Burmese phrasebook
Burmese (မြန်မာစကား myen mar sa gar) is the official and primary language of Myanmar. It is closely related to Tibetan, and distantly related to Chinese. The government uses the term "Myanmar" to describe the language, although most continue to refer to the language as "Burmese".
Grammar[edit]
Burmese word order is subject-object-verb, unlike English word order, which is subject-verb-object. Subjects and objects are omitted when such is implied in context. As a rule, all objects must be attached to a -go particle.
Burmese has an array of honorifics. Its grammar also contains many prefixes and suffixes indicating tense and mood.
The Burmese often use family names such as "brother", "sister", "auntie" in place of "you" and "I".
Pronunciation guide[edit]
Read Romanized signs properly
Burmese, similar to French, rarely has consonant endings, because most become glottal stops (like the break in uh-oh!) or nasalised. Burmese names written using Latin letters include these endings to denote the fact that the endings are written. These endings include:
such as in Kyaiktiyo (a Buddhist pilgrimage site), which is pronounced chaih-TEE-ou.
such as Mawlamyine (a city in Myanmar), which is pronounced mau-la-myain.
such as in Sagaing (a city in Myanmar), which is pronounced za-gainh.
such as in dhamma (a Buddhist term), which is pronounced dha-MA. (A special case accompanies -m. For example, lam, which means "street", is pronounced lan, with an -n.)
such as in Myanmar, which is pronounced myan-MA.
such as in Thatbyinnyu (a temple in Bagan), which is pronounced thah-BYIN-nyu. |
Burmese is a tonal language, consisting of four tones (low, high, creaky, checked). All dialects of Burmese in Myanmar adhere to this rule, although vocabulary usage varies from region to region.
Burmese is written using the Burmese script, which is based on an ancient Indian script called Brahmi script. Its alphabet contains 34 letters, which look like circles or semi-circles. The Burmese script also contains many tone marks and sound modifying marks.
Burmese uses an English-based romanisation system.
Burmese has a complicated set of vowels, containing 12 vowels.
Diphthongs[edit]
-
ai
-
like the 'i' in site
-
au
-
like the 'ou' in out; always used with a consonant ending
-
ei
-
like the 'a' in ache
-
ou
-
like the 'oa' in moat
Monophthongs[edit]
-
a
-
like the 'a' in mama
-
e
-
like the 'e' in she
-
i
-
like the 'ea' in meat
-
o
-
like the 'o' in tote
-
u
-
like the 'ew' in lewd
-
ih
-
like the 'i' in trip
Consonants[edit]
Burmese consonants are aspirated (contains an 'h' sound) and unaspirated (does not contain an 'h' sound).
Aspirated and unaspirated consonants are romanised irregularly, because a uniform system does not yet exist.
-
b
-
like the 'b' in bat
-
d
-
like the 'd' in dagger
-
g
-
like the 'g' in gap
-
h
-
like the 'h' in house
-
k
-
like the 'k' in tanker
-
kh
-
like the 'c' in cat
-
ky
-
like the 'j' in jeep
-
l
-
like the 'l' in love
-
m
-
like the 'm' in mad
-
n
-
like the 'n' in nut
-
ng
-
like the 'ng' in dancing
-
ny
-
like the 'ni' in onion
-
p
-
like the 'p' in spin
-
ph
-
like the 'p' in pig
-
r
-
becomes a 'y', or is silent. If it is pronounced, it is like an English approximant "r."
-
s
-
like a 's' in sing, or becomes a 'th' sound
-
shw
-
like the 'sh' in shack
-
hs
-
like a 's' in sound
-
t
-
like a 't' in that
-
th
-
like a 't' in tongue
-
w
-
like a 'w' in win.
-
y
-
like a 'y' in young
-
z
-
like a 'z' in zoo
Phrase list[edit]
Negations
Burmese, when negating verbs, uses two of the following structures:
used to mean that the verb was not accomplished. Example: Nei ma kaing bu, which means "You did not touch it".
used to mean that the verb must not be accomplished. Example: Nei ma kaing neh, which means "Don't touch it." |
Common signs
-
OPEN
-
CLOSED
-
ENTRANCE
-
EXIT
-
PUSH
-
PULL
-
TOILET
-
MEN
-
WOMEN
-
FORBIDDEN
|
‖ start of IPA ‖
-
Hello.
