Language/Burmese/Vocabulary/How-to-Say-Hello-and-Greetings

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🤗 Burmese Greetings for Everyday Life

Hi Burmese learners! 😃

Do you want to learn how to say “Hello” in Burmese?

In Burmese culture, greetings are an important part of daily life and can help to build relationships with others. In this lesson, we will learn common Burmese greetings and when to use them. We will also learn about Burmese customs and etiquette related to greetings.

Let’s get started! 🤗

With the completion of this lesson, consider investigating these related pages: Drinks, Clothes, Basic Greetings & Fruits.

Basic Burmese Greetings:[edit | edit source]

"မင်္ဂလာပါ" (Mingalaba): This is the most common greeting in Burmese language. It can be used at any time of the day and in any situation.
"နေကောင်းလား" (Ne kaun ba): This greeting is used to ask about someone's well-being. It is typically used in informal situations.
"ကောင်းတာနဲ့" (Kaun ba de): This response is used to answer the question "How are you?" It is a polite and common response.
"တစ်ခါတစ်ခါ" (Ta ta): This is the most common way to say goodbye in Burmese language. It can be used in any situation.

Formal Burmese Greetings:[edit | edit source]

"မင်္ဂလာဗောက်သင့်" (Mingalabar Shin): This greeting is used to show respect to elders or people in a position of authority. It is a formal greeting and can be used in professional situations.
"ကောင်းတာရဲ့လား" (Kaun ba deh la): This is a more formal response to "How are you?" It is used in professional or respectful situations.
"ရေသွားပါ" (Ye thwa deh): This phrase is used to get someone's attention or to apologize. It can be used in any situation.

Burmese Etiquette and Customs:[edit | edit source]

In Burmese culture, it is important to show respect to elders and people in a position of authority. Use the appropriate formal greetings when necessary.
When greeting someone, it is customary to bow slightly and bring your hands together in front of your chest.
It is also customary to ask about the person's family and well-being before moving on to other topics.

Greetings - Complete List[edit | edit source]

English	Burmese Writing	Burmese Transliteration
Hello (General greeting)	မင်္ဂလာပါ	min-ga-la-ba
Hello (on phone)	ဟယ်လို	hello
Hello	မင်္ဂလာပါ	Min Ga Lar Par!
Hello	ဟယ်လို	haallo
how are you?		Ni kawn la?
How are you?	ခင်ဗျားနေကောင်းလား။	k'amyà ne-kaùn-là?
How are you?	ရှင်နေကောင်းရဲ့လား	shin ne-kaùn-yéh-là?
Reply to 'How are you?'	နေကောင်းပါတယ်၊ ဘာလို့လဲ။	ne-kaùn-ba-deh, bhaallolell?
general greeting spoken by a man		Mingala ba kinbya
general greeting spoken by a woman		Mingala ba shin
morning greeting		Mingala nanekhin ba
nighttime greeting		Mingala nya ba
reply to Ni kawn la		Kawn ba de
reply to Ni kawn la		Kawn ba de, kyi zu be
general greeting, literally "have you eaten?"		T'amin sapibila?
greeting spoken by a man, literally "have you eaten?"		K'amya t'amin sapyibabyila?
greeting spoken by a woman, literally "have you eaten?"		Shin t'amin sapyibabyila?
reply to Tə-mìn sà pyì pyi là , K'amya t'amin sapyibabyila, and Shin t'amin sapyibabyila		Sà pyì pyi
greeting, literally: "where are you going?		Be ðwà mə ló lè
reply to Be ðwà mə ló lè , literally: "around here"		Di nà lèi bè
Welcome	ကြိုဆိုပါတယ်	tʃo so ba de
What's your name? (spoken by a man)	ခင်ဗျားနာမည်ဘယ်လိုခေါ်လဲ	khə-myà ne-me ká be lo khaw lè
What's your name? (spoken by a woman)	ၡင့်နာမည်ဘယ်လိုခေါ်လဲ	shín ne-me be lo khaw lè
My name is ... (spoken by a man)	ကျွန်တော်နာမည် ... လို့ခေါ်ပါတယ်	tʃənáw ne-me ká ... ló khaw ba de
My name is ... (spoken by a woman)	ကျွန်မနာမည်က ... လို့ခေါ်ပါတယ်	tʃəmá ne-me ká ... ló khaw ba de
Where are you from?	မင်းကဘယ်ကလဲ	mìn ká be ká lè
I'm from ...	...ကပါ။	ká ba
Pleased to meet you	တွေ့ရတာ ဝမ်းသာပါတယ်။	twéi yá da wànða ba deh
Goodbye (Parting phrase)	ဘိုင့်ဘိုင်	bái bai
Good luck!	ကံကောင်းပါစေ!	kan kàu ba zay