Burmese language

Burmese is written in Burmese script.

Burmese is a tonal language. Burmese has three tones (high, medium, low: plus two 'stops or abbreviated additional, qualifying 'tones)

Burmese has no gender. For instance, the word သူ (pronounced "thew") could mean "he" or "she". However, some words have natural gender e.g. ဆရာ saya (male teacher) and ဆရာမ sayama (female teacher).

Unlike in English, verbs in Burmese do not change based on tense. Instead, other words are added after to show tense.

Burmese has many English and Indian words (loan words) due to colonization by the British and interaction with the neighboring country of India. However, is a very distinct and full language itself with a long history and many different dialects.

Here are some examples of words and sentences in Burmese.

Hello = min-ga-la-ba

How are you? = Nei kaun la?

I am (name) = Cha-naw yè nan-bè ga _______

(Kya-naw is replaced with kya-ma for females.

What is your name? = Ka-mya na mei be' lo khal le' (OR) na mei be' lo khal le' (You can omit "Ka-mya=You")

Are you from Burma? = Nae ba-ma pyi ga la da la?

(Note: To ask if someone is from other countries, just replace ba-ma pyi with any of the countries below.)

• America = A-mè-ree-ka
• France = Pyin-thit
• Britain = In-ga-lan
• Germany = Ja-ma-nee
• Russia = Ra-sha
• Thailand = Yoe-da-ya
• Japan = Ja-pan
• Chinese = Ta-yote
• Indian = in-di-yah