If you’re going out to lunch with a Burmese friend who says he’s running low on water (ရေခမ်းနေတယ်), be prepared to pay for the meal. That means he’s broke. On the other hand, if you’re running low on water yourself, but he is overflowing, so to speak (ရေလျှံနေတယ်), you can probably ask him to pay for the meal.

In English, if you need some type of permit or approval from a government office or an institution, you may need to grease the wheel. In Burmese, you may need to offer the clerk or the boss some tea money (လက်ဖက်ရည်ဖိုး) to get your application on the top of the pile. And if you’re single, dressed in your best outfit, sitting in a conspicuous spot in a café, doing something cute or sexy to attract the attention of romantic prospects, you are displaying your goods on a tray (ဈေးဗန်းခင်းတယ်).

In this episode, my cohost Su, a Chiang Mai-based Burmese language teacher, and I discuss the colorful phrases and slangs the young people are using, and what they actually mean. Join us as we shoot the breeze, as you might say in English, or bake potatoes (အာလူးဖုတ်), as we might say in Burmese.

Vocabulary

ဗန်းစကား slang
နယ်ပယ် territory, sector, segment
အနုပညာလောက the creative sector
အနုပညာလောကသား members of the creative sector
ရေလောင်းပေးတယ် to bribe (lit. to pour water)
စကားဝှက် code word
လက်ဖက်ရည်ဖိုး bribe (lit. tea money)
လက်ဖက်ရည်ဖိုးထိုးတယ် / ပေးတယ် to offer bribe (lit. to offer tea money)
မိုက်တယ် to be stylist / hip
ဆယ်လဖီဆွဲတယ် to take selfie
ဓာတ်ဖမ်းတယ် to take photo (lit. to capture electricity)
ရေလျှံတယ် to have money to spend (lit. to be overflowing)
ရေခမ်းတယ် / ရေပြတ်တယ် to be broke (lit. to be low on water, to run out of water)
ဘိုင်ပြတ်တယ် to be broke
ကြွေတယ် to develop a crush
Crush တယ် to develop a crush
ကြူးတယ် to show off, to publicize someone’s virtues excessively
ဈေးဗန်းခင်းတယ် to attract attention, especially in the romantic sense (lit. to display goods on a tray)
အိုဗာတင်းတယ် to overact, to be melodramatic (from close pronunciation of “over” from “Ovaltine”)
Drama ခင်းတယ် to cause drama
အာလူးဖုတ်တယ် to be talkative (lit. to bake potatoes)
လေပေါတယ် to be talkative (lit. to be windy)
ရွှီးတယ် to lie, to make up stuff, to exaggerate
ပေါက်ပေါက်ဖေါက်တယ် to be talkative, to pester, to scold incessantly (lit. to pop popcorn)
ပွားတယ် to pester, to scold incessantly
စိတ်လေတယ် to be distracted, to be unmotivated, to feel down
ဘူတယ် to be at a loss, to be distracted, to be unmotivated, to feel down
ဟွန်ဒီ unofficial money transferring agent
လန်းတယ် to be stylish, hip (lit. to be fresh)
အထာကျတယ် to be impressive, attractive
ဘိုးတော် / ဘွားတော် dad, mom
ချောင်တယ် / ပေါက်တယ် to lose one’s mind, to be crazy
ပလပ်ကျွပ်တယ် to lose one’s mind (lit. to be unplugged)
ယောက်ဖ / သားကြီး good friend (lit. son, brother-in-law)

Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.

Would you ever drink a cigarette or a cigar? In English, you wouldn't, but in Burmese, you must. To describe smoking a cigarette or cigar, you must use the verb သောက်တယ် , the same verb for drinking coffee, tea, or Coca Cola. It may seem counterintuitive to use the verb to describe consuming liquid for smoking, but that's the correct form: ဆေးလိပ်သောက်တယ် , quite literally, to drink a cigarette.

When talking about having a dream, you cannot just use the single-word verb "dream," as you do in English. Instead, you have to use a noun-verb combo -- အိပ်မက်မက်တယ် meaning, to dream a dream -- the way Ella Fitzgerald did, when she sang "Dream a Little Dream Of Me."

And the standard way to say "take a photo" is ဓာတ်ပုံရိုက်တယ် , with the verb that means "to strike" or "to hit," as if you're trying to defeat your photo with a punch or a blow in a boxing match.

In this episode of Bite-Size Burmese, I introduce you to the standard choices of verbs in Burmese that might perplex or confound you if you're a foreigner. (Photo of old lady smoking in Bagan by Oneinchpunch, licensed from Shutterstock; Intro and end music: "When my ukulele plays" by Soundroll, Upbeat.io.)

Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.

Mid-April is when Burmese people celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of another one with a water festival, similar to the people of Thailand and several other neighboring countries.

In modern times, young people driving around in open pickup trucks and shooting water through high-pressure tubes and cannons is the standard practice, but in the old days, people dipped laurel leaves into silver goblets of fragrant water and dabbed them on one another-- a practice that seems quaint now.

Also, in Thingyan in bygone times, street performers and dance troupes would come up with call and response routines, called သံချပ် Than Jaat, that celebrate life, welcome the new year, and also take jabs at the authorities’ hypocritical behaviors and corruption.

In this episode of Learn Burmese from Natural Talk, my regular guest Su, a Burmese teacher based on Chiang Mai, and I discuss these and more.

Vocabulary

သင်္ကြန် Burmese water festival

သင်္ကြန်ကျပြီ Thingyan has arrived

ပြက္ခဒိန် calendar

ကျင်းပတယ် to celebrate

နံ့သာရည် aromatic water

ရင်ဖုံး / ရင်စေ့ bosom-covered / bosom-buttoned blouse style

အကြိုနေ့ the pre-arrival, the precursor (to a festival)

အကျနေ့ the day of arrival (of a festival)

အကြတ်နေ့ the in-between day

အတက်နေ့ the day preceding the end (of a festival)

နှစ်ဆန်းတစ်ရက်နေ့ first day of new year

ရေသေနတ် / ရေပြွန် water gun / water canon

ကုသိုလ်လုပ်တယ် to perform good deeds

မဏ္ဍပ် pavilion

အတိုင်အဖေါက် call and response

အတိုင်အဖေါက်ညီတယ် the call and response are in sync

သံချပ် a call-and-response routine

ပူဆာတယ် to pester, to repeatedly request

အာဏာသိမ်းတယ် to stage a coup

သီလယူတယ် to pledge to observe certain precepts

အတာအိုး a well-wishing pot with flowers and leaves

၇ရက်သားသမီးအတွက် for those born on each of the weekday

ခွက်စောင်းခုတ်တယ် to slap a cup of water down with force

ဥပုသ်သည် those observing precepts

ညိုမြမလုပ်နဲ့ do not play coy, do not pretend to be disinterested

မူမနေနဲ့ do not play coy, do not pretend to be disinterested

ဈေးကိုင်တယ် to be holding out

မုန့်လုံးရေပေါ် sweet rice balls, a specialty of Thingyan

Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.