Orwell’s allegorical novel Animal Farm shows how a revolution could lead to the rise of opportunists, power struggles, infighting, fake news, and ultimately a new breed of authoritarians. Even though Orwell was looking at the rise of Joseph Stalin in post-revolution Russia as the model for his animal farm, we would later see the same sequence of events in Communist Cuba, Chairman Mao’s China, and other places. In this episode, my cohost Su and I discuss Thakin Ba Thaung’s translation of Animal Farm, titled ခြေလေးချောင်းတော်လှန်ရေး (The Four-Legged Revolution), and how some of the chapters are chillingly similar to what has happened, and is still happening in presen...

In English, when you’re talking about yourself, your choice of pronoun is a solitary “I.” Not so in Burmese. There’s a variety of ways to refer to yourself, based on your gender, profession, age, and your relationship towards the other person. And the same is true of ways to refer to the person you’re speaking to. You can refer to him or her by name, a kinship term, or an honorific associated with his or her profession or field of expertise. In fact, there are situations where using what is technically the polite way to say "you" – ခင်...

As singles with no marital experience, my cohost Su and I are under-qualified to discuss this episode's theme: dowry. In Burmese context, it usually means what the groom and his family offer to the bride’s parents as gifts when asking for the girl’s hand in marriage. The so-called gifts could be cows for ploughing, a plot of farm to live on, a new bed, furniture for the newly weds' room, a luxury car, a home, or even cold, hard cash. When the wealth and social status of the two families involved are unequal, dowry could become a sour...

If you’re going out to lunch with a Burmese friend who says he’s running low on water (ရေခမ်းနေတယ်), be prepared to pay for the meal. That means he’s broke. On the other hand, if you’re running low on water yourself, but he is overflowing, so to speak (ရေလျှံနေတယ်), you can probably ask him to pay for the meal. 

In English, if you need some type of permit or approval from a government office or an institution, you may need to grease the wheel. In Burmese, you may need to offer the clerk or the boss some tea money (လက်ဖက်ရည်ဖိုး) to get your applicatio...

Would you ever drink a cigarette or a cigar? In English, you wouldn't, but in Burmese, you must. To describe smoking a cigarette or cigar, you must use the verb သောက်တယ် , the same verb for drinking coffee, tea, or Coca Cola. It may seem counterintuitive to use the verb to describe consuming liquid for smoking, but that's the correct form: ဆေးလိပ်သောက်တယ် , quite literally, to drink a cigarette. 

When talking about having a dream, you cannot just use the single-word verb "dream," as you do in English. Instead, you have to use a noun-verb combo -- အိပ်မက်မက်တယ် meaning, to dream a dream -- the way Ella Fitzgerald did, when she sang "Dream a Little Dream...

Mid-April is when Burmese people celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of another one with a water festival, similar to the people of Thailand and several other neighboring countries.

In modern times, young people driving around in open pickup trucks and shooting water through high-pressure tubes and cannons is the standard practice, but in the old days, people dipped laurel leaves into silver goblets of fragrant water and dabbed them on one another-- a practice that seems quaint now. 

Also, in Thingyan in bygone times, street performers and dance troupes would c...

You might have noticed that, in Chinatown, red lanterns are going up, and lion dancers and dragon dancers are coming out, ready to parade the street. Mid-February is usually Chinese New Year, so both the Chinese community in Yangon, and the Chinese diaspora around the world are decked out in red dresses and new outfits, ready to welcome the new year. In this episode, my cohost Su, a Chiang Mai-based Burmese language teacher, and I discuss the new year festivities we can see around us. (Photo by Maritxu, licensed from Shutterstock, Music courtesy of Pixabay)

If a politician speaks ambiguously without committing to one side or the other on an issue, you might call it political doublespeak in English, and accuse him or her of being wishy-washy. In Burmese, you might say he or she is "straddling the sides of two boats," လှေနံနှစ်ဖက်နင်းတယ် or လှေနံနှစ်ဖက်ခွတယ်. On the other other hand, if you can resolve a conflict by satisfying the two opposing sides, your solution may be praised as ရှဉ့်လည်းလျှောက်သာ ပျားလည်းစွဲသာ , meaning "the chipmunk can tread on the branch; so can the bees build a hive on it"; or မြွေမသေ တုတ်မကျိုး "neither the snake shall die, nor the stick shall break." To learn how to use these phrases correctly, listen to the latest episode of Bite-Size Burmese. (Illustration by Burmese artist Nyan Kyal Say, NK Artbox; Intro and end...

