33 Main Burmese Letters

33 Main Letters — Byi3

Characters or letters that are more frequently used or seen are highlighted. Simple usage example is given for each letter.

1 ၁	က	ka1 ကကြီး \| spelled as: Ka1 Kji3. Read as: Ka1 Ji3 as in ကမကထ \| ka1-ma1 ka1-hta1 - give leadership.
2 ၂	ခ	kha1 ခခွေး \| spelled as: Kha1 Khway3. Read as: Kha1 Gway3 as in ခဏခဏ \| kha1-na1 kha1-na1 - often.
3 ၃	ဂ	ga1 ဂငယ် \| spelled as: Ga1 Ngeare2. Read as: Ga1 Ngeare2 as in ဂဃနဏ \| ga1 ga1 na1 na1 - differentiate clearly.
4 ၄	ဃ	ga1 ဃကြီး \| spelled as: Ga1 Kji3. Read as Ga1 Ji3 as in အာဃာတ \| ah2 ga2 ta1 - grudge; vengefulness.
5 ၅	င	nga1 င \| spelled as: Nga1. Read as Nga1 as in စေ့င \| say1 nga1 - be sufficient
6 ၆	စ	sa1 စလုံး \| spelled as: Sa1 Lone3. Read as Sa1 Lone3 as in အစအန \| a-sa1 a-na1 - bits and pieces.
7 ၇	ဆ	hsa1 ဆလိမ် \| spelled as: Hsa1 Lain2. Read as: Hsa1 Lain2 as in ဆဋ္ဌမ \| hsut hta1-ma1 - sixth.
8 ၈	ဇ	za1 ဇကွဲ \| spelled as: Za1 Kweare3. Read as: Za1 Gweare3 as in ဇဝန \| za1-wa1-na1 - fast.
9 ၉	ဈ	za1 ဈမျည်းဆွဲ \| spelled as: Za1 Myin3 Hsweare3. Read as: Za1 Myin2 Zweare3 as in ဈာပန \| za2 pa1-na1 - incineration.
10 ၁၀	ည	nya1 ညကြီး \| spelled as: Nya1 Kji3. Read as: Nya1 Ji3 as in အညမည \| a-nya1 ma1-nya1 - reciprocal relation.
11 ၁၁	ဋ	ta1 ဋသန်လျင်းချိတ် \| spelled as: Ta1 Thun2 Lyin3 Chate. Read as: Ta1 Ta1-Lin3-Jate as in ပဋိပက္ခ \| pa1-ti1 pet-kha1 - conflict.
12 ၁၂	ဌ	hta1 ဌဝမ်းဘဲ \| spelled as: Hta1 Wun3 Beare3. Read as: Hta1 Win2 Beare3 as in အဋ္ဌမ \| ut hta1-ma1 - 8th.
13 ၁၃	ဍ	da1 ဍရင်ကောက် \| spelled as: Da1 Yin2 Kout. Read as: Da1 Yin2 Gout as in အာမေဍိတ် \| ah2 may2 date - interjection.
14 ၁၄	ဎ	da1 ဎရေမှုတ် \| spelled as: Da1 Yay2 Hmoat. Read as: Da1 Yay2 Hmoat. THIS WORD IS SELDOM USED.
15 ၁၅	ဏ	na1 ဏကြီး \| spelled as: Na1 Kji3. Read as: Na1 Ji3 as in ပမာဏ \| pa1-ma2 na1 - size; magnitude.
16 ၁၆	တ	ta1 တဝမ်းပူ \| spelled as: Ta1 Wun3 Pu2. Read as: Ta1 Win3 Bu2 as in တဝ \| ta1-wa1 - to fulfill.
17 ၁၇	ထ	hta1 ထဆင်ထူး \| spelled as: Hta1 Hsin2 Htu3. Read as: Hta1 Hsin2 du3 as in အထ \| a-hta1 - pick-up speed.
18 ၁၈	ဒ	da1 ဒထွေး \| spelled as: Da1 Htway3. Read as: Da1 Dway3 as in ဒသမ \| dut tha1-ma1 - 10th.
19 ၁၉	ဓ	da1 ဓအောက်ခြိုက် \| spelled as: Da1 Out Chite. Read as: Da1 Out Chite as in ဓန \| da1-na1 - wealth.
20 ၂၀	န	na1 နငယ် \| spelled as: Na1 Ngeare2. Read as: Na1 Ngeare2 as in နဝမ \| na1-wa1-ma1 - 9th.
21 ၂၁	ပ	pa1 ပစောက် \| spelled as: Pa1 Sout. Read as: Pa1 Zout as in ပထမ \| pa-hta1-ma1 - first.
22 ၂၂	ဖ	pfa1 ဖဦးထုပ် \| spelled as: Pfa1 U Htoat. Read as: Pfa1 Oat Htoat as in အဖ \| a-pfa1 - male parent.
23 ၂၃	ဗ	ba1 ဗထက်ခြိုက် \| spelled as: Ba1 Htet Chite. Read as: Ba1 Det Chite as in ဗလ \| ba1-la1 - strength.
24 ၂၄	ဘ	ba1 ဘကုန်း \| spelled as: Ba1 Kone3. Read as: Ba1 Gome3 as in ဘဝ \| ba1-wa1 - life story.
25 ၂၅	မ	ma1 မ \| spelled as: Ma1. Read as: Ma1 as in မရမက \| ma1-ya1 ma1-ka1 - painstakingly try to get.
26 ၂၆	ယ	ya1 ယပက်လက် \| spelled as: Ya1 Pet Let. Read as: Ya1 Pet Let as in ယမကာ \| ya1-ma1-ka2 - beverage.
27 ၂၇	ရ	ya1 ရကောက် \| spelled as: Ya1 Kout. Read as: Ya1 Gout as in ရသ \| ya1 tha1 - taste.
28 ၂၈	လ	la1 လ \| spelled as: La1. Read as: La1 as in လခမရ \| la1 ga1 ma1-ya1 - no salary.
29 ၂၉	ဝ	wa1 ဝ \| spelled as: Wa1. Read as: Wa1 as in ဝဝ \| wa1 wa1 - until satiated.
30 ၃၀	သ	tha1 သ \| spelled as: Tha1. Read as: Tha1 as in သမ \| tha1-ma1 - to average out.
31 ၃၁	ဟ	ha1 ဟ \| spelled as: Ha1. Read as: Ha1 as in အလဟဿ \| a-la1-ha1 tha1 - wasted.
32 ၃၂	ဠ	La1 ဠကြီး \| spelled as: La1 Kji3. Read as: La1 Ji3 as in စကြဝဠာ \| set kja2 wa1-la2 - the Universe.
33 ၃၃	အ	ah1 အ \| spelled as: Ah1. Read as: Ah1 as in အညတရ \| a-nya1 ta1-ra1 - unknown average person.

NOTE: There is a slight difference in pronunciations of the sixth character စ | Sa1 lone3 and the seventh character ဆ | Hsa1 Lain2. The difference will be almost indiscernible to the Westerners. Hsa1 Lain2 has more hissing sound produced by the tip of the tongue touching the upper palate.