Language/Burmese/Grammar/Regular-Verbs
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Burmese verbs are an essential part of the language. Learning verbs and tenses is essential to understand the structure of the language and build complete sentences. In this lesson, we will learn about regular verbs in Burmese and how to use them in sentences with different tenses.
Regular verbs in Burmese follow a simple conjugation rule. Once you learn the basic rule, you can conjugate any regular verb with ease.
Consider broadening your understanding by checking out these related lessons: 0 to A1 Course & How to Use Be.
Basic Conjugation Rule
To conjugate regular verbs in Burmese, you need to remove the infinitive marker "ရွှေ့" (hrai: ) from the verb and add the relevant tense marker at the end. Below is a table showing the conjugation of regular verbs in Burmese:
| Tense | Marker |
|---|---|
| Present | ရ / ra |
| Past | တို့ / twae |
| Future | နောက် / nawk |
Let's take an example verb "ကျွန်တော်တို့နားသွားသည်" (kyan-taw-tu-nar-swae-twae-nawk-thwa-ne). It means "We are learning". Let's conjugate it in different tenses to better understand the conjugation rule:
- Present tense: ကျွန်တော်တို့ နားသွားရ (kyan-taw-tu-na-swae-ra) - Past tense: ကျွန်တော်တို့ နားသွားတို့ (kyan-taw-tu-na-swae-twae) - Future tense: ကျွန်တော်တို့ နားသွားသည် (kyan-taw-tu-na-swae-nawk)
As you see in the example above, the present tense marker is "ရ" (ra), the past tense marker is "တို့" (twae), and the future tense marker is "နောက်" (nawk).
Let's look at another example verb "ရောင်းချင်းပြောသည်" (raung-chang-pyau-thwa-ne) meaning "they are asking questions".
- Present tense: ရောင်းချင်း ပြောခဲ့ရင် (raung-chang-pyau-hkair-ra) - Past tense: ရောင်းချင်း ပြောတို့တွေ (raung-chang-pyau-thwa-ne-twae) - Future tense: ရောင်းချင်း ပြောသည် (raung-chang-pyau-thwa-nawk)
As you can see, the verb remains the same in all tenses, except in the past tense where we have to add the past tense marker "တို့" (twae) at the end.
Using Regular Verbs with Different Tenses
In Burmese, regular verbs can be used with different tenses to convey different meanings. Let's see how using different tenses with regular verbs changes the meaning of a sentence.
Present Tense
The present tense in Burmese is used to talk about things happening now or things that happen regularly. For example:
- ကျွန်တော်တို့ နားသွားရ (kyan-taw-tu-na-swae-ra) meaning "We are studying now"
- အခု နေ့မှာ ငါ လက်ရှိကြမ်းပူးလို့ သိတဲ့အတွက် သင်ပါတယ် (a-hsae na-mha nga-lar-kyi-pu-lower-thway-tha-to-atti-tha-nyin: ) meaning "I am still searching for a parking spot now in today."
Past Tense
The past tense in Burmese refers to things that have already happened or completed actions in the past. For example:
- ကျွန်တော်ပိုင်းပြောသလို့ခင်ဗျာ။ (kyan-taw-paing-pyau-tha-lar-tha-hkann-ba) meaning "Did you study yesterday?"
- ပြီးခဲ့သော စာမျက်နှာရဲ့ ရက်ကိုပတ်တမ်း ရိုက်ပါစေ (pyi-chair-thae-sa-myar-nya-har-yi-gaun-tat-myar-yi-lei-bya-att-tha-hson) meaning "I read the entire book cover to cover yesterday".
Future Tense
The future tense in Burmese refers to things that will happen in the future. For example:
- မင်းတို့နှင့် ကျွန်တော်မှာ ဖြတ်ကြည့်မယ် (mang-tu-na-nya-hnain-pyet-kyit-ma-ya) meaning "We will meet tomorrow"
- မိတ်ထဲမှာ အခုကိုယ်တိုင်သုံးသပ်ပုံမှန် သတ်မှတ်ပါ (meet-te-mha-hna-myar-ah-ko-yi-tu-ngawn-tha-mat-tat-pu) meaning "Remember to take a picture with your phone in your hand now"
Using Regular Verbs in Negation
To form the negative form of regular verbs in Burmese, we use the word "မဟုတ်" (ma-hote) before the verb. Here are some examples:
- ကျွန်တော်တို့ နားသွားမည် (kyan-taw-tu-na-swae-ma-ne) meaning "We are not studying"
- ဘာသာဖြင့် အင်္ဂလိပ်လိုင်း ရှိရမည့် စာအုပ်များ မဟုတ်ပါ။ (bathaha-prang-yi-gau-lone-yi-har-yi-sa-hpyu-myar-hma-ha-hto-att-pu) meaning "I don't have books with language explanation"
Conclusion
In this lesson, we learned about regular verbs in Burmese and basic conjugation rules. We also learned how regular verbs can be used with different tenses and negation. Regular verbs are the building blocks of sentences in Burmese. Understanding their conjugation and usage is essential to building complete and correct sentences. In the next lesson, we will discuss irregular verbs in Burmese and how to conjugate them.
Finished this lesson? Check out these related lessons: Pronouns & Future Tense.
Other Lessons
- 0 to A1 Course
- Adjectives
- Conditional Mood
- Location and Direction
- Future Tense
- Describing People and Things
- Plurals
- How to Use Be
- Pronouns
Sources
- Burmese language - Wikipedia
- Outline of Burmese Grammar - Wikisource, the free online library
- Burmese Grammar: Verbs, Particles, Postpositional markers
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