In the 1980s, when I was growing up in Rangoon under Ne Win's Socialist Government, I remember how foreigners were shocked by, among other things, local people chewing betel quid and spitting out splashes of red betel juice all over the sidewalks. Today, if you come from a place like Japan, where nobody expects you to tip, you’re in for a shock when visiting the U.S., where tipping is expected everywhere, from coffee shops to fine-dining restaurants (15-20% of your bill is the norm, in case you’re wondering). In both Thailand and Burma, travelers are expected to r...

Some homegrown businesses and neighborhood restaurants flourish in Burma, thanks for the power of viral posts and social media. But fake news of levitating monks and strange omens also spread online, like wildfire. While not exactly fake news, inaccurate news and old news also tend to resurface from time to time, stirring up racial tension or raising false hopes. In this episode of Learn Burmese from Natural Talk, my cohost Mol Mol from BLAY (Burmese Language Academy of Yangon) and I discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of social media. (Photo by Lanlao, licensed from Shutterstock...

Given a choice, would you rather drink the Kool-Aid, or the bitter rainwater (မိုးခါးရေ)? The phrase “to drink the Kool-Aid,” meaning to embrace an irrational, foolish, or dangerous popular ideology, is associated with the tragic episode involving the American cult leader Jim Jones. The Burmese equivelent is "to drink the bitter rainwater" (မိုးခါးရေသောက်တယ်), stemming from the folktale about a kingdrom where everyone, save but a few wise citizens, drank the toxic rainwater and became insane.

The Burmese moviemaker Ko Pauk, who left the country after the military coup of 2021 and joined the resistance, made a documentary honoring the activists in the civil disobedience movement. Though it was releas...

Why are the robes woven on full-moon night of တန်ဆောင်မုန်း , the 8th month in the Burmese lunar calendar, called, မသိုးသင်္ကန်း , literally, unspoiled robes? What is the legend of the origin of the practice called ပံ့သကူ to leave out items that others can take away? And what kind of mischiefs or troubles are you allowed to cause on the night called ကျီးမနိုးပွဲ , the carnival of the sleeping crows, or သူခိုးကြီးည , the night of the thieves? These phrases are associated with တန်ဆောင်တိုင် Tazaungdaing Festival, which marks the end of the rainy season, and ကထိန် Kathina, which marks the end of Lent in many Buddhist countries in Southeast Asia. In this episode, my guest Su, a Burmese teacher in Chiang Mai, and I discuss the history, legends, and stories behind these phrases. (Photo: a gir...

Do you know the legend of မဖဲဝါ Ma Phe Wah, the graveyard guardian spirit in disheveled hair, dressed in a yellow outfit? And do you know the origin of the Burmese word စုန်း for witches? How about the two different branches of sorcery, အထက်လမ်း and အောက်လမ်း, quite literally the high path and the low path? If you don’t, grab your wicked candies, your pumpkin spiced latte, and join me and my cohost Mol Mol from BLAY, or Burmese Language Academy of Yangon. In this Halloween special episode, we are talking about Burmese witches, sorcerers, bewitching curses, and some ways to undo them. (Illustration generated by AI in Microsoft Designer. Musi...

In Myanmar or Burma, October is the month of Thadingyut, the festival of light. For the children, it's a rare excuse to play with fireworks, sparkles, and even firecrackers. For young people and couples, it’s a chance to take a stroll along the bright-lit streets and the festival market, to sample the crispy fritters and grilled meat in the food stalls, and to buy handmade crafts and toys, like fish-shaped paper lanterns and demon figurines with movable limbs. In this episode, my friend Su, a Thailand-based Burmese languge teacher, and I share our favorite things to do during Th...

