမယ် | ywa2 chin2 ywa2 meare2 - Maybe/ Perhaps.

I know

Well, we've got to be going. The traffic jam is terrible. I'm afraid my wife will get mad if we don't get back on time.

သိ | thi1 - know (verb)

ပါ | ba2 - polite word (particle)

တယ် | deare2 - affirmative ending word (postpositional marker)

သိပါတယ် | thi1 ba2 deare2 - I know.

Call

You know my number, right?

လို | lo2 - need (verb)

ရင် | yin2 - if (colloquial conjunction)

ခေါ် | khau2 - call (verb)

လိုက် | lite - verb suffix urging action of the verb (particle)

လိုရင်ခေါ်လိုက် | lo2 yin2 khau2 lite - Call me if you need me.

Note the common sentence pattern with conditional "if" statement between two verbs.

xxxx ရင် xxxx | AAAA yin2 BBBB - If Condition AAAA is true, then response BBBB (verb + if + verb)

Examples:

ခေါ်ရင်သွား | khau2 yin2 thwa3 - Go if (you are) called. MP3 Audio File

ပေးရင်ယူ | pay3 yin2 yu2 - Take if (something is) given. MP3 Audio File

သိရင်ပြော | thi1 yin2 pyau3 - Say if (you) know. MP3 Audio File

Here is another frequently used phrase both in English and Burmese.

လို | lo2 - need (verb)

တာ | da2 - modifies verb into noun: something that is needed (particle)

ရှိ | shi1 - have (verb)

ရင် | yin2 - if (colloquial conjunction)

ခေါ် | khau2 - call (verb)

လိုက် | lite - verb suffix urging action of the verb (particle)

လိုတာရှိရင်ခေါ်လိုက် | lo2 da2 shi1 yin2 khau2 lite - Just call me if you need anything.

Here's the built up of the above Burmese sentence.

လို | lo2 - need

လိုတာ | lo2 da2 - something that you need

လိုတာရှိ | lo2 da2 shi1 - you have the need for something

လိုတာရှိရင် | lo2 da2 shi1 yin2 - if you have the need for something

လိုတာရှိရင်ခေါ် | lo2 da2 shi1 yin2 khau2 - Call me if you have the need for something

လိုတာရှိရင်ခေါ်လိုက် | lo2 da2 shi1 yin2 khau2 lite - Just call me if you have the need for something

See lesson 31 for more conditional statements.

Have a good one / Have a nice day

I'll see you again before leaving town. See you later, Uncle Tin.

အေး | ay3 - Oh, OK (particle)

ကောင်း | koun3 - good (adjective)

ပြီ | byi2 - has reached certain stage or condition (postpositional marker)

အေး ကောင်းပြီ | Ay3 koun3 byi2 - Have a good one!

There are no standard farewell phrases in Burmese. The final parting words can be flexible and depend on the last words of the departing party like the above.

Time to go

Color Codes: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, particles, postpositional markers, interjections.

ENGLISH COLUMNS ARE PRE-SORTED BY THE ORDER OF MOST COMMON WORDS. CLICK TABLE HEADER COLUMNS TO SORT BY ASCENDING OR DESCENDING ORDER OF ENGLISH OR BURMESE SCRIPT.

