A Zun Mo - Essential Burmese Phrasebook & Dictionary

SPEAK BURMESE WITH CONFIDENCEESSENTIALBURMESEPHRASEBOOK & DICTIONARY A Zun Mo IntroductionWelcome to the Tuttle Essential Language series, covering all of the most popular Asian languages. These books are basic guides to communicating in the language. Theyre concise, accessible and easy to understand, and youll find them indispensable on your trip abroad to get you where you want to go, pay the right prices and do everything youre planning to do. Each guide is divided into 14 themed sections and starts with a pronunciation guide which explains the phonetic pronunciations of all the words and sentences youll need to know, and a basic grammar guide which will help you construct basic sentences in the language. At the end of this book is an extensive EnglishBurmese dictionary. Throughout the book youll come across boxes with a beside them. These are designed to help you if you cant understand what your listener is saying to you.

Hand the book over to them and encourage them to point to the appropriate answer to the question you are asking. Other boxes in the bookthis time without the symbolgive listings of themed words with their English translations beside them. For extra clarity, we have put all phonetic pronunciations of the Burmese terms in bold. This book covers all situations you are likely to encounter during the course of a visit, from reserving a room for the night to ordering food and drinks at a restaurant and what to do if you get lost or you lose your money. With over 2,000 commonly used words and essential sentences at your fingertips you can rest assured that you will be able to get by in all situations, so let Essential Burmese become your passport to learning to communicate with confidence! Pronunciation guide This book uses the most common romanized system of Burmese, widely known as Myanglish or Burglish, which is Burmese written in its nearest equivalent using the Latin alphabet. 1 Consonants Most of the romanized Burmese consonants are pronounced in the same way as their English equivalent.

The consonants listed below can sometimes be tricky for non-native speakers. Also note that final consonants in Burmese words are always silent. They are swallowed by briefly closing the back of the throat (this is known as a glottal stop). For example, the final ll is silent in the word pell which means beans.

Myanglish	Pronunciation	Example
ng	like ng in singer	ngarr fish or five
ny	like nio in onion	nya night
t	like t in star (close to /d/ sound)	tit one
ht	like t in tart	htee umbrella
p	like pp in slipper	pell beans
ph	like p in part	pharr frog
th	like th in there	tharr son

2 Vowels and Tones A tone is a variation in pitch when a word is pronounced. In Burmese, most vowels have three different tones; high and short; low and level; and high and long.

There is also a stopped tone which is high and very short. A variation in the pitch or tone of a vowel changes the meaning of a word.

Word	Tone	Meaning
sa	high and short	start
sar	low and level	letter
sarr	high and long	eat
set	stopped	machine

Vowel tones in this book are represented by spellings that approximate English vowel length and pronunciation. An alphabetical list of those spellings is written below, with pronunciation guidelines. *An asterisk next to the English pronunciation example denotes that the final consonant of the English word should be swallowed in a glottal stop (see ), and not be audible.

Myanglish	Pronunciation	Example
a	like art in tart*	ka dance
ae	like e in cherry	wae buy
aet	like elp in help*	naet and
ai	like ai in Thailand	sai shop
aii	like ai in Thai	yaii rude
ain	like ain in rainy	sain diamond
aint	like aint in faint*	amaint order
an	like an in van*	kan lake
ann	like and in land*	lann street
ant	like ant in ant*	lant shocked
ar	like ar in narcotics	nyar right
arr	like arr in car*	sarr eat
at	like at in mat*	yat stop
ate	like ate in date*	pate close
aung	like ound in pound*	kyaung cat
aungg	like ow in now	kyaungg school
aungt	like ount in count*	saungt wait
aw	like or in or*	kaw glue
awt	like ork in pork*	thawt key
aww	like aw in saw	maww tired
ay	like A in ABC	yay water
ayt	like ave in cave*	mayt forget
ayy/aye	like ay in bay	sayy medicine
ee	like ee in see	mee fire
eet	like eet in beetroot	hteet touch
ein	like ain in gain*	thein keep
ell	like air in air*	yell police
et	like et in pet*	khet difficult
i	like e in reuse	ni red
in	like in in basin*	sin elephant
inn	like in in win*	hinn curry
int	like ink in sink*	thint should
it	like it in sit*	* tit one

Next page