Happy new year, Burmese learners!

In this episode, Mol Mol from Burmese Language Academy of Yangon (BLAY) and I share our new year resolutions. Mol Mol is determined to expand her social circle, to make new friends, and to go scuba diving—something she’s always wanted to do. For the past two years, I’ve had to cancel my trips to Yangon and Kyoto because of COVID-related travel hassles, so I’m feeling the urge of my wanderlust, the itch to pack my bag for an exotic destination. To my envy, Mol Mol has just returned from a trip to the Shan highlands, where she savored soft tofu bowls and pickled sour leaves. 

The Burmese new year, called Thingyan, usually falls on April. While Burmese people typically don't make resolutions as westerners do,  they tend to mark the occasion by washing away the sins of the old year, and releasing animals to acquire merit. 

What are your new year resolutions? To lose weight? To pen a literary masterpiece? Or to set out to some farflung places? Can you be sure you won't lose steam a few months into the year? We can't teach you how to steel your resolve or reach your goals, but if you listen to our chat, you can at least pick up the phrases you need to talk about them in Burmese. (Intro and end music courtesy of Uppbeat.)

Vocabulary

အဓိဋ္ဌာန် / သန္နိဋ္ဌာန် decision, vow, pledge, promise, resolution

အဓိဋ္ဌာန်ချတယ် / ပြုတယ် / လုပ်တယ် to make a pledge, a vow, a resolution

နှစ်သစ်အဓိဋ္ဌာန် new year resolution

ရေငုပ်တယ် to dive underwater 

သန္တာကျောက်တန်း coral reef

ငွေဆောင် Ngwe Saung (or) Ngwesaung Beach

အသက်အောင့်တယ် to hold one’s breath

သင်္ကြန် Thingyan, Burmese new year

နှစ်ဆန်းတစ်ရက်နေ့ new year day

အကြိုနေ့ the preceding day 

အကျနေ့ the arrival day

အကြတ်နေ့ the day between the arrival and conclusion

အတက်နေ့ the concluding day 

Notes: အကြို၊ အကျ၊ အကြတ်၊ အတက် is how festival days are counted in Burmese. 

ရက်ထပ်နှစ် leap year

ဘေးမဲ့လွှတ်တယ် to release animals to cultivate karma

ကောင်းမှုကုသိုလ် good deeds 

ကုသိုလ်လုပ်တယ် / ပြုတယ် / ယူတယ် to perform good deeds to acquire merit

နှစ်ဟောင်းကအညစ်အကြေး the sins from the previous year

တိုဟူးနွေး soft tofu served in a bowl

ရှမ်းရိုးရာအစားအစာ traditional Shan food

ဝက်သားချဉ် (pronounced ဝက်သချင်) pickled sour pork

မုန်ညင်းပေါင်း steamed sour leaves, condiment

ကပ်ရောဂါ pandemic 

ခြေဖဝါးယားတယ် to feel an itch in the sole, to feel like going on a trip (the expression is linked to the superstition that if you feel an itch in your sole, you are bound to go on a journey)

သွားရည်ယိုတယ် to salivate, to grow hungry

အဖျားရှူးသွားတယ် to taper off, to lose steam midway

စိတ်အားထက်သန်တယ် to be enthusiastic, motivated, eager 

ကျွန်တော်/ကျွန်မကိုယ်တိုင်ပဲ myself included; I am an example of that

ရေဆေးပန်းချီ watercolor painting

ဝိတ်ချတယ် to lose weight

အပြစ်တင်တယ် to blame someone or something

Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.