Tones in Burmese Language

Consider the sound of the first "a" in "America". That's the first tone. Compare this to "Ar" in "Argentina". That's the example of the second tone. When you scream with pain as in "Arghhhhhhh...." you put lots of stress to it. It is like "Ar" without the "r" sound in "Artist". That's the third tone. So, there you go. The first set of 3 tones with the Vowel "A" are...

Ah -- sounds like "Art" with silent "rt" ending.
Ar -- "Argentina" with silent "r".
Aah -- "ar" sound without "r" ending in "artist".

I will be using Burmese 1,2,3 Tone System to describe those 3 tones as...

အ | Ah1
အာ | Ah2
အား | Ah3

စ | Sa1
စါ | Sa2
စါး | Sa3

က | Ka1
ကာ | Ka2
ကား | Ka3

and so on.

And yes, just a small "stress" or "tone" difference and you will have words with completely different meanings. Here is just to give you examples on how meanings of certain words could change with just a slight difference in tone.

အ | Ah1 -- stupid

အာ | Ah2 -- verbally picking up a fight

အား | Ah3 -- have free time

စ | Sa1 -- to start

စါ | Sa2 -- letter

စါး | Sa3 -- to eat

က | Ka1 -- to dance

ကာ | Ka2 -- to shield

ကား | Ka3 -- to exaggerate

The first tone will be like "de" sound in "deep". A good example of second tone will be "de" as in "demote". The third tone has more stress to it, such as "dee" in "deer".

ဒိ | De1
ဒီ | De2
ဒီး | De3

I have to use "e" instead of "i" in this case, because "Di" will sound like "Diana".

More examples of 3 tones with the Vowel "E" or "I":

စိ | Si1 -- sounds like "seat" without "t" ending. -- scrutinize as in si1-zit.

စီ | Si2 -- normal stress or tone as in "si" of the word "seduce". Yes, it does sound a bit like Spanish "si" - not "sy" as in "cyber". -- arrange and organize objects.

စီး | Si3 -- pronounced as "see". -- to ride a vehicle.

ပိ | Pe1 -- try saying "Pete" with silent "t". -- to be trapped under (something).

ပီ | Pe2 -- stress normally as in "Pe" of "Peru" -- be able to pronounce correctly.

ပီး | Pi3 -- pronounced just like "pee" or "pea"). This is close enough to ပြီး | Pyi3 -- finish.

အိ | E1 -- as in "eat" with silent "t".
အီ | E2 -- as in "Egyptian".
အီး | E3 -- as in "e-commerce".

First tone example: a short "u" sound as in "Youth" with silent "th"; a short "u" sound in "amused".

Second tone example: Neutral tone of "u" as in "University".

Third tone example: stressed "u" which sounds like "ew" in "New", or as New Yorkers would say "Noo" in "New York".

Another third tone example would be a stressed "u" sound in "user".

ယု | Yu1 -- tender care as in ယုယ | yu1-ya1

ယူ | Yu2 -- take something.

ရူး | Yu3 -- crazy, mentally disturbed.

More examples of 3 tones with the Vowel "U":

ကု | Ku1 -- as in "uncouth" with silent "th". -- to treat a patient.

ကူ | Ku2 -- stress normally as in "Kuwait". -- help.

ကူး | Ku3 -- sounds like "Cool" with silent "l". -- swim.

ပု | Pu1 -- pronounced like "poof" without "f" ending -- short in stature. From my personal experience, the last syllable of my last name is often mispronounced by the Americans as "pu3" in the third tone, instead of the correct "pu1", which I find it quite amusing :-) Mandarin Chinese speakers will have no problem as it is equivalent to the 4th tone in Pinyin.

ပူ | Pu2 -- as in "pu" sound of "pudding". -- hot.

ပူး | Pu3 -- sounds like "pool" without "l" ending. -- to be joined.

The first tone will be like "Colt" without the "lt" ending sound.
The second tone sounds like the first "co" of "Coca Cola".
The third tone example: try saying "cold" without "ld" ending.

