Burmese, the official language of Myanmar (formerly Burma), is a tonal, pitch-register, and syllable-timed language. Learning Burmese can be challenging yet rewarding, providing deeper insights into the rich culture and traditions of Myanmar. This lesson covers essential conversational phrases and questions in Burmese, along with transliterations for pronunciation assistance.

Greetings

• Hello – “မင်္ဂလာပါ” (Mingalaba)
• Good morning – “မင်္ဂလာနံနက်ခင်းပါ” (Mingalaba nan nekhkain pa)
• Good afternoon – “မင်္ဂလာနေ့လည်ပါ” (Mingalaba neh lay pa)
• Good evening – “မင်္ဂလာညနေပါ” (Mingalaba nya neh pa)
• Goodbye – “သွားတော့မယ်” (Thwa dau me)

Introducing Yourself or Others

• My name is [name]. – “ကျွန်တော်၏ အမည်မှာ [အမည်] ပါ” (Chin tau e aim ma [name] pa)
• This is [name]. – “ဒါက [အမည်] ပါ” (Da ka [name] pa)
• I am from [country]. – “ကျွန်တော် [နိုင်ငံ] က လာပါတယ်” (Chin tau [nai nga] ka la pa de)
• I live in [city/place]. – “ကျွန်တော် [မြို့/နေရာ] မှာ နေပါတယ်” (Chin tau [myo/neya] ma na pa de)

Asking for Directions or People

• Where is the [place]? – “[နေရာ] ဘယ်မှာလဲ?” ([Neya] beh ma le?)
• How do I get to [place]? – “[နေရာ] ကို ဘယ်လိုသွားရမလဲ?” ([Neya] ko beh lo thwa ya me le?)
• Can you show me on the map? – “မြေပုံမှာ ပြပါလို့ရမလား?” (Myapone ma pya pa lo ya ma la?)

Solving a Misunderstanding

• Sorry, I don’t understand. – “တဆိတ်လေး နားမလည်ပါ” (Ta sai le na ma lyin pa)
• Can you please repeat that? – “ထပ်ပြောပါလို့ရမလား?” (Htat pyaw pa lo ya ma la?)
• I mean… – “ကျွန်တော်ဆိုချင်တာက…” (Chin tau so chin ta ka…)
• What does [word] mean? – “[စကားလုံး] ရဲ့ အဓိပ္ပာယ်က ဘာလဲ?” ([Saka lone] yay a dip pi yake ba le?)

Farewell Expressions

• See you later – “နောက်မှတွေ့မယ်” (Naut hma twe me)
• Take care – “ဂရုစိုက်ပါ” (Garu so kai pa)
• Have a good day – “နေ့လည်းနေကောင်းပါစေ” (Neh lay na kaung pa se)

Travel and Dining

• I would like to book a room. – “အခန်းတစ်ခန်း ဘွတ်ကင်လုပ်ချင်ပါတယ်” (Ah khan tit khan buk king lo chin pa de)
• Can I see the menu, please? – “မီနူးကို ကြည့်ရှုပါလို့ရမလား?” (Menu ko kyan shu pa lo ya ma la?)
• I am vegetarian. – “ငါသားစားသူမဟုတ်ပါ” (Nga sa sa thu ma hote pa)
• The bill, please. – “ဘီလ်ပေးပါ” (Bill pyi pa)

Shopping

• How much does this cost? – “ဒါဘယ်လောက်ကျသလဲ?” (Da beh lauk kya the le?)
• Do you have this in another size? – “ဒါကို အခြားဆိုဒ်မှာ ရှိပါသလား?” (Da ko ah kyar size ma shi pa tha la?)
• I’m just looking, thanks. – “ငါကပဲ ကြည့်နေတာပါ၊ ကျေးဇူးပါ” (Nga ke kyan ney ta pa, kye zu pa)
• Can I pay by card? – “ကဒ်နဲ့ပေးချေရမလား?” (Kat nay pyay che ya ma la?)

Dating and Love

• You look beautiful. – “မင်းလှနေပါတယ်” (Min hla ne pa de)
• I miss you. – “မင်းကိုအရမ်းတွေ့ချင်တယ်” (Min ko ah yann twe chin de)
• I love you. – “ငါမင်းကိုချစ်တယ်” (Nga min ko chit de)
• Would you like to go out with me? – “မင်းငါနဲ့အတူထွက်ခွာချင်သလား?” (Min nga nay atu twa kwa chin tha la?)

Emergencies

• Help! – “ကူညီပါ!” (Ku nyi pa!)
• Call the police! – “ရဲခေါ်ပါ!” (Ye kha pa!)
• I need a doctor. – “ဆရာဝန်လိုအပ်တယ်” (Sa ya wan lo a pote de)
• Where is the nearest hospital? – “အနီးဆုံးဆေးရုံဘယ်မှာလဲ?” (A ni son se yon beh ma le?)

Learning Burmese requires patience and practice, especially with its script and tones. Engage with native speakers, use language learning apps, and immerse yourself in Burmese media to enhance your understanding and fluency.