Do you have a brother or sister from another belly? Most of you probably do. The Burmese term အကိုတစ်ဝမ်းကွဲ or ညီမတစ်ဝမ်းကွဲ , literally brother or sister from another belly, refers to the son or daughter of your uncle or aunt -- in other words, your first cousin. In English, you wouldn't refer to such relatives as your "brother" or "sister," but many Burmese often call them အကို "brother" or ညီမ "sister," opting to drop the qualifier တစ်ဝမ်းကွဲ for "one belly removed" or "one womb away."

Since your first cousins are တစ်ဝမ်းကွဲ "one belly removed," naturally, your second cousins -- related to you by your grandparents' siblinghood -- are referred to as "နှစ်ဝမ်းကွဲ" or "two bellies removed."

The word ဝမ...

In a song about timid lovebirds too shy to confess their feelings for each other, the lyrics says "မျက်လုံးချင်းစကားပြောနေပြီ (Their eyes are speaking to each other)." In the song "ရတနာသူ (Jeweled Lover)," the lyrics compares the girl's bodyparts to precious gemstones, ending with "အသည်းနှလုံးကိုကျောက်စိမ်းနဲ့မွမ်းမံခြယ် (her heart should be adorned with jade)," implying the cold, unfeeling nature of the subject. 
 
Now that many young people are fleeing the armed conflicts and the political chaos in Burma, the singer Htoo Ein Thin's poignant song about leaving one’s hometown is seeing a revival. In "လေလွင့်ခြင်းလမ်းမများ (Wind-Blown Paths)," the lyrics says:

အဝေးက လမ်းဟောင်းလေးကို ငါဟာနှုတ်ဆက် (I bid farewell to the familiar road in the distance)
အမေ့ရဲ့မျက်ရည်စက်တွေ ငါနှုတ်ဆက် (I bid farewell to my mother's tears)
အပြာရောင်ကျောပိုးအိတ်တစ်ခုထဲ (Into my blue backpack)
ဒဏ်ရာအဟောင်းလေးကိုထည့် (I stuffed my old wounds)
သွားရတော့မယ် (C...

In the western culture, people often shrink from number 13. Noone wants to go out on Friday the 13th, and some businesses go so far as to skip the 13th floor's button in their elevators. In Burmese culture, people love number nine. When looking for a new place, many would look for a house address divisible by nine. And if they’re about to go on a sea journey, they summon the nat or deity known as U Shin Gyi, and offer a special meal to him, because he’s believed to rule over the sea, never mind that, in the...

For the most part, people associate Burma, or Myanmar, with pagodas and Buddhist monks, but in reality, the country is much more diverse. Its multi-faith population comprises Christians, Hindus, and Muslim communities in addition to the majority Buddhist Burmans. The population's ethnic makeup also includes Shan, Karen, Kachin, Kayah, Mon, and Chin peoples, among others. In this episode, special guest LungLunng Kutza, a Christian Chin based in Thailand, discusses the Matupi Chin group's customs, traditions, food, and the thriving Christian community he belongs to. He also teaches us basic Chin greetings and the Burmese equivalent of common Biblical terms...

What do you do when you’re in a pinch, out of options, and desperate? In English, you might make a Last-Ditch Effort. If you’re a football player, you might throw a Hail Mary Pass. But in Burmese, you might do what the mythical bird Garuda did: cook salt.  To understand the Burmese expression အကြံကုန် ဂဠုန်ဆားချက် (when the Garuda runs out of ideas, it cooks salt), you need to know the legend about the Garuda (ဂဠုန်) and its mortal enemy, the serpent Naga (နဂါး). For more on the legend, and on ways to use this expression, listen to this episode of Bite-Size Burmese. (Illustration by Burmese artist Nyan Kyal Say, NK Artb...

The phrase လက်ဖက်ရည်ဖိုး literally translates to "cost of tea" or "tea money," but in workplaces, especially in government offices known for corruption, it takes on a different meaning. လက်ဖက်ရည်ဖိုးတောင်းတယ် or "to ask for tea money," is "to demand a bribe"; and လက်ဖက်ရည်ဖိုးပေးတယ် or "to offer tea money" is "to offer a bribe." Just like in English, the Burmese phrases for "applying for a job / posting a job vacancy / getting a job" all revolve around the noun အလုပ် or "job." But do you know the right verbs to express them?
In this episode dedicated to work-related vocabulary, my cohost Mol Mol from BLAY, or Burmese language academy of Yangon, and I talk about getting our first office jobs, and introduce you to words and...