-
မင်္ဂလာပါ။ (mɪn gə lɑː bɑː)
-
Hello. (informal)
-
နေကောင်းလား။ (neɪ kaʊn lɑː ?)
-
How are you?
-
နေကောင်းလား။ (neɪ kaʊn lɑː ?)
-
Fine, thank you.
-
နေကောင်းပါတယ်။ (neɪ kaʊn bɑː deə)
-
What is your name?
-
(næmeə beə ləʊ kɒ leə?)
-
My name is ______ .
-
______ . Male: (dʒə nɒ næmeə _____ bɑː)
-
My name is ______ .
-
______ . Female: (dʒə mɑ næmeə _____ bɑː)
-
Nice to meet you.
-
(ðweɪ jɑ dɑː wʌn θɑ bɑː deə)
-
Please.
-
. (dʒeɪ zuː pjuː biː)
-
Thank you.
-
ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်။ (dʒeɪ zuː tɪn bɑː deə)
-
You're welcome.
-
ရပါတယ်။ (jɑ bɑː deə)
-
Yes.
-
ဟုတ်တယ်။ (həʊt deə)
-
No.
-
မဟုတ်ဘူး။(mə həʊt buː)
-
Excuse me. (getting attention)
-
(tə seɪt laʊt)
-
Excuse me. (begging pardon)
-
(" ")
-
I'm sorry.
-
(θaʊ bæn bɑ deə)
-
I am going now
-
---- (θwɑː dɒ meə nɒ)
-
Goodbye (informal)
-
. (θwɑː dɒ meə)
-
I can't speak name of language [well].
-
[ ]. ( "bə mɑː zə gɑː" gəʊ [kaʊn kaʊn] mə pjɒ tʌt buː )
-
Do you speak English?
-
(ɪŋ gə leɪ zə gɑː pjɒ tʌt lɑː?)
-
Is there someone here who speaks English?
-
? (ɪŋ gə leɪ zə gɑː pjɒ tʌt deə luː diː mɑ ʃiː lɑː?)
-
Help!
-
! (kuː njiː bɑ əʊn!)
-
Look out!
-
! (ðə diː tɑː!)
-
Good morning.
-
(mɪn gə lɑː bɑː)
-
Good night (to sleep)
-
(eɪt θɒ meə)
-
I don't know.
-
မသိဘူး။(mə θiː buː)
-
I don't understand.
-
နားမလည်ဘူး။(nɑː mə leə buː)
-
Where is the toilet?
-
? (eəiːn ðɑ beə mɑː leə ?)
‖ end of IPA ‖
Problems[edit]
Numbers[edit]
Burmese numbers follow the Arabic system of numerals.
-
0
-
၀ (thoun-nya)သုည
-
1
-
၁ (tit)တစ်
-
2
-
၂ (hni)နှစ်
-
3
-
၃ (thoun)သုံး
-
4
-
၄ (lei)လေး
-
5
-
၅ (nga)ငါး
-
6
-
၆ (chao)ခြောက်
-
7
-
၇ (kun hni)ခုနှစ်
-
8
-
၈ (shit)ရှစ်
-
9
-
၉ (koe)ကိုး
-
10
-
၁၀ (se)ဆယ်
-
11
-
၁၁ (seh-tit)ဆယ့်တစ်
-
12
-
၁၂ (seh-hnih)ဆယ့်နှစ်
-
13
-
၁၃ (seh-thoun)ဆယ့်သုံး
-
14
-
၁၄ (seh-lei)ဆယ့်လေး
-
15
-
၁၅ (seh-nga)ဆယ့်ငါး
-
16
-
၁၆ (seh-chauk)ဆယ့်ခြောက်
-
17
-
၁၇ (seh-kuun)ဆယ့်ခုနှစ်
-
18
-
၁၈ (seh-shit)ဆယ့်ရှစ်
-
19
-
၁၉ (seh-kou)ဆယ့်ကိုး
-
20
-
၂၀ (hna-seh)နှစ်ဆယ်
-
21
-
၂၁ (hna-seh-tit)နှစ်ဆယ့်တစ်
-
22
-
၂၂ (hna-seh-hnih)နှစ်ဆယ့်နှစ်
