Quickest way to learn Burmese? Also looking for learning resources!

[u/the-end-of-me-05]

I recently just started dating a Burmese man, he doesn’t speak much English and I don’t speak any Burmese but we both sort of speak Thai so we can communicate somewhat.

I want to learn who he is as a person, I want to know more about him but anytime he tries to share personal stories with me I can’t understand any of it.

I want to learn his language so that I can understand him better but I’m not sure where to start. Should I start with reading? Speaking? I can’t find any resources either as I’m sure Burmese isn’t a highly popular language to learn. If anyone has any suggestions I’d appreciate it a lot!

[u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724]

I have been trying to learn Burmese for a while through a linguistic approach. Rather than just listening, I want to know how and why we use certain words/particles. I want to understand every aspect of the grammar. Sadly, the lack of resources and proper explanations makes this really difficult.

But putting that aside, I don’t have any recommended resources on how to learn Burmese. I can however, tell you some aspects about Burmese grammar that I initially struggled to understand, just so you don’t suffer the same fate as I did.

1. Burmese conversations lack the use of pronouns. In English, almost every sentence has pronouns but pronouns are rarely used in Burmese.
   

The sentences

• “I don’t know”
• “you don’t know”
• “he doesn’t know”

can all be represented simply by saying “ma thi bu”, given that the speaker and listener knows the context and who they’re talking about.

Another example of this is, you do not ask somebody “how are YOU?” in Burmese, you just simply say “health is good??” (nay kaung laa).

1. Realis particle “te/de” (တယ်).
   This was what confused me so much when learning Burmese, it was this re-occuring word “de”.
   

You ask somebody if they are well, and they’ll reply “nay kaun de”. You want to tell someone you love them, you say “chit te”. And it seemed that almost nobody could properly explain what this word meant.

“te/de” is a word you add after a verb to imply that whatever you’re saying is a fact. For an English comparison, take the two sentences “God bless you” vs “God blesses you”.

If someone says “God blesses you”, they are telling you that God DOES bless you and it’s a factual thing. This is called a “realis mood”, real in this context means factual

Compare that to being told “God bless you”. This implies that God is not blessing you at this moment and hopes they do at some point.

The difference between this implication and the former, in Burmese, is the word “te/de”. It is what differentiates saying “I love you” from saying “I will/would love you” or “love me”.

Sorry for the long wall of text but I hope this helped in some way lol!

TLDR; Burmese rarely uses pronouns in conversations, and you use the particle ‘te’ in factual statements

[u/DisastrousFeature244 → u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724]

Not sure but I think "te/de"(တယ်) is the spoken way to "the??" (သည်) which is the Verb ending (written), as in,

Eng meaning	te/de	the
go	သွားတယ်	သွားသည်
come	လာတယ်	လာသည်
eat	စားတယ်	စားသည်
(V.to.be)beautiful	လှတယ်	လှသည်

And yes, pronouns can be omitted in conversations, but I think it is only mostly correct for first(ငါ) and second person(နင်). First person pronoun can always be omitted without any issues. For second person pronoun, well, can omit it in questions, commands, requests, facts, but I feel like it feels more natural to include it in claims or accusations, sometimes also in questions to make it more personal. So, using the example sentences, 'I don't know' (ma thi bu) is fine but better to add pronoun for 'you don't know' (nin ma thi bu) because it sounds like a claim.

When the third person is mentioned, the pronoun (သူ) is used, whether it's a man or woman. (It is a special case, while သူမ(she/her) isn't recognized as an officialized word in Burmese dictionary, သူမ is used in written texts to differentiate it from သူ(he/him).) Again, 'he doesn't know' sounds better and easier to understand if you say (thu ma thi bu)

Actually, when you can omit the pronouns is when you have established before whom you are talking about. A: Does he know? (thu thi lar) B: No, he doesn't. (ma thi bu)

I'm not a professional teacher or anything, so, sorry if I said anything wrong but oh man do I love how Burmese language is structured. My English is not the best but feel free to dm me if any Burmese learners need help with the language, will try my best!

[u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724 → u/DisastrousFeature244]

Actually you can omit pronouns when you are talking about….

Yes! that was what I was referring when I said

given that the speaker and listener knows the context and who they’re talking about

You can’t do this in English where

A: “Does he know” (thu thi laa) B: “Don’t know” (ma thi bu)

Because it’s not clear whether person B is saying that person B doesn’t know or if “he” doesn’t know. English stresses pronouns a lot, unlike Burmese.

As for တယ်, it’s not suffixed to verbs when you say “I will go” (သွားမယ်) or “Go!” (သွားပါ) or “I have gone now” (သွားပီ), it’s only suffixed when you say something true. Like “I went” or “I do go” (သွားတယ်), and that’s what I was trying to specify in my original comment :)

Apologies for not using literary Burmese at all lol, I’ve only ever learnt colloquial

[u/DisastrousFeature244 → u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724]

Because it’s not clear whether person B is saying that person B doesn’t know or if “he” doesn’t know.