Common English Nouns in Burmese (Sortable)
ENGLISH ↑↓ AUDIO ↑↓
time အချိန် | a-chain2 (as in "It's about time")
person လူ | lu2 (as in "this person")
person ယောက် | yout (as in "two persons")
year နှစ် | hnit
way နည်းလမ်း | ni3-lun3 (methodology)
way လမ်း | lun3 (as in "that way")
day နေ့ | nay1
thing ပစ္စည်း | pyit-si3 (object or item)
man လူ | lu2 (as in "that man")
man ယောက်ျား | yout-kja3 (male; husband)
world ကမ္ဘာ | ga1-ba2
life အသက် | a-thet (living; breathing)
life ဘဝ | ba1-wa1 (as in life experience)
hand လက် | let
part ပစ္စည်း | pyit-si3 (as in "auto part")
part အစိတ်အပိုင်း | a-sate-a-pine3 (a piece of something)
child ကလေး | kha1-lay3
eye မျက်စိ | myet-si1
woman မိန်းမ | main3-ma1
place နေရာ | nay2-ya2
work အလုပ် | a-loat
week အပတ် | a-pup (two weeks= hna1-pup)
case အခြေအနေ | a-chay2-a-nay2 (situation)
case အမှု | a-hmu1 (lawsuit)
point ဆိုလိုချက် | hso2-lo2-jet (as in "the point is ...")
government အစိုးရ | a-so3-ya1
company ကုမ္ပဏီ | kone2-pa1-ni2
number နံပါတ် | nun2-but
group အုပ်စု | oat-su1
problem ပြဿနာ | pyut-tha1-na2
fact အချက်အလက် | a-chet a-let (as in fact-finding)
Common English Verbs in Burmese (Sortable)
ENGLISH ↑↓ AUDIO ↑↓
have ရှိ | shi1 (in possession of something)
do လုပ် | loat
say ပြော | pyau3
make လုပ် | loat
go သွား | thwa3
know သိ | thi1
take ယူ | yu2
see တွေ့ | tway1
come လာ | la2
think ထင် | htin2 (as in "I think ..." / have an opinion)
think စဉ်းစား | sin3-za3 (do the act of thinking)
look ကြည့် | kji1
want ချင် | xxxx chin2 (where xxxx is the verb such as eat)
give ပေး | pay3
use သုံး | thone3
find ရှာ | sha2 (the act of searching)
tell ပြော | pyau3
ask မေး | may3
work လုပ် | loat
seem ကြည့်ရတာ | kji1 ya1 da2
feel ထင် | htin2 (Use "I think" in place of "I feel".)
feel Omit "feel" in "I feel cold."
try စမ်းကြည့် | sun3 kji1
leave သွား | thwa3 (to go)
call ခေါ် | khau2

See lesson 7 for longer list of verbs.

Common English adjectives in Burmese (Sortable)
ENGLISH ↑↓ AUDIO ↑↓
good ကောင်း | koun3
new အသစ် | a-thit (noun) as in "new car".
first အစ | a-sa1 (beginning)
first အရင် | a-yin2 (as in "do this first")
first ပထမ | pa1-hta1-ma1 (as in "first floor")
last နောက်ဆုံး | nout hsone3
long ရှည် | shay2
great မြင့်မြတ်သော | myin1-myut dthau3 (literary)
great ကောင်း | koun3 ("good" in colloquial form)
little နည်းနည်းပဲ | neare3-neare3 beare3
own ကိုယ်ပိုင် | ko2-bine2 (as in "my own car")
other တခြား | ta1-cha3
old အို | o2 (people)
old ဟောင်း | houn3 (object)
right မှန် | hmun2 (as in "Do the right thing.")
big ကြီး | kji3
high မြင့် | myin1
different တခြား | ta1-cha3 ("other")
small ငယ် | ngeare2 (as in "small child" meaning young)
small အသေး | a-thay3 (as in "small size")
large အကြီး | a-kji3
next နောက် | nout
early စော | sau3
young ငယ် | ngeare2
important အရေးကြီး | a-yay3 kji3
few နည်းနည်း | neare3-neare3
public အများသုံး | a-mya3-thone3 (as in public toilet)
bad ဆိုး | hso3
same တူ | tu2
able နိုင် | nine2

For more on adjectives, See lesson 9.

English prepositions in Burmese (Sortable)
ENGLISH ↑↓ AUDIO ↑↓
to ကို | go2
of ရဲ့ | yeare1 (colloquial)
of | e1 (literary)
in ထဲ | hteare3 (in the car = ka3 hteare3)
for အတွက် | a-twet (for xxxx = xxxx a-twet)
on ပေါ် | pau2 (on the table = za1-bweare3 pau2)
with နဲ့ | neare1 (colloquial)
with နှင့် | hnin1 (literary)
at မှာ | hma2 (at home = ain2 hma2)
by နားမှာ | na3 hma2 (next to)
by မတိုင်ခင် | ma1-tine2-khin2 (before specified time)
by နဲ့ | neare1 (by car, etc..)
from က | ga1 (Yangon ga1 = from Yangon)
up အပေါ် | a-pau2
about အကြောင်း | a-kjoun3 (about something)
into ထဲကို | hteare3 go2
over ပေါ်က | pau2 ga1 (over the bridge, etc..)
after ကျော် | kjau2 (after some location or time, e.g., after 5PM)
after ပြီး | pyi3 (after an activity, e.g, after lunch)
beneath အောက်မှာ | out hma2
under အောက်မှာ | out hma2 (under the book = sa2-oat out hma2)
above ပေါ်မှာ | pau2 hma2