Air-conditioner is not working!
Can you guess what "bedroom" is called in Burmese? The Burmese word for bedroom doesn't contain the word "bed" at all. In direct translation, it is called "sleep room".
အိပ်ခန်း | ate khan3
means bedroom, where အိပ် | ate means "to sleep", and ခန်း | khan3 refers to a room.
But, don't worry. I can guarantee you, all hotels, and even low budget "guest houses" in Myanmar will have a bed for you to sleep on. Below is the photo of one quite decent hotel room in Myanmar and some new vocabulary.
I want a room with bathroom attached
Here's another good news. Most decent hotels in Myanmar will have someone who knows some English, so they should be able to understand what a bedroom with bathroom attached means. But, if you want to show off your Burmese speaking skills, I can help you a bit on that area.
ရေချိုးခန်း | yay2-cho3 gun3 — bathroom
ပါ | pa2 — come with
တဲ့ | deare1 — the one which is
အခန်း | a-khan3 — a room
လိုချင်တယ် | lo2 chin2 deare2
I want (need + want + affirmation)
ရေချိုးခန်း ပါတဲ့အခန်း လိုချင်တယ်
yay2-cho3 gun3 pa2 deare1 a-khan3 lo2 chin2 deare2
I want a room with bathroom attached.
Alternatively, you can also say,
ရေချိုးခန်း | yay2-cho3 gun3 — bathroom
နဲ့ | neare1 — with
အခန်း | a-khan3 — a room
လိုချင်တယ် | lo2 chin2 deare2
I want (need + want + affirmation)
ရေချိုးခန်း နဲ့ အခန်း လိုချင်တယ်
yay2-cho3 gun3 neare1 a-khan3 lo2 chin2 deare2
I want a room with bathroom attached.
Of course, you can always substitute bathroom with some other nouns such as
အဲကွန် | eare3 koon2 — air-conditioner
mini-bar, IDD phone, Internet connection, and so on.
How many?
Back in lesson 19, we have learned to say, "how many children do you have?" In Burmese phrases, "how many" is always accompanied by "measure words". The sentence will have the format:
ဘယ်နှ |
beare2 hna1-xxxx yyyy, where
xxxx is the measure word and
yyyy is needed to complete the sentence. Measure word xxxx examples are shown below without yyyy. Those are not complete sentences yet.
ဘယ်နှလုံး | beare2 hna1-lone3 — "how many" for items with round shapes such as fruits and light bulbs.
ဘယ်နှဂါလံ | beare2 hna1-ga2-lun2 — how many gallons of gasoline
ဘယ်နှကျပ် | beare2 hna1-kjut — how much "kyat" (Burmese currency)
ဘယ်နှကောင် | beare2 hna1-koun2 — "how many" for number of animals
ဘယ်နှဘူး | beare2 hna1-bu3 — how many bottles and tin cans
ဘယ်နှပုလင်း | beare2 hna1-pa1-lin3 — how many glass bottle with necks such as wine bottles
ဘယ်နှယောက် | beare2 hna1-yout — "how many" for number of persons
ဘယ်နှခု | beare2 hna1-khu1 — "how many" for general small items that can be counted
ဘယ်နှခန်း | beare2 hna1-khan3 — how many rooms
Extensive list of "measure words" are given in the table at lesson 12.
Example:
လူဘယ်နှယောက် လာလဲ | lu2 beare2 hna1-yout la2 leare3 — How many people came?
Now, you need yyyy ending part to complete the sentence. There can be several variations, but I will give two common usages.
လိုချင်လဲ | lo2 chin2 leare3 — used in "how many do you want?"
လဲ | leare3 — just a question mark in "how many xxxx" sentence.
Examples on full sentences with the format: "How many xxxx yyyy?
ဘယ်နှခန်းလိုချင်လဲ | beare2 hna1-khan3 lo2 chin2 leare3
How many rooms do you want?
ဘယ်နှယောက်လဲ | beare2 hna1-yout leare3
How many persons?
ဘယ်နှလုံးလိုချင်လဲ | beare2 hna1-lone3 lo2 chin2 leare3
How many (fruits, light bulbs, etc.) do you want?
Counter question to "How many do you want" question
So, when the front desk asks you,
ဘယ်နှခန်းလိုချင်လဲ | beare2 hna1-khan3 lo2 chin2 leare3
— How many rooms do you want?, you can counter question as follow:
(၃)ခန်း ရမလား
thone3 khan3 ya1 ma1-la3
Three rooms available? (3 + rooms + roughly "available?")
That phrase sounds more natural than
(၃)ခန်း လိုချင်တယ်
thone3 khan3 lo2 chin2 deare2
(We) want three rooms. (3 + rooms + want + need + affirmation)
Air conditioner doesn't work!
If something is not in the working condition and needs fixing, you can use the words
ပျက်နေတယ် | pyet nay2 deare2.
For example, you can say...
အဲကွန်ပျက်နေတယ်
eare3-koon2 pyet nay2 deare2
Air-conditioner is not working. (air conditioner + "not in working condition")
ကားပျက်နေတယ်
ka3 pyet nay2 deare2
Car broke down. (car + "not in working condition")
စက်ပျက်နေတယ်
set pyet nay2 deare2
Machine is not working. (machine + "not in working condition")
If something doesn't work that has to do with water or electricity, Burmese people will say,
မလာဘူး | ma1-la2 bu3,
which in direct translation means, "doesn't come".
မီးမလာဘူး
mi3 ma1-la2 bu3
There's no electricity!
အခန်းထဲ မီးမလာဘူး
a-khan3 hteare3 mi3 ma1-la2 bu3
There's no electricity in the room. (room + inside + electricity + "doesn't come")
ရေမလာဘူး
yay2 ma1-la2 bu3
There's no water (from the tap.)
အဲကွန်မလာဘူး
eare3-koon2 ma1-la2 bu3
Air conditioner doesn't work!
Murphy's Law
Murphy's Law says: if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. I hope that if you plan on visiting Myanmar, Murphy's Law doesn't apply. In any case, sleep well and have no fear! Knowing some of those Burmese words to express yourself will "work" wonders. May you not encounter Murphy's Law today!