ကို့ (ကိုယ့်) | Ko1
ကို (ကိုယ်) | Ko2
ကိုး | Ko3

Due to eccentricity of English language, I will use "OE" or "OH" instead of the vowel "O" for the consonants "d" and "t" as follow:

ဒို့ | Doh1
ဒို | Doh2
ဒိုး | Doe3

တို့ | Toh1 - touch lightly.

တို | Toh2 - short as opposed to long.

တိုး | Toe3 - push and shove.

That's a tough one to give examples. Try saying "Scott". The first tone is "ott" in "Scott" without ending "tt" sound; it is closer to British pronunciation of "o" rather than what an American would pronounce, i.e., "Scutt". It sounds like "odd" with silent "d".

Au1 : "Au" sound in "Auction".
Au2 : "Au" as in "Australia".
Au3 : "Au" sound of the word "August".

It should be noted that Burmese doesn't have closing sounds of the words. Just like "s" in French is silent in "Paris" and pronounced "Pa-ree", Burmese doesn't have any closing sounds you would expect in English. No "ch", "sh", "s", "r", "f" "l", "m", "n" ending consonants-- none. How would you go about saying words with silent ending? Simple. Those ending consonants always need some kind of tongue play and or closing of the lips. Don't move your tongue and don't close your lips, and you will be speaking perfect Burmese!

အော့ | Au1 -- throw up in disgust as in အော့အန် | au1-un2

အော် | Au2 -- shout.

အော | Au3 -- have deep voice.

More examples of tones with the Vowel "Au":

ပေါ့ | Pau1 -- try saying "pulse" without "lse" ending. -- light in weight.

ပေါ် | Pau2 -- somewhere in between "pulse" and "Paul". How about "Pauline"? -- exposed, or "politician".

ပေါ | Pau3 -- sounds like "Paul" without "l" sound. -- abundant.

Next, a set of 3 tones with Vowel "Un" or "An":

The first tone example: "aun" as in "aunt".
the second tone example: Normal stress of "un" in "understanding".
The third tone example: the word "un" stressed as in "under".

အံ့ | Un1 -- be amazed as in အံ့ဩ | un1-au3.

အန် | Un2 -- throw up.

အမ်း | Un3 -- return change as in အကြွေအမ်း | a-kjway2-un3au3.

More examples with the Vowel "Un":

လန့် | Lun1 -- sounds like "lunt" in "blunt". -- be fearful.

လန် | Lun2 -- somewhat between "lunt" and "London" as in luncheon -- to fall out from the place due to an abrupt force, such as when the roof being blown away by the strong wind.

လမ်း | Lun3 -- stressed "Lun" in "London" -- road, street, path.

For some words, it seems more natural to use "An" rather than "Un":

ခန့် | khan1 -- sounds like British "can't"--not American "can't" -- Grand as in ခန့်ညား | khan1-nya3.

ခံ | khan2 -- unstressed "can" as in "canoe" -- collect water.

ခန်း | khan3 -- stressed to the level of the word "cun" in "cunning" -- dried up.

I choose the "An" variant of "un" only because some words are already associated in English with certain pronunciations. Well, English is just like that. I will never understand why "P-U-T" is pronounced "Poot", but "B-U-T" is "But".

အင့် | In1 : "ink" with silent "k"
အင် | In2 : "In" as in "Indiana".
အင်း | In3 : "In" as in "Innate"

ဆင့် | Hsin1 -- sounds like "sink" without "k" ending. -- stack up.

ဆင် | Hsin2 -- normal stress of "sin" in "sincerely". -- elephant.

ဆင်း | Hsin3 -- just like "sin" in "sinful". -- to go down.

What's the difference between "Hsin3" and "Sin3"? "Hsin3" has more hissing sound. Mandarin Chinese speakers will be able to detect the difference. If you can't, just say "Sin3".

အေ့ | Ay1
အေ | Ay2
အေး | Ay3

First tone example: sounds like "maize" without "ze" ending.

Second tone example: "May" as in "May I ?" without stressing on "may".

Third tone example: "may" stressed like in "amazing".

မေ့ | may1 -- "maize" without "ze" sound. -- forgotten.