-
23
-
၂၃ (hna-seh-thoun)နှစ်ဆယ့်သုံး
-
30
-
၃၀ (thoun-zeh)သုံးဆယ်
-
40
-
၄၀ (lei-zeh)လေးဆယ်
-
50
-
၅၀ (nga-zeh)ငါးဆယ်
-
60
-
၆၀ (chau-seh)ခြောက်ဆယ်
-
70
-
၇၀ (kueh-na-seh)ခုနှစ်ဆယ်
-
80
-
၈၀ (shit-seh)ရှစ်ဆယ်
-
90
-
၉၀ (ko-zeh)ကိုးဆယ်
-
100
-
၁၀၀ (tit-ya)တစ်ရာ
-
200
-
၂၀၀ (hni-ya)နှစ်ရာ
-
300
-
၃၀၀ (thoun-ya)သုံးရာ
-
500
-
၅၀၀ (nga-ya)ငါးရာ
-
1000
-
၁၀၀၀ (tit-taon)တစ်ထောင်
-
2000
-
၂၀၀၀ (hna-taon)နှစ်ထောင်
-
10,000
-
(tit-thaon)တစ်သောင်း
-
20,000 ; (hna-thaon)နှစ်သောင်း
-
90,000 ; (koe-thaon)ကိုးသောင်း
-
100,000 ; (tit-thain)တစ်သိန်း
-
200,000 ; (hna-thain)နှစ်သိန်း
-
300,000 ; (thon-thain)သုံးသိန်း
-
1,000,000 ; (seal-thain)(tit-thal)ဆယ်သိန်း/တစ်သန်း
-
1,100,000 ; (seal tit-thain)(tit-thal-tit-thain)ဆယ့်တစ်သိန်း/တစ်သန်းတစ်သိန်း
-
1,900,000; (seal koe-thain)ဆယ့်ကိုးသိန်း/တစ်သန်းကိုးသိန်း
-
10,000,000; (seal thal)(thain tit yar)(tit kutay)ဆယ်သန်း/သိန်းတစ်ရာ/တစ်ကုဋေ)
-
number _____ (train, bus, etc.)
-
Burmese uses several measure words. As a general rule, use ku for items, and yau for persons.
-
now
-
a gu (အခု)
-
later
-
nao ma (နောက်မှ)
-
before
-
a shei (အရှေ့) ma tai mi မတိုင္မီ
-
morning
-
ma ne (မနက်)
-
afternoon
-
nei le (နေ့လယ်)
-
night
-
nya (ည)
Clock time[edit]
-
What time is it?
-
Be ne na yee toe bi le?
-
It is nine in the morning.
-
Ko nar yee toe bi.
-
Three-thirty PM.
-
Thoun na yee kwe.
Duration[edit]
-
_____ minute(s)
-
min-ni (မိနစ်)
-
_____ hour(s)
-
nar yee (နာရီ)
-
_____ day(s)
-
ye' or nei (နေ့)
-
_____ week(s)
-
ba (ပတ်)
-
_____ month(s)
-
la (လ)
-
_____ year(s)
-
nit (နှစ်)
-
today
-
di nei / ya nei
-
yesterday
-
ma nei
-
tomorrow
-
ma ne pyan
-
this week
-
di a ba
-
last week
-
a yin ba / ya kin ba
-
next week
-
nao ba
-
Sunday
-
t'nin ga nei (တနင်္ဂနွေ)
-
Monday
-
t'nin la (တနင်္လာ)
-
Tuesday
-
in ga (အင်္ဂါ)
-
Wednesday
-
bou ta hu (ဗုဒ္ဓဟူး)
-
Thursday
-
kya tha ba dei (ကြာသာပတေး)
-
Friday
-
tao kya (သောကြာ)
-
Saturday
-
sa nei (စနေ)
Note: The Burmese calendar consists of 8 days, with one day between Wednesday and Thursday, called ya-hu, although this is purely ceremonial.
