Bhasaly › Learn Burmese › Phrases
Burmese phrases for a short visit
ခရီးတို
The lines a visitor actually uses, and the ones you will hear back. Romanized first so you can say them today. Every phrase is recorded — open it in Bhasaly to hear it.
Hear these phrases →First words
Add ba and it turns polite
mingalaba is the visitor’s hello — always right. Burmese goodbyes announce the leaving: thwa daw meh, I am off. The little ba on the end of anything makes it polite.
| mingalaba | hello | မင်္ဂလာပါ |
| kyeizu tin ba de | thank you | ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ် |
| taun ban ba de | sorry | တောင်းပန်ပါတယ် |
| houq keh | yes | ဟုတ်ကဲ့ |
| ma houq bu | no | မဟုတ်ဘူး |
| ya bi | got it · OK now | ရပြီ |
| keiq sa ma shi ba bu | no problem | ကိစ္စမရှိပါဘူး |
| thwa daw meh | goodbye — I am off | သွားတော့မယ် |
Being polite
The respectful address
hsaya — teacher — is the respectful address for any man skilled at his work: drivers, guides, waiters. A woman is hsayama. You will be told hpanaq chuq ba — please take off your shoes — at every doorstep.
| hsaya | sir (any skilled man) | ဆရာ |
| hsayama | madam · teacher (woman) | ဆရာမ |
| hkana saun ba | wait a moment, please | ခဏစောင့်ပါ |
| htain ba | please sit | ထိုင်ပါ |
| la ba | please come | လာပါ |
| hpanaq chuq ba | shoes off, please (you will be told) | ဖိနပ်ချွတ်ပါ |
Meeting someone
Introductions
Give your name plus ba and you have introduced yourself — the gendered I (men kyundaw, women kyama) can wait for the course.
| nameh beh lo hkaw leh | what is your name? | နာမည်ဘယ်လိုခေါ်လဲ |
| beh ga la leh | where are you from? | ဘယ်ကလာလဲ |
| na ma leh bu | I do not understand | နားမလည်ဘူး |
| pyan pyaw ba | please say it again | ပြန်ပြောပါ |
| hpyei hpyei pyaw ba | please speak slowly | ဖြည်းဖြည်းပြောပါ |
Sentence patterns
Four frames that do the work
Four frames cover most of what you need. Tap a word, hear the whole sentence.
What you will hear
The eaten-yet greeting
htamin sa pi bi la? — eaten rice yet? — is a greeting, not lunch planning. sa pi bi answers it. In a teashop ba sa ma leh — what will you eat? — means the waiter is ready to take your order.
| htamin sa pi bi la | eaten yet? (a greeting) | ထမင်းစားပြီးပြီလား |
| sa pi bi | already eaten (the answer) | စားပြီးပြီ |
| sa ba | eat! (the host insists) | စားပါ |
| ba sa ma leh | what will you eat? | ဘာစားမလဲ |
| yauq pi | we have arrived | ရောက်ပြီ |
Numbers
Kyat come in thousands
Tea is a few hundred kyat, a meal a few thousand, hotels in thaung and thein. Sellers will tap the number into a calculator and turn it round to you.
| tiq | 1 | တစ် |
| nga | 5 | ငါး |
| hse | 10 | ဆယ် |
| tiq ya | 100 | တစ်ရာ |
| nga ya | 500 | ငါးရာ |
| ta htaung | 1,000 | တစ်ထောင် |
| nga htaung kyaq | 5,000 kyat | ငါးထောင်ကျပ် |
| thaung | 10,000 | သောင်း |
| thein | 100,000 | သိန်း |
| kyaq | kyat | ကျပ် |
Getting around
No meters here
Yangon taxis have no meters — agree the fare through the window before you get in. hpyei hpyei asks the driver to slow down.
| teq ka si | taxi | တက္ကစီ |
| baq sa ka | bus | ဘတ်စ်ကား |
| ka | car | ကား |
| hpyei hpyei | slowly! | ဖြည်းဖြည်း |
Directions
Catch one word of the answer
Ask with the beh hma leh frame above, then listen for these.
| beh beq | left side | ဘယ်ဘက် |
| nya beq | right side | ညာဘက် |
| beh kweh | turn left | ဘယ်ကွေ့ |
| nya kweh | turn right | ညာကွေ့ |
| teh deh | straight ahead | တည့်တည့် |
| teh deh thwa ba | go straight, please | တည့်တည့်သွားပါ |
The teashop
Myanmar’s living room
The teashop is where Myanmar sits: sweet milky lahpeq yeh, free refills of plain tea, mohinga for breakfast. taw bi stops the topping-up kindly.