မေ | may2 -- "may" as in "May I?" -- prefix used in front of some female names.

မေး | may3 -- stressed like in "amazing". -- to question.

The closest one can get to the first tone is "self" without "lf" ending. Another example would be "wealth" without "lth" ending.

Second tone sounds like "Sal" in "Salary" without "l" ending, or "pal" without "l" ending in "maple".

The third tone will be like "sell" without double "l" ending. It belongs to "Wear", "tear", "pear" sound group.

ဆယ့် | hseare1
ဆယ် | hseare2
ဆဲ | hseare3

More examples on tones with the Vowel "Eare":

မဲ့ | meare1 -- sounds like "melt" without "lt" ending. -- to put on an unhappy face.

မယ် | meare2 -- not so much stress on "mare" like in "marry-making" -- indication of intention.

မည်း | meare3 -- stressed like "mare" in "nightmare" -- black in color.

You may ask why don't I just drop the middle "e" and shorten those as

mare1
mare2
mare3

The reason why I didn't was because I couldn't use it consistently for words starting with the vowel "a" that sounds like "air", so I came up with this "eare" coding to associate the word with the burmese sound group below.

ဧည့် | Eare1 -- as in "Edward".
အယ် | Eare2 -- as in "Editor".
အဲ | Eare3 -- as in "Elephant".

အိန့် (အိမ့်) | Ain1
အိန် (အိမ်) | Ain2
အိန်း (အိမ်း) | Ain3

First tone example: "laint" as in "complaint" where "t" ain't included in the ending sound.

second tone example: somewhere between "laint" and "lane" such as in "flamboyant".

third tone example: fully stressed "lane".

လိမ့် | lain1 -- a wheel to roll.

လိမ် | lain2 -- to lie.

လိမ်း | lain3 -- apply or rub on the skin or hair.

အုန့် (အုမ့်) (အုံ့) | Ome1
အုန် (အုမ်) (အုံ) | Ome2
အုန်း (အုမ်း) (အုံး) | Ome3

First tone examples: "on't" sounds as in won't, don't.

Second tone example: "Om" with silent "m" in "Romania".

Third tone example: Fully stressed "Om" with silent "m" in "Rome".

တုံ့ | tone1 -- retaliate as in တုံ့ပြန် | tone1 pyan2.

တုန် | tone2 -- shivering, rattling, vibrating.

တုံး | tone3 -- to chop something.

I will use the "m" variant for some words like "gome2". With "n" it will sound like "gone".

To romanize this vowel, I have no choice but to use "m" variant because with "n", it becomes number "one".

အိုင့် | Ine1
အိုင် | Ine2
အိုင်း | Ine3

First tone example: "kind" without "d" ending.

Second tone example: the closest is unstressed "mine" in "minute". I am referring to the word "mine-nute" as in "minutely small", not the hour and "min-it" with the same spelling.

The third tone example: "tine" sound in "tiny", or simply "mine".

ကိုင့် | kine1 as in "kind"
ကိုင် | kine2 as in "kinetic"
ကိုင်း | kine3 that rhymes with "pine"

ပိုင့် | pine1 - [English] pint, measurement for alcohol.
ခိုင် | pine2 - own; possess.
ပိုင်း | pine3 - cut up or divide something.

အွန့် (အွမ့်) | Oon1
အွန် (အွမ်) | Oon2
အွန်း (အွမ်း) | Oon3

First tone example: "doont" sound in "couldn't".

Second tone example: "Kung" sound in "Kung Fu", or "mun" in "monetary" or "monastery".

Third tone example: "Coon" as in "Cocoon".

တွန့် | toon1 -- similar to "doont" sound in "couldn't". -- wrinkles of the skin.

တွန် | toon2 -- the same stress level as "mun" in "monastery". -- crow of the cock.

တွန်း | toon3 -- as in "cartoon". -- to push.

အောင့် | Oun1
အောင် | Oun2
အောင်း | Oun3

First tone example: ကောင့် | koun1 - "Count" without ending "t".

Second tone example: ကောင် | Oun1 - "Coun as in "Counter-strike".

Third tone example: ကောင်း | Oun1 - "Coun" as in "Counseling".

