Language/Burmese/Grammar/Negation

Burmese Grammar - Negation

Hi Burmese learners! 😊
In this lesson, we will explore how to express negation in Burmese. It is a commonly used language feature that can often change the meaning of a sentence.

Basic Negation

The most common way to express negative sentences in Burmese is to use the word "ma" (မ) in front of the verb. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
မောက်ယွင်း	mauk ywinn	not beautiful

To negate a sentence with a verb that ends with a vowel, "ma" changes to "mau" (မော). For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ရွှေသောင်းသည်	hwesang tane	not delicious

Additionally, to express double negation, the word "yay" (ရေး) can be added at the end of the sentence. It is equivalent to "not... at all" in English. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ကြီးမားရေးမချော်လား။	kyi ma yay hkyau lar?	You don't like it at all?

Negation with Nouns and Adjectives

When negating a statement with a noun, the word "ma" is not used. Instead, the particle "bu" (ဘူး) is used. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
မီးပီးတယ်ဘူး။	mit pi tai bu?	Isn't it fish?

When negating a sentence with an adjective, the word "bu" follows the adjective. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ကျန်းမားမထိပါဘူး။	kyanma ma htay pa bu?	Isn't it not delicious?

Using "ma hte" for emphasis

To emphasize the negation in a sentence, "ma hte" (မထောတဲ့) is often added at the end of a sentence. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ခိုင်မရောက်သွားပေးနေတာလားပဲပါ။ မထိုးရက်ပို့လို့	hkyin ma yaung taw pyan nay tar lar? Ma hte?	You won't go on a trip because it's raining? Really not going?

Examples in Context

Here is an example dialogue where the negative sentences are emphasized:

• Person 1: ချန်းနေချိန်းမရှိလို့။ (Chin ne khain ma hse loe?)

(You can't see the moon, can you?)

• Person 2: ချန်းနေပဲလား။ မြင်ရလို့ရ (Chin ne pya lar? Myin yar loe)

(Can't see the moon? I see it.)

Conclusion

Negation is an essential feature in Burmese grammar that can often change the meaning of a sentence. Don't be afraid to use it in everyday conversations. To improve your Burmese Grammar, you can also use the Polyglot Club website. Find native speakers and ask them any questions!

Sources

• Burmese grammar
• Burmese language
• Burmese alphabet

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• Gender
• Future Tense
• Conditional Mood
• Pronouns
• Adjectives
• Plurals
• Nouns
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• Questions