Emoticons in Burmese Spoken Words

We have gone through quite a lot of single-syllable ending words in the previous lesson. Here, we will review some of those with more examples and introduce to you a different type of ending words. This mystery type not well documented and not usually taught to the outside world adds an extra dimension of feeling, emotions, and "humanness" to the spoken words just like emoticons that people use online.

"Emoticon" ending words are different in that they are extra words to the sentence. That means a complete sentence can still be made without adding those words.

Polite "ba2" word

If someone asks..

"Do you want it?", or "Do you like it?", with simple verb in the question, I can reply with a simple "yes" without including ba2.

ဟုတ် | hote (or)

ဟုတ်ကဲ့ | hote-keare1 — Yes

Similarly, for simple questions with adjective such as "Is it hot?" or "Is it sweet?", I can reply with a simple "yes" without including ba2.

ဟုတ် | hote (or)

ဟုတ်ကဲ့ | hote-keare1 (or)

ဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ ပူတယ် | hote-keare1, pu2 deare2 — "Yes, it's hot"

where

ပူ | pu2 means "hot" and

တယ် | deare2

is the affirmative ending word.

In such cases, both the question and the answer sound natural only if ba2 is dropped.

However, if someone makes a request or suggestion: "Please do this!", I can add an extra polite ba2. My response can be

ဟုတ် | hote (or)

ဟုတ်ကဲ့ | hote-keare1 (or)

ဟုတ်ကဲ့ပါ | hote-keare1 ba2.

When to use "ba2" in questions and answers

"Yes" with ba2 at the end of the sentence is a polite response to a request or suggestion that is not commonly used in "red or not red", "hot or not hot", "want or not want" type of questions and answers.

Nobody will answer:

pu2 ba2 deare2 — It's hot

with ba2 to a simple "Is it hot?" question.

Well, not in casual everyday conversation. Waiters might be more polite in asking question to the VIPs. Students might be more polite to teachers.

Likewise, simple questions like those will also be without ba2 word.

Question: ပူလား | pu2 la3 — Is it hot?

Answer: ပူတယ် | pu2 deare2 — Yes.

Question: Today is Tuesday, isn't it?

Answer: ဟုတ်တယ် | Hote deare2 — Yes.

The word ba2 is more personal and not about impersonal objects or the weather in both questions and answers. To the question

၅၅၅-၈၈၈၈ ပါလား | nga3 nga3 nga3 shit shit shit ba2 la3

— Is this 555-8888? (or)

နိုင်တင်ညွန့်ပု ပါလား | nine2 tin2-nyoon1-pu1 ba2 la3

Is this Naing Tinnyuntpu ?

I will answer:

hote ba2 deare2

with the slightly raised 3rd tone ending over the phone.

The polite personal question

ပါလား | ba2 la3 is responded with the polite answer

ပါတယ် | ba2 deare2.

Warm feeling of နော် | "nau2" ending

At the end of lesson 2a, I used

သွားဦးမယ်နော်

thwa3 ome3 meare2 nau2

Got to go now!

(go + indication of intention + warm feeling tone)

Actually, it's not a light-hearted "Got to go now!" in English without any feeling in it.

နော် | nau2

has some magic of warmth and closeness in it. It is as though, I am about to part with someone close. I don't really want to go, but I must. And I am asking for permission to go.

If someone says: "Hey, look at the sky! It's turning orange and red", I will not just say

hote deare2.

The reply "yes" with

nau2

makes all the difference.

ဟုတ်တယ်နော်

hote deare2 nau2

Hey, you are right.. what you say is true.

Do you see how this "yes" with nau2 makes the difference? In this context, it adds the feeling tone of awe and amazement over the observation to the simple "yes". It has a kind of emotional bonding effect with which you share your candid opinion or deep inner feelings.

So, I say:

သွားဦးမယ်နော်

thwa3 ome3 meare2 nau2 — Got to go

to someone close or someone I just made friend with. I can have shorter or longer variations of the same sentence.

သွားလိုက်ဦးမယ်နော်

thwa3 lite ome3 meare2 nau2

as in "I am going to the corner store and will be back," or

သွားမယ်နော်

thwa3 meare2 nau2

Shorter but more emotional as in "I don't know when I will see you again."

Well, it's not always necessary to have nau2 to be emotional.

သွားမယ်

thwa3 meare2 — "Good-bye!"

This is even shorter because words are stuck and Lashio Thein Aung's Song "Don't say goodbye" is playing in the background.

Going to review မယ် | "meare2" ending

မယ် | meare2

is a postpositional marker meaning "going to". It transforms the activity word (verb) into future tense. Although it is an ending word, the difference is it is part of the sentence structure, and not an extra "emoticon" word.

စါးမယ် | sa3 meare2 — going to eat.

Short sentence, not because I am sad, but too hungry to be verbose.

