Burmese is part of the Tibeto-Burman lan-
guage family. As the national language of
Myanmar (Burma), it has over 40 million
speakers, of whom more than 30 million use it
as their fi rst language. The variety of Burmese
of Mandalay and Yangon, spoken throughout
the central area of Myanmar, is considered the
standard language. Many other languages are
spoken in Myanmar, but with Burmese you’ll
be understood in the whole country.
There are two varieties of Burmese – one
used in writing and formal situations, the
other in speaking and informal context. The
main diff erences are in vocabulary, especially
the most common words (eg ‘this’ is di in
spoken Burmese, but i in the written lan-
guage). The phrases in this chapter are in the
informal spoken variety, which is appropriate
for all situations you’re likely to encounter.
Note that many Burmese nouns are bor-
rowed from English, though the meaning and
sound may be somewhat diff erent.
In Burmese, there’s a diff erence between
aspirated consonants (pronounced with a
puff of air after the sound) and unaspirated
ones – you’ll get the idea if you hold your
hand in front of your mouth to feel your
breath, and say ‘pit’ (where the ‘p’ is aspi-
rated) and ‘spit’ (where it’s unaspirated).
These aspirated consonants in our pronun-
ciation guides are said with a puff of air after
the sound: ch (as in ‘church’), k (as in ‘kite’), ş
(as in ‘sick’), t (as in ‘talk’); the following ones
are pronounced with a puff of air before the
sound: hl (as in ‘life’), hm (as in ‘me’), hn (as in
‘not’), hng ( as in ‘sing’), hny (as in ‘canyon’).
Note also that the apostrophe (’) represents
the sound heard between ‘uh-oh’, th is pro-
nounced as in ‘thin’ and ţh as in ‘their’.
There are three distinct tones in Burmese
(the raising and lowering of pitch on certain
syllables). They are indicated in our pronun-
ciation guides by the accent mark above the
vowel: high creaky tone, as in ‘heart’ (á), plain
high tone, as in ‘car’ (à), and the low tone (a –
no accent). Note also that ai is pronounced as
in ‘aisle’, aw as in ‘law’, and au as in ‘brown’.BASICS
Burmese equivalents of the personal pro-
nouns ‘I’ and ‘you’ have masculine and
feminine forms, depending on the gender
of the person indicated by the pronoun.
These forms are marked as ‘m/f’ in phrases
throughout this chapter. Depending on the
pronoun (ie ‘I’ or ‘you’), these abbreviations
refer to the speaker or the person addressed.Hello. mgçlapå" ming·guh·la·ba
Goodbye. q∑a;my\ena\" thwà·me·naw
Ye s. hut\k ́." hoh’·gé
No. hc\.Ac\;" híng·ìn
Excuse me. eSar^;ena\" sàw·rì·naw
Sorry. eSar^;ena\" sàw·rì·naw
Please. tSit\elak\" duh·şay’·lau’
Thank you. ek¥;z ̈; jày·zù
tc\påty\" ding·ba·de
You’re welcome. rpåty\" yá·ba·de
How are you? enekac\;la;" nay·gàung·là
Fine. And you? ekac\;påty\" gàung·ba·de
Kc\b¥a;/r ̇c\era" king·myà/
shing·yàw (m/f)language
WANT MORE?
For in-depth language
information and handy
phrases, check out Lonely
Planet’s Burmese Phrasebook.
You’ll fi nd it at shop
.lonelyplanet.com, or you
can buy Lonely Planet’s
iPhone phrasebooks at the
Apple App Store.