စောင့် | soun1 - wait.

စောင် | soun2 - blanket.

စောင်း | soun3 - harp.

Those words with single tones are categories by themselves. Those have English equivalent sound groups. I will refer to those groups as (c1, c2, c3, ..., c8). Since they can be expressed by English spellings without ambiguity, I will leave out the numbering.

Remember, there are no closing sounds in Burmese, so try saying those words without tongue play and keep your lips apart for the ending parts of the words.

(c1) cake, jade, eight, paid, sake, bake. E.g., စိတ် | sate - mind
(c2) wet, set, mad, yet. E.g., စက် | set - machine
(c3) cook, put, look. E.g., ဝတ် | woot - wear clothes
(c4) out, south, mouse, doubt. E.g., သောက် | thout - drink
(c5) sight, pipe, night, dice, like, wide, guide. E.g., ဗိုက် | bite - stomach
(c6) up, suck, duck, mud. E.g., ရပ် | yut - stop; stand up
(c7) oat, coat, goat, soak. E.g., ဟုတ် | hote - true; yes
(c8) it, pit, sit. E.g., ချစ် | chit - love

This section correlates Burmese 1,2,3 Tone System with the tone classifications in some studies: Low, High, Creaky tones and & Glottal Stops. Some consider "Glottal Stops" as the fourth tone while Burmese children are taught only three tone variations in school as in က ကာ ကား | ka1, ka2, ka3. "Tone" variations in Burmese as well as Chinese "Pinyin" always have the same vowel base.

That means, you cannot go ka1, ka2, ka3 and then go kut as the fourth tone.

The suffix word သံ | thun2 from the word အသံ | a-thun2 means voice, sound, or noise. Although some of those voices or sounds in the Burmese language can be made to go up and down using tone marks (while maintaining the same vowel sound), some are just single tones and impossible to combine with tone change symbols. Official Burmese language by the Myanmar Language Commission recognizes four sound or သံ | thun2 groups as follow:

• သက်သံ | thet-thun2 - First tone: - Ah1, E1, U1, Ay1, Au1, O1, In1, Oun1, Ine1, Un1, Ain1, Ome1, Eare1. There are 18 of those with 23 different spellings, out of which 18 of those use tone change symbol out myit, which looks like a dot (.) under the character. In total, there are only 13 distinct sounds as represented by romanization with 1,2,3 tone system above. This group is identified as Creaky Tone by some studies. Myanmar Language Commission defines this group as Checked tone.
  
  အ | ah1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိ | e1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အု (ဥ) | u1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အေ့ | ay1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အော့ | au1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အင့် | in1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အောင့် | oun1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိုင့် | ine1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အဉ့် | in1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အည့် | e1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အန့် | un1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိန့် | ain1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အုန့် | ome1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အမ့် (အံ့) | un1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိမ့် | ain1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အုမ့် (အုံ့) | ome1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အယ့် (အဲ့) | eare1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အို့ | o1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  
  
  
  
• တက်သံ | tet-thun2 - Second tone: - Ah2, E2, U2, Ay2, Au2, O2, In2, Oun2, Ine2, Un2, Ain2, Ome2, Eare2. There are 18 of those with 23 different spellings. In total, there are only 13 distinct sounds as represented by the romanization with 1,2,3 tone system above. This group is identified as Low Tone by some studies. Myanmar Language Commission defines this group as Rising tone.
  
  အာ | ah2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အီ (ဤ) | e2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အူ (ဦ) | u2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အေ (ဧ) | ay2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အော် (ဪ) | au2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အို | o2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အင် | in2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အောင် | oun2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိုင် | ine2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အဉ် | in2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အည် | e2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အန် | un2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိန် | ain2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အုန် | ome2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အမ် | un2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိမ် | ain2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အုမ် (အုံ) | ome2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အယ် | eare2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  
  
  
  
• နိမ့်သံ | nain1-thun2 - Third tone: - Ah3, E3, U3, Ay3, Au3, O3, In3, Oun3, Ine3, Un3, Ain3, Ome3, Eare3. There are 18 of those with 21 different spellings, out of which 18 of those use tone change symbol wit-sa1-pout, which looks like a column(:). In total, there are only 13 distinct sounds as represented by romnanization with 1,2,3 tone system above. This group is identified as High Tone by some studies. Myanmar Language Commission defines this group as Falling tone.
  