စါးကြမယ်၊ စါးကြမယ်

sa3 ja1 meare2.. sa3 ja1 meare2

Let's eat! Let's eat! (eat + plural + going to)

Mandarin Chinese equivalent would be 吃饭 ... 吃饭 "Chi1 fan4.. Chi1 fan4"

လုပ်မယ် | loat meare2 — I will do it. (do + going to)

Please do your work!!

ဟုတ်ကဲ့ပါ ... လုပ်မယ်

hote-keare1 ba2... loat meare2

OK, Ok.. I will do it.. (yes + soften the tone + do + going to)

OK, I "meare2"

မယ် | meare2

could also be used to express a simple "OK" to "or not" type of questions.

For example,

စါးမလား | sa3 ma1-la3

Do you want to eat or not? (eat + will + ?)

စါးမယ် | sa3 meare2 — OK!

သွားမလား | thwa3 ma1-la3

Do you want to go or not? (go + will + ?)

သွားမယ် | thwa3 meare2 — OK!

ကစါးမလား | ga1-za3 ma1-la3

Do you want to play or not? (play + will + ?)

ကစါးမယ် | ga1-za3 meare2 — OK!

နားမလား | na3 ma1-la3

Do you want to rest or not? (rest + will + ?)

နားမယ် | na3 meare2 — OK!

When သွားမယ် | thwa3 meare2

is the answer to the question

thwa3 ma1-la3,

it's not a good-bye. It could be a situation where the two persons in the conversation are about to go out together.

Let's learn about ကြစို့ | "ja1 zo1" ending

စါးကြစို့ | sa3 ja1 zo1

Another variation of Let's eat! But, it is in a sense, "It's about time we eat." I may or may not be hungry. It is a routine and there is not much urgency in it.

ကြစို့ | ja1 zo1 means "Let's".

သွားကြစို့ | thwa3 ja1 zo1 — Let's go! (It's about time we go home.)

ပြေးကြစို့ | pyay3 ja1 zo1 — Let's run!

It's about time we run.. Here comes the debt collector! I guess in this case, there is definitely some urgency in it.

Impatient with unsatisfactory ကွာ | "kwa2" ending

Now, let me show you how I can say the same "Let's go!" in an impatient, frustrated or unsatisfactory tone using

ကွာ | kwa2.

I take you to a hotel lobby where someone is supposed to meet us. The person doesn't show up after waiting for a good one hour....

သွားမယ်ကွာ | thwa3 meare2 kwa2

Fed up and I say "Let's go" in an angry tone.. (go + going to + impatient tone)

Someone is repeatedly telling me not to do something without explaining why. I find him very unreasonable. I tell my friend, I don't care what the man says...

လုပ်မယ်ကွာ | loat meare2 kwa2

I am going to do it, anyway.. (do + going to + unsatisfactory tone)

And I silently say to myself, "What the heck..."

လုပ်တယ်ကွာ | loat deare2 kwa2

(do + affirmative + unsatisfactory tone) in the midst of doing it. "deare2" is spelled as "teare2".

Don't eat that. The food is for the Supernatural beings in the Realm of Immaterial World, says the wife.

Husband: What? I haven't eaten in seven days and you are telling me the chicken is for the Nuts (Supernatural Beings) that I can't even see?

စါးတယ်ကွာ | sa3 deare2 kwa2

he says angrily with a drum-stick in his mouth. (eat + affirmative + unsatisfactory tone)

Don't forget the နဲ့ | "neare1" ending

But, how would you tell someone not to do, eat, or go in the first place?

မစါးပါနဲ့ | ma1-sa3 ba2 neare1

Please don't eat. (negative + eat + suggestion + negative imperative ending)

မသွားပါနဲ့ | ma1-thwa3 ba2 neare1

Please don't go. (negative + go + suggestion + negative imperative ending)

မလုပ်ပါနဲ့ | ma1-loat ba2 neare1

Please don't do it. (negative + do + suggestion + negative imperative ending)

If you are a bit short-tempered at the time, you may drop the suggestion "ba2" to give a more direct order:

မစါးနဲ့

ma1-sa3 neare1 (negative + eat + negative imperative ending)

မသွားနဲ့

ma1-thwa3 neare1 (negative + go + negative imperative ending)

မလုပ်နဲ့

ma1-loat neare1 (negative + do + negative imperative ending)

မလုပ်နဲ့​ ဆိုနေမှ

ma1-loat neare1 hso2-nay2-hma1

Why are you keep doing it when I am telling you not to do it? (negative + do + negative imperative + "despite saying so")

Didn't you say ဆို | "hso2"?

In Burmese, the word

ဆို | hso2

can have several meaning including "to say", "to sing" and "to nag".

It can be used as a particle at the end of the verb phrase to mean "Didn't you say... ?" If someone tells you earlier that he is going somewhere, but you find him watching TV, you can say...

သွား | thwa3 — go

မယ် | meare2 — will; intention to do something

ဆို | hso2 — Didn't you say?

သွားမယ်ဆို | thwa3 meare2 hso2

Didn't you say you were going?

