Expression 'So Lou Shin Yin' in Myanmar

How to use "Soe Lou Shi Yin" or "Concerning this...

One of the most frequently used 'expressions' in the Myanmar language is 'So Lou Sji Yin"

Let's look at how it has been used.

As seen from the above examples:

1. The 'expression' needs to have at least one 'precedent unit', It needs to be preceded by a topic or subject. For example, di coffee solushi yin, .... Concerning this coffee...

2. It cannot be used to begin a clause or sentence.

3. It is found in both the spoken and written formats or registers.

Expression "Concerning..." in the Myanmar Language

One of the commonly found expressions in Myanmar is /'So Lyin Yei/, which means concerning X.

The position of this expression is right after the conjunction 'and'

Below are the examples taken from many websites, most of them are from the government websites.

Based on the four examples, we can see two patterns.

1. That the expression is often used in the formal context.

2. It appears after the word 'ning' or 'and '.

3. It is not used to begin a sentence.

How to Use Adverbs that Mean "Very" in the Myanmar Language

Adverb "Very" in Myanmar

Janpha Thadphoothon


For a new beginner who is interested in learning to read and speak Myanmar, knowing how to use an adverb is an important step in his or her language acquisition.

One usage has captured my attention and I would like to share it with other learners. This is the use of an adverb to denote or signify a degree of a verb or adjective.

In English, we say 'very beautiful ' or 'very hot'. We know that the adverb 'very' is placed in front of the word it describes.

In Thai, you would put an adverb after the verb or adjective. For example, when you say 'very hot' you would say ร้อนมาก or Ron Mak - where 'mak' is an adverb meaning very. It would be' hot very.

In Myanmar, however, the adverb is placed in front of an adjective or a verb.

Examples:


1.

- In the above example, the adverb thiek means 'very' and the adjective 'poo' means 'hot'

As you can see the adverb is right in front of the word it describes - in this case an adjective.

Please not that the adverb thiek is informal.

2.

Similar to the above example, the word /aluan/ means very in English. In fact, /aluan/ is formal and often appears in the media and textbooks.


3.

Another commonly found adverb 'very' in Myanmar is /ayaan / which also means 'very'.

Example

/ Ayaam / here means 'very' It is put in front of an adjective /A/ which means cold.

In the above example, the adverb /ayaam/ modifies a verb /maung/ or drive

Similes in Myanmar

Similes in Myanmar

Janpha Thadphoothon

A simile is a figure of speech. We use it to compare two things or persons which share similar qualities or characteristics. In English, a simile is usually found in a phrase that begins with "as" or "like."

Ex. As big as an elephant = very big


Similes are interesting language use. They reflect not only cultural values, but creativity as well.

In this article, I shall introduce you to some of the common ways to compare things or persons in the Myanmar language.

1. Use ကဲ့သို့ /kaetoh/ which means like or as
O ကဲ့သို့  လုံး ဝန်းသော - round like an O

ကလေး ကဲ့သို့  like children

ကလေး ကဲ့သို့   မကစားကြဘူး
Don't play like children.


အိမ် ကဲ့သို့   သော နေရာမျိုး မရှိပါ။
There's no place like home.

သူကြိုးစား သကဲ့သို့ ကျွန်တော်ကြိုးစားသည်။

I try as his or hers.


2. Use တူသည် /tothee/ which means 'look like'

လေးကိုင်း တစ်ခု နှင့် သဏ္ဍာန် တူသည်
shaped like a bow

3. Use လို /loo/
Ex. သူလိုလူ /too lo loo' A person like him or her

4. Use အတိုင်း /ataine:/ means 'as'

အတိုင်း is a word occuring between nouns to establish a simile -- like or as

For example

ပြောတဲ့ အတိုင်း လုပ်ပါ။ Please do as you say. (Stick to your words)

အစ်တိုကြီး အတိုင်း ညီလေးတို့တော်အောင်လုပ်ကြ။



5. Use / သလို  /thalo/

Example

မီးပူ သလို like an iron
ပြော သလို  လုပ်  Do as you have said.



6. Use သလောက် /thalauk/ as.....as
လှ သလောက် မာနကြီး
as beautiful as pride