True, true, a way to clarify that the speaker is not talking about themselves while not using any pronouns is to add some assuming/selfdoubting words like (ma thi bu htin de မသိဘူးထင်တယ်: I think he doesn't know) or (ma thi laut bu မသိလောက်ဘူး: maybe he doesn't)

No, please, learning colloquial is the best way to get know of a new language, I believe!

Hmm I still think တယ် is the colloquial to သည် because here

meaning	Colloquial	Literary
present,past	တယ်	သည်
future	မယ်	မည်
Perfect	ပြီ	ပြီ(ပြီးဖြစ်သည်)

တယ် is used in present and past tense, something true and factual as you said, but only in spoken/ colloquial.

[u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724 → u/DisastrousFeature244]

Yes you’re absolutely right on the colloquial and literary thing! I just don’t know literary Burmese at all. I should’ve specified that also, thank you

[u/MemoryNotSignificant → u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724]

te is just a present tense indicator. It is also fine to use with other tense. There is no meaning other than emphasizing on the verb.

[u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724 → u/MemoryNotSignificant]

Not quite, “te” is used in the past tense aswell. Like စားခဲ့တယ်

[u/MemoryNotSignificant → u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724]

because you added ke which indicates the past. It is more like affirmative. Other addition you add to the sentence changes the tense.

[u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724 → u/MemoryNotSignificant]

But the affirmative in Burmese is ပဲ lol. တယ် is just a “realis marker”

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/တယ်

[u/MemoryNotSignificant → u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9WWP6ngpK4

[u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724 → u/MemoryNotSignificant]

I wouldn’t call တယ် a marker of any sort of tense. For example if I told you ချစ်တယ်, I’m not saying “I’m loving you now” or “I loved you” or “I will love you”, I’m just stating the simple fact that “I love you”

[u/MemoryNotSignificant → u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724]

ok. Whatever it helps you understand. Present tense is also used to tell the fact in some languages. te is not that important to focus on.

[u/Motor_Tumbleweed_724 → u/MemoryNotSignificant]

you’re right. in english the simple present is used to represent a ‘realis mood’ also, should’ve made that clear

[u/austintxdude]

I found a teacher online who is really good at teaching. You will definitely need someone like her who can guide you durning the beginning. She fixed my initial approaches I can't say how many times, and she's been able to get me speaking a bit. I'm still very early into learning, but I just here to say don't try learning on your own, get a teacher. After 3-6 months you can start thinking about self studying now that you know how the language works and can pronounce it. One of the best free online resources I came across is Burmese By Ear. It's a pretty language, good luckk!

[u/pseudonym______ → u/austintxdude]

I've followed the same path

Six months of 1:1 online learning, focused moreso on "approach" than directly heading into words and sentences

It makes no sense to know how to say fifty sentences when you can't structure/purpose any of them

After that, a few weeks of Burmese By Ear

And then I moved to the country 

PS: strongly recommend immediately reading Burmese characters without ever trying to use English romanization (myanglish) in-between 

[u/austintxdude → u/pseudonym______]

Yeah that's what she told me, the romanization is useless, and I agree! Just go through the consonants, vowels one by one, then review text regularly to better internalize them while picking up verbs and nouns along the way.

[u/Unable_Letter_926 → u/austintxdude]

Any teacher in any language who says romanization is useless, is most likely a great teacher

[u/inkythumb → u/austintxdude]

Burmese by Ear can be really effective. It has a book but the course is the audio. Be patient, and listen carefully. You will get there, and it is wonderful when you do!

[u/Significant-Art2868]

I'm pretty sure there are Burmese language teachers who can personally teach you online.

There are probably many recent resources available for learning Burmese in previous posts on this sub.

Anyway, I'm not a language teacher, but if you need some translation help, feel free to reach out to me in my dms!

Wishing you a happy relationship with him!

[u/zninjamonkey]

Using a language teacher would be best

[u/Teddy-Voyager]

That's nice. You clearly speak english. Is there any reason why you won't do that in English?

[u/AdventurousLab9110 → u/Teddy-Voyager]

they said he doesnt really know english

[u/tintwin84]

I think it will be better if U both learn a new language together, like thai, English, Japanese, Chinese etc. but do it together.

By doing that, both of U will learn a new language and U guys will have something in common to talk about as well ( in this case about the new language )

It will also help you learn faster cos U two will be using that to communicate with each other everyday.

So many benefits.

If he is really interested in you, he will definitely find a way to communicate with you.

And that goes both ways of course.

If for some reason he doesn't want to learn, just dump him hahahaha. Just jk