  အား | ah3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အီး | e3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အူး (ဦး) | u3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အေး | ay3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အော (ဩ) | au3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိုး | o3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အင်း | in3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အောင်း | oun3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိုင်း | ine3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အဉ်း | in3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အည်း | e3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အန်း | un3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိန်း | ain3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အုန်း | ome3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အမ်း | un3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိမ်း | ain3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အုမ်း (အုံး) | ome3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အဲ | eare3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  
  
  
• တိုင်သံ | tine2-thun2 - Single tone Groups: - Ate, Et, Out, Ike, Ut, Oat, It. There are 10 of those using the closing thut which looks like a small "c" over the second character when spelled. In total, there are only 7 distinct sounds as represented by romanization with 1,2,3 tone system above. This group is identified as Ten Glottal Stops by Myanmar Language Commission.
  
  အက် | et<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အောက် | out<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိုက် | ike<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အစ် | it<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အတ် | ut<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိတ် | ate<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အုတ် | oat<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အပ် | ut<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အိပ် | ate<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  အုပ် | oat<<MP3 AUDIO>>
  
  
  

Another thing to take note: The four thun2 groups: Check tones, Rising tones, Falling tones & Glottal Stops in the official listing all add up to the total of 46 sounds with four missing sounds:

အွမ့် (အွန့်) | oon1<<MP3 AUDIO>>
အွမ် (အွန်) | oon2<<MP3 AUDIO>>
အွမ်း (အွန်း) | oon3<<MP3 AUDIO>>
အွတ် (အွပ်) | oot<<MP3 AUDIO>>

Burmese 1,2,3 Tone System used in this website covers the missing vowel group "oon" (See lesson 47) and Single Tone Group "oot" (See lesson 56).

Let's test out a few phrases with the tone system:

ဘယ်လောက်လဲ | beare2 lout leare3 -- How much?

ဘယ် | beare2 -- 2nd tone with the Vowel "Eare" such as "mare" tone in "marry-making". So, it has a normal stress like "bare" in "strawberry".

လောက် | lout -- belongs to single tone group (c4). It is clear enough, so not numbered.

လဲ | leare3 -- 3rd tone with the Vowel "Eare". Stressed like "mare" in "nightmare". Just replace "m" initial consonant sound with "l".

ဘယ်သွားချင်လဲ | beare2 thwa3 chin2 leare3 -- Where do you want to go?

ဘယ် | beare2 -- 2nd tone with the Vowel "Eare" such as "bare" in "strawberry".

သွား | thwa3 -- 3rd tone with the Vowel "A", stressed like Ahhhhh...., so it would sound like tha-waahhhh".

ချင် | chin2 -- 2nd tone Vowel "In"; normal stress like "sin" in "sincerely". Just replace "s" with "ch" sound, i.e., "chin" in place of "sin".

လဲ | leare3 -- 3rd tone just like "mare" in "nightmare". Replace "m" with "l" and say it.

စါးကြစို့ | sa3 ja1 zo1 -- let's eat!

စါး | sa3 -- third tone with the Vowel "A"; fully stressed as Sahhhhh....

ကြ | ja1 -- first tone with the Vowel "A"; short tone like "ja" in "Japan".

စို့ | zo1 -- first tone with the Vowel "O"; a short tone comparable to "colt" without "lt" sound. Replace "c" with "z", i.e., "zolt" without "lt" ending.

To the beginner, it may all sound confusing at first, but the tones will get automatic and natural with practice. When I first learn Mandarin Chinese, I initially had trouble remembering Pinyin tone system. I used to refer back to the tone and pronunciation table, and with repetition, the tones become second-nature. I have included the tone reference table on the left column of every lessons for easy reference. MP3 sound files and Burmese script are later additions to the original lessons. Happy learning Burmese!!