| lahpeq yeh hsaing | the teashop | လက်ဖက်ရည်ဆိုင် |
| lahpeq yeh | sweet milk tea | လက်ဖက်ရည် |
| kaw hpi | coffee | ကော်ဖီ |
| htamin | rice · a meal | ထမင်း |
| ta hkweq pei ba | one cup, please | တစ်ခွက်ပေးပါ |
| saq de | it is spicy | စပ်တယ် |
| a yan kaung de | really good! | အရမ်းကောင်းတယ် |
| taw bi | that is enough | တော်ပြီ |
At the zei
Bargain with a smile
shaw pei ba — please lower it — with a smile does the bargaining. Money changers want crisp, unfolded dollars; ma lo bu — no need — waves off persistent sellers.
| zei | the market | ဈေး |
| zei kyi de | it is expensive | ဈေးကြီးတယ် |
| zei paw de | it is cheap | ဈေးပေါတယ် |
| shaw pei ba | please lower the price | လျှော့ပေးပါ |
| ma lo bu | I do not need it | မလိုဘူး |
| paiq hsan | money | ပိုက်ဆံ |
| paiq hsan leh de | to change money | ပိုက်ဆံလဲတယ် |
Staying somewhere
Rooms & torches
a hkan shi la — is there a room? — is the first question at the desk. Power cuts are routine everywhere — a phone torch is standard kit, not an emergency.
| ho teh | hotel | ဟိုတယ် |
| a hkan | room | အခန်း |
| thaw | the key | သော့ |
Getting help
Serious words, hopefully unused
ku nyi ba! — help, please — is the sentence to know; say it clearly. ne ma kaung bu tells a pharmacist how you feel; most speak some English.
| ku nyi ba | help me, please! | ကူညီပါ |
| yeh | police | ရဲ |
| hsei youn | hospital | ဆေးရုံ |
| hsaya wun | doctor | ဆရာဝန် |
| hsei | medicine | ဆေး |
| ne ma kaung bu | I am not feeling well | နေမကောင်းဘူး |
| thadi hta ba | be careful! | သတိထားပါ |
Staying in touch
Phone, wifi & photos
SIM cards are cheap with a passport. Wifi fades outside the cities — download your maps first. Ask before photographing people; a smile and a gesture do it.
| hpoun | phone | ဖုန်း |
| nan baq | number | နံပါတ် |
| hpoun nan baq beh lauq leh | what is your number? | ဖုန်းနံပါတ်ဘယ်လောက်လဲ |
Ask where anything is
Where is the ___?
| zei beh hma leh? | Where is the market? | ဈေးဘယ်မှာလဲ |
| ho teh beh hma leh? | Where is the hotel? | ဟိုတယ်ဘယ်မှာလဲ |
| hsei youn beh hma leh? | Where is the hospital? | ဆေးရုံဘယ်မှာလဲ |
| ein tha beh hma leh? | Where is the toilet? | အိမ်သာဘယ်မှာလဲ |
| baq sa ka beh hma leh? | Where is the bus? | ဘတ်စ်ကားဘယ်မှာလဲ |
| a hkan beh hma leh? | Where is the room? | အခန်းဘယ်မှာလဲ |
Ask if something is there
Do you have ___?
| a hkan shi la? | Do you have a room? | အခန်းရှိလား |
| ye shi la? | Do you have water? | ရေရှိလား |
| lahpeq yeh shi la? | Do you have tea? | လက်ဖက်ရည်ရှိလား |
| kaw hpi shi la? | Do you have coffee? | ကော်ဖီရှိလား |
| htamin shi la? | Do you have food? | ထမင်းရှိလား |
Ask for something politely
___, please.
| ye pei ba | water, please. | ရေပေးပါ |
| lahpeq yeh pei ba | tea, please. | လက်ဖက်ရည်ပေးပါ |
| kaw hpi pei ba | coffee, please. | ကော်ဖီပေးပါ |
| htamin pei ba | food, please. | ထမင်းပေးပါ |
| da pei ba | this one, please. | ဒါပေးပါ |
Ask any price
How much is ___?
| da beh lauq leh? | How much is this? | ဒါဘယ်လောက်လဲ |
| a hkan beh lauq leh? | How much is the room? | အခန်းဘယ်လောက်လဲ |
| lahpeq yeh beh lauq leh? | How much is the tea? | လက်ဖက်ရည်ဘယ်လောက်လဲ |
| kaw hpi beh lauq leh? | How much is the coffee? | ကော်ဖီဘယ်လောက်လဲ |
Common questions
How do you say hello in Burmese?
Mingalaba. The greetings section above has the full set, including the reply you are likely to hear back.
Do I need an account to use these Burmese phrases?
No. Every phrase on this page is open to read, and you can hear all of them in Bhasaly without signing up.
Do I need to read the Burmese script to use these?
No. Every line is romanized first, so you can say it straight away. The script is there alongside if you want to start reading it.
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