Language/Burmese/Grammar/Nouns

Burmese Grammar - Nouns

Hi Burmese learners! 😊
In this lesson, we will dig deep into the basics of Burmese nouns. Nouns are a fundamental part of any language used to name a person, place, thing or idea.

Introduction

Nouns are essential to expressing yourself in any language. In Burmese, like other languages, nouns can come in various forms, each of which serves a particular purpose. In this lesson, we will explore Burmese nouns in detail and help you understand how to use them correctly.

Gender in Burmese Nouns

Unlike some languages like French, Burmese nouns do not have a gender. As a result, Burmese nouns do not have an assigned gender. For example, "teacher" and "doctor" are gender-neutral in Burmese. Let's take a look at the following examples:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
သူ	/θù/	person
ကျား	/tɕa̰/	girl
ကြယ်	/tɕaɪʔ/	boy

We can see that there are no gender-specific differences in Burmese.

Number in Burmese Nouns

Burmese has two numbers: singular and plural. To indicate that a noun is in the plural form, တစ်ကြိမ်မှာ (tac-krin-ma-hmar) is added after the noun.

Here's an example dialogue to illustrate this:

• Person 1: နောက်တစ်ခုလုံးခံက် (nauk-ta.kr-lom-khin) (I need one chair)
• Person 2: ဒေါက်တစ်ခုခံက်ပါ (dauk-ta.kr-khin-pa) (Here's one chair)
• Person 1: သူတစ်ဦးများကြားပါ (θù-ta.kù-mya-kra:pa) (There are two people)

As we can see in the last sentence, the word တစ် (ta.kr) meaning one, changes to တစ်ဦး (ta.kr-u:) meaning two.

Possessive Nouns

In Burmese, to indicate possession, the word ရှိ (hrè) follows the possessor and is attached to the object. Let's take a look at the following examples:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ကျွန်တော်အိမ်သုံး	/tɕən.tà.aɪɴ.sóʊɴ/	my mother
ငါ့ကို	/ŋa̰ kò/	my

In the first line, ကျွန်တော် (chun-tau) means "mother" and အိမ်သုံ (a-in-son) means "I" or "me". When combined, the word ကျွန်တော်အိမ်သုံ (chun-tau-a-in-son) means "my mother." In the second line, ငါ့ (nga ko) means "my".

Classifiers

Burmese also has classifiers, which are used to count nouns. Similar to the Chinese language, Burmese classifiers are used to differentiate between objects. For example, to count books, the word စာ (sa) is used as a classifier. The correct structure is as follows:

number + classifier + noun.

Here's an example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ငါ၏ ဘာသာရပ်နှစ်လုံး Myanmar စာကို	/ŋa̰ ʔè bà ðà jè pʰá n̥ɪ̀ɴ ɫóʊɴ sṵ kaiɴó/	My two Myanmar books.

The word "စာ" (sa) acts as a classifier to differentiate the type of books that are being counted. In this sentence, we can see that two Myanmar books are being counted.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you now have a basic understanding of Burmese nouns. If you have any questions or need more help, you can use the Polyglot Club website to find native speakers and ask them any questions. You can also consult our Grammar page for more information on the Burmese language.

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Sources

• Burmese Language
• Burmese Grammar
• Burmese Script
• Burmese Alphabet