I love language. Being a native of Burma (Myanmar), Burmese language is my first love. English language is a survival language which took me about ten years to be able to express in speaking and writing. My love for Myanmar language was rekindled when i quitted my full-time office work and became a full-time Myanmar language trainer since 2011. In this article, I would like to share the some difficulties that beginners usually encountered while learning this ancient language of more than 1000 years old and some recommended way of learning it.

Guide to pronunciation

Myanmar language is the tonal language which has four major tones. If you are a beginner, it is advisable to learn the proper pronunciation of these tones from a qualified teacher. Otherwise, your foundation will be weak and your communication will not be effective though you may have been speaking Myanmar or Burmese for many years.

In order to pronounce a Burmese word, you need (consonant-vowel-tone) together. For example, the mother of all sound in Burmese language is “a.” /art/ when this sound combined with other consonants or vowels , the whole range of other sounds are created to form Myanmar language.

To pronounce this a. /art/ , the consonant is ‘a’ the last one of 33 consonant. This consonant is unique in the sense that it is also a vowel ‘a’ /ar/ and tone is ‘creaky tone’ represented by a little dot ‘.’ as tone marking after the ‘a’. Then only one can pronoune as a. /art/.

Tones

1. Creaky tone – short falling sound a. /art/
2. Low tone – twice as long as creaky tone- a /ar/ (note: there is no tone marking for low tone)
3. High tone – start with high and then falling tone – a: /arr/
4. Stopped tone – a’ /at/ (the vowel is stopped with glottal stop i.e. with tongue touching one’s palate).

Different tones means different meanings

a. /art/ ( descriptive verb) to be dumb e.g. (He) is dumb = a.-de

a /ar/ (active verb) to talk a lot (i.e. bla-bla-bla) e.g. (You) talk a lot. = a-de

a: /ar:/ ( descriptive verb) to be free (available) e.g. (I) am free = a:-de

a’ /at/ (noun) needle e.g. (I) have (a) needle. = a’ shi.-de (note: shi.-de =have-affirmative particle)

One of the mistakes, likely encountered by the beginner learner, is to learn to pronounce Burmese words without knowing the different tones properly first. Nowadays, there are many free Myanmar language Apps available but they may not provide the proper romanized letters with different tone marking. Thus, their communication could become non-effective or even break down due to “similar but not correct” tones.

Learn by doing – using the Sentence pattern

As a adult beginner learner, learning to recognize and use the pattern or sentence structure is recommended than memorizing the sentences. For example, the affirmative statement pattern is as follow:-

Affirmative (+) statement = (I) [verb]. = [verb]-te/de (unvoiced/voiced)

[verb]-te/de is the verb particle that indicate the affirmative nature of the statement as well as the tenses (present/past).

For example, sa: /sarr/ (verb) to eat, to say (I) eat [Pizza] = [Pizza] sa:-de, the voiced ‘de’ is followed the high tone of the verb. whereas if the verb is stopped tone, then unvoiced ‘te’ will be used . For example, thau’ /thaut/(verb) to drink , to say ‘ I drink [Beer]’ = [Beer] thau’-te. This reason for using this unvoiced or voiced is to make the pronounciation of the phrease smoothier/easier. In summary, if the [verb] tone is stopped tones, unvoiced “[verb]-te” is used and if the [verb]’s tone is any other (creaky, low or high) tones, “[verb]-de” will be used.

Exercises

1. sa: (v) to eat e.g. (I) eat/ate= sa:-de
2. thau’ (v) to drink e.g. (I) drink/drank = thau’-te
3. la (v) to come e.g. (I) come/came = la-de
4. thwa: (v) to go e.g. (I) go/went = thwa:-de

Interpretive meaning vs. literal meaning

Beginner learner should learn to understand the literal meaning instead of memorizing the the sentence as the different Apps / books may give different interpretive meanings to a same sentence. By just looking at interpretive meaning , the beginner learners will be very confused with different interpretive meanings of the same phrase.

For example, the literal meaning of Myanmar greeting : [nei-kaun:]-la: = (Do you) live-well? without saying the (Do you). When people interpret this meaning as “How are you?”, confusion may arise.

In Myanmar language, there are two type of questions. The yes/no questions are ended with question particle “la:” and the open questions are ended with “le:”. Thus, “How are you?” being an open question, should not be the meaning for nie-kaun;-la:.

Note:

la: (?) yes/no question particle e.g. (Do you) live-well ? = nei-kaun:-la:

le: (?) open question particle e.g. How (are you) ? = Be-lo-le:

to be continued…

For those interested to learn Burmese language effectively, go to link: http://www.pacs268.com/zanoziwa

Gradual is the way to go

Burmese language is ranked as Category IV that required (1100 hours) by Foreign Service Institute (FSI) whereas Mandrain is ranked as most difficult language Catrgory V that required (2200 hours) to learn it.

The gradual approach to this language is important. Learning systematically from a teacher will go along way. Under a qualified trainer, many a students reached B1 CEFR level after 300 hours of learning Burmese Language.