When you say this ending word hso2, try to prolong it and raise it to the third tone hso3

Express your condolence with sympathetic ကွယ် | "kweare2" ending

How about a sympathetic tone? A young woman is telling her grandmother how lousy her day has been. Grandma cannot do anything to help but only give comforting words and consolation through sympathy.

အေးကွယ် | ay3 kweare2

So sorry to hear that.

ကွယ် | kweare2

conveys a sympathetic tone to the sentence.

Some cold truth about abrupt အေး | "ay3" ending

အေး | ay3

is an another form of "yes".

Question: အဒေါ်ကြီး | a-dau2 ji3...

Big Aunty.. (aunty + big)

"Someone told me your husband left you for a younger woman, is that true?"

Answer: အေး | ay3

Taken aback and admits "yes" with puzzlement as she ponders for a moment as to how on earth did he find out about it. With a shortest possible reply, conversation is ended just like that.

If you are a bit tired of hearing someone repeatedly complaining, or reminding you to bring back gifts, or lecturing you on the health benefits of organic food, you may interrupt and try to end the conversation by

အေး၊ အေး၊ အေး | ay3, ay3, ay3 (or)

အေးပါ | ay3 ba2

I must also add that Ay3 is too informal and impolite to be used among strangers. However, it is OK to be used among buddies and cousins or by older persons to younger people that they know well.

Pay attention to ending words in this ending story

The old Grandma seems to have a good heart. Her grandson is about to beat up a thief who broke into the house.

The Grandma says:

မ | ma1 — negative

လုပ် | loat — do

ပါ | ba2 — soften tone

နဲ့ | neare1 — negative imperative

ကွယ် | kweare2 — sympathy

မလုပ်ပါနဲ့ကွယ် | ma1-loat ba2 neare1 kweare2

Please don't do it. Have mercy on him...

The neighbor joins in. "Hey, that's the same fella who stole my bike. Let's beat him up.."

ချကွ၊ ချကွ | cha1 kwa1... cha1 kwa1

"fight! fight!..", cheer on the youngsters.

(fight + show of enthusiasm and delight)

Note the tone difference: kwa1 in the first tone is used to express delight; kwa2 in the second tone is used to express dissatisfaction.

မလုပ်ကြပါနဲ့ကွယ် | ma1-loat ja1 ba2 neare1 kweare2

(negative + do + plural + soft tone of suggestion + negative imperative + sympathy)

မလုပ်ကြပါနဲ့ | ma1-loat ja1 ba2 neare1

Note the plural term "ja1" to mean "Please you guys, have mercy on him.."

သနားပါတယ် | tha1-na3 ba2 deare2

I feel pity for him.

(feel pity + soft suggestion + affirmative)

သနားပါတယ်ကွယ်

tha1-na3 ba2 deare2 kweare2

a stronger expression of pity by adding sympathy.

Can we use impatient, unsatisfactory ending kwa2 with pity feeling? Those two seem to be polar opposites.

Yes, we can!...( I say confidently just like Obama.)

သနားပါတယ်ကွာ | tha1-na3 ba2 deare2 kwa2

(feel pity + soft suggestion + affirmative + dissatisfied tone)

I feel pity for the victim, and at the same time express my disagreement for the injustice being done with the tone of unsatisfactoriness.

Look at those savages beating up a helpless victim. How cruel!

အေးဗျာ | ay3 bya2

"Yes, I couldn't agree with you more," says a bystander who is a middle-age man.

ဟုတ်တယ်ဗျာ | hote deare2 bya2

the second man echoed.

ဟုတ်တယ်ရှင့် | hote deare2 shin1

yes, they are just like that...his wife concurred.

အေးလေ | ay3 lay2...

murmurs an another.

They all agreed to the same thing by saying "yes", but the ending

ဗျာ | bya2

is masculine to be uttered by male speakers while

ရှင့် | shin1

is feminine expression used by female speakers.

အေးလေ | ay1 lay2

is the same "yes" in murmuring tone, but gender-neutral and can be used by both sexes. It is an exact equivalent of Singaporean "Yah lah.." and somewhat close to "Right!" or "Absolutely!" in English.

The situation soon gets ugly, and the police arrives...

I will construct a very expressive sentence using combinations of simple one-syllable words — most of them already discussed previously.

ကဲ ကောင်းကြသေးရဲ့လား

Keare3... koun3 ja1 thay3 yeare1 la3

Look at the mess! Tell me... What do you people have to say now?

("OK now you people..." + good + plural + yet to be + concern + ?)

So, as you can see, Burmese language has short and yet powerful and emotionally-loaded expressions. I will use one of my favorite expressions to end this lesson.

The funny expression is from the comics invented by the late Burmese cartoonist named Aung Shain (pronounced အောင်ရှိန်| Oun2 Shain2) to end his comics.

The English equivalent is "The End". It literally means enough + yet to be + already.

The reason why it is funny is because you don't expect to hear the last two combination of negative and positive pairs, and end up wondering if you really have had enough or not.

တော်သေးပြီ | tau2 thay3 byi2