Language/Burmese/Grammar/Adjectives

Burmese Grammar - Adjectives

Hi Burmese learners! 😊
In this lesson, we will dive into adjectives in Burmese. Adjectives are an important part of any language, as they describe and modify nouns. With the help of adjectives, we can add more meaning and details to our sentences. So, let's get started!

After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Plurals, Pronouns, Negation & Describing People and Things.

What are Adjectives in Burmese?

Adjectives are the words that describe or modify nouns. In Burmese, adjectives play a crucial role in both written and spoken language. There are two types of adjectives in Burmese:

• အရိုးအသားသည်မျှ ကျော်လွန်သည်။ (Ariu atar thi hn̥ khaung tal) - Qualitative Adjective
• အရိုးအသားသည့် ခရီးသည်။ (Ariu atar thi hn̥ kha nge hkit tal) - Quantitative Adjective

Qualitative adjectives qualitatively modify the noun, while the quantitatives modifying the noun quantitatively. For example, the qualitative adjective မဟာသော (mahthau) means good, and the quantitative ပိုးပေါင်း (baupang) means many.

Qualitative Adjectives

Qualitative adjectives are the most commonly used adjectives in Burmese, and they describe the qualities or characteristics of the noun. They come before the noun they describe, just like in English. The structure of the sentence is as follows:

Yellow shirt is beautiful. အဝါးပွင့်သည် အလှအရသည်။ (A wasin pwint sain albha thau nge.)

Here, အဝါးပွင့်သည် (A wasin pwint sain) means yellow shirt, and အလှအရ (albha thau) means beautiful.

Here are some more examples:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
နှလုံးဆွေးနွေးသည်	hn̥ lu myei nwei ǹ sain	I am happy.
အနိုင်းယားဝင်းပြီးသည်	anioungga wingpyi thi ǹ	The bird is flying.
ပင်လယ် အစိမ်းသည်	pangle a hcim sain	The flowers are beautiful.
မျှောက်မည့် ဖိုးသည်	hn̥aucain maung nai h̥pou sain	The mango that I ate is sweet.

Quantitative Adjectives

Quantitative adjectives indicate the quantity or number of the noun, and they come after the noun they describe. Let's see some examples:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ကောင်းတည်းပြောခြင်းများ	khangtin pyauhkhaingahn mya	Many ways to win.
သူတို့ အရန်ကြီးသည်	suhtui a ran kre thau nge.	They are a few.
ပုံများအရောင် ပိုးပေါင်းသည်	pumya ayaung paupang thau nge.	There are many beautiful pictures.

Comparative Adjectives

Comparative adjectives are used to compare two or more nouns, and they indicate which of these is superior or inferior. In Burmese, the comparative form is formed by adding the suffix "-ရပ်" (-yarp) to the end of the adjective. For example,

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ကောင်းသည်	khangsain	good
ကောင်းရှည်လို့	khangsainhlyo	better
ကောင်းနှစ်သည်	khanghnetsain	the best

Here's a dialogue to illustrate:

• Person 1: ကောင်းသည် (Khangsain) (This is good)
• Person 2: ကောင်းရှည်လို့ (Khangsainhlyo) (This is better)

Superlative Adjectives

Superlative adjectives are used to indicate the highest or lowest degree of a quality among three or more nouns. In Burmese, the superlative form is formed by adding the prefix "အား" (ah) to the front of the comparative form. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ကောင်းသည်	khangsain	good
ကောင်းရှည်လို့	khangsainhlyo	better
အားကောင်းရှည်လို့	a khangsainhlyo	the best

Here's a dialogue to illustrate:

• Person 1: ကောင်းနှစ်ခုသည် ကောင်းရှည်လို့ ရှိသော်လည်း အား ကောင်းရှည်လို့ ပေါင်းသည်။ (Khanghnetsaukhu thau ǹ khangsainhlyoh R̥h sa thee Rune le a khangsainhlyo paung thau nge.) (This book is the best among the two books.)

Conclusion

Adjectives are important words that can enhance and bring color to your speech and writing. They provide more information about the person, place, thing, or idea being described. In Burmese, it is crucial to use adjectives correctly to ensure correct grammar and conveying your intent clearly. To improve your Burmese Grammar, you can use the resources available at Polyglot Club. You can also find native speakers and ask them any questions!

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Now that you've completed this lesson, don't stop learning! Check out these related topics: Burmese Grammar → Sentence Structure → Simple Sentences, Burmese Grammar Prepositions and Conjunctions Location and ..., How to Use Be & Irregular Verbs.

Other Lessons

• Pronouns
• Conditional Mood
• Nouns
• Gender
• Plurals
• Give your Opinion
• How to Use Be
• Future Tense
• Negation

Sources

• Burmese language - Wikipedia
• Grammar of the Burmese Language - Wikisource, the free online ...
• Burmese Adjectives | Learn to Speak Simple Burmese