Writing time and date[edit]
-
black
-
အမဲရောင်(အနက်ရောင်)a me yaon
-
white
-
အဖြူရောင် a pyu yaon
-
gray
-
မီးခိုးရောင် mi go yaon
-
red
-
အနီရောင် a ni yaon
-
blue
-
အပြာရောင် a pya yaon
-
yellow
-
အဝါရောင် a wa yaon
-
green
-
အစိမ်းရောင် a sein yaon
-
orange
-
လိမ္မော်ရောင် lein mau yaon
-
purple
-
ခရမ်းရောင် ka-yan yaon
-
brown
-
အညိုရောင် a nyo yaon
-
Do you have it in another color?
-
Di ha go nao a yaon de she la?
Transportation[edit]
Bus and train, ship and plane[edit]
Train ရထား
yeh-ta
Train Station ဘူတာရုံ
bu ta yone
Bus
ba(sa) ka
Bus Stop မှတ်တိုင်
ka hma tine
Bus Station
ka gey
Ship
thin bau
Port
thin bau sey
Airplane လေယာဉ်ပျံ
leyin pyan
Airport လေဆိပ်
ley yein gun
Ticket လက်မှတ်
leh hma
Fare
ka
Depart/Leave ထွက်ခွာ
tweh
Arrive ဆိုက်ရောက်
yow
Luggage
pyit see
Directions[edit]
Over there
ho beht
Left Side
beh beht
Right Side nya beht
Is this taxi free?
Te ka se ahh tha la
Lodging[edit]
To Stay
theh
Bed
ga din
Restroom
ein tha
Bathroom
yay cho khan
Food
asaa-asaa
How much is it?
Zey beh lout le?
Money
kyat
one dollar
dtih kyat
two dollars
hnih kyat
three dollars
thone kyat
four dollars
ley kyat
five dollars
nga kyat
six dollars
chowt kyat
seven dollars
kun-hih kyat
eight dollars
shih kyat
nine dollars
gou kyat
ten dollars
se kyat
twenty dollars
neh se kyat
twenty-five dollars
neh se nga kyat
or more commonly
a sait
fifty dollars
nga se kyat
one hundred dollars
tayar kyat
When refering to US currency, it is important to remember to say "dollar" before the specified amount
For example US $50 would be "dollar nga se".
I am hungry.
Nga bite sa de.
Where do you want to go eat?
Beh sau thot sine thwa meh le?
I can only drink bottled water
Kha naw ye bu ye be thouk lo ya de
Are there any napkins (Can I have one?)
napkin she tha la
Fried foods
uh chaw sa
Noodles
cow sweh
Rice (white)
htamin
Fried rice
htamin chaw
Ice
yey ghe
Ice cream bar
yey ghe mou
Sugar
de ja
Salt
sa
MSG
a cho mout
Potato
ah lou
Vegetable
a yweh
Fruit အသီး
a thee
Banana
nguh pyaw thee
Apple
pun thee
Apple Juice
pun thee yay
Grapes
duh beh thee
Durian
doo hinh thee
Orange
lei maw thee
Chicken
chet tha
Beef
ameh tha
Goat
seit tha
Lamb
tho tha
Fish
nga
Beer/Alcohol
ayet
Round (As in "A round of beers")
pweh
Ciggaretts
sei lait
Glass
kwut
Shopping[edit]
Store
sine
Clothes
ain gee
Pants
boun bee
Shoes
punuht
Bra
bou le
Ring
lut sout
Socks
chey sout
House
ehn
Purse/Wallet
puh sun eight
Backpack
saw ough eight
Movies
youh shin
Driving[edit]
Car
ka
Stop
yet/ho
Go/Drive
thwa/moun
Traffic Light
Mee point
Authority[edit]
Administration
oh cho yey
Prime Minister
wan-jee cho
President
thanmada
Vice President
duteya thanmada
Military
tatmadaw
Chairman
oh ga taw
Parliament
hluttaw
Politics
nine-nga yey
This is a usable phrasebook. It explains pronunciation and the bare essentials of travel communication. An adventurous person could use it to get by, but please plunge forward and help it grow! |