Humane, inhumane, humanitarian, humanize, humanist, subhuman—there are examples of English words derived from the root word Human . In Burmese, if you want to publicize something, you have to do it so that "men would know and monks would hear (လူသိရှင်ကြား)." If you have lost your influence, you'd become someone who "men don't respect and dogs don't fear" (လူမလေး ခွေးမခန့်).   In this episode of Bite-Size Burmese, I introduce you to some colorful Burmese praises, insults, and expressions revolving around the word လူ (lu) for Human. (Intro and end music: "When my ukulele plays" by Soundroll, Upbeat.io.)

Vocabulary

လူဆန်တယ် to act in a human-like manner, to be humane

လ...

To talk about modern-day travel means to talk about air travel primarily. In this episode, my cohost Mol Mol from BLAY (Burmese Language Academy of Yangon) and I teach you all the terms and phrases associated with airport, from custom officers and immigration officers to flight attendants and x-ray machines. We can’t help you avoid excess luggage fees or make your inflight meal taste better, but we’ll give you the words you need to talk about them. Buckle up for a short 30-min flight with us. (Music clips from Uppbeat.io)

Vocabulary

လေ...

If you can butter up someone into doing something in English, you can also “စကားချိုသွေး” or "sweettalk" someone in Burmese. In English, you might describe someone as “a foul mouth”; in Burmese it takes the verb form: “ပါးစပ်ကြမ်းတယ်” or his or her “mouth is foul." If you need to fish for information, you might “စကားချူ” or “siphon words." Some people might siphon more than words. They'll give you a sob story to "မျက်ရည်ချူ" or "siphon tears." But what does it mean to “စကားပလ္လင်ခံ” or “use a throne to raise your words”? That is what you do when you start off with a prelude to get to something else that really matters. For example, you start off talking about the bad economy, your low wages, and eventually you as...

You have probably heard the Burmese phrase မင်္ဂလာပါ Mingalah bah--typically used by hotel receptions and restaurant staff to greet you. Derived from Pali, the word roughly means to be auspicious, to have good omen, and to have good tidings -- a general word of positivity. But do you know that you can also spawn other compound words with it, like an auspicious new year, a blessed birthday, an auspicious donation ceremony, and so on? Also, if you must count your blessings, what is the classifier required?

In this episode, my cohost Mol Mol from BLAY (Burmese Language Academy of Yangon) and I d...

In Burmese, the face is a great way to express your helplessness, pride, shame, or outrage--figuratively. When you’re feeling awkward, you might say, your face is burning (မျက်နှာပူတယ်). When you’re feeling insecure, your face is small (မျက်နှာငယ်တယ်). And when you favor someone, you give them face time (မျက်နှာပေးတယ် or မျက်နှာသာပေးတယ်). By the same token, if you get special treatment, people begrudge you for getting face time (မျက်နှာရတယ် or မျက်နှာသာရတယ်). Why say, “Don’t dishonor me” when you can say “Don’t rub soot on my face” (မျက်နှာကို အိုးမည်းမသုတ်နဲ့)? For more, listen to this episode of Bite-Size Burmese about face-related expressions.
(Illustration by Burmese artist Nyan Kyal Say, NK Artbox; Intro and end music: "When my ukulele plays" by Soundroll, Upbeat.io.)

Vocabulary

အခြေခံတယ် to be based on
မျက်နှာပူတယ် to feel awkward, to feel embarrassed 
မျက်...

What is your favorite bedtime story? Cinderella? Snow White? For Burmese kids, most likely it’s a story associated with a proverb, like Maung Po and the Tiger, or one of the jatakas, a retelling of the Buddha’s past lives that brought him to enlightenment. In this episode, I speak to A Zun Mo, the coauthor of Burmese Stories for Language Learners, published by Tuttle. Want to know why people pray for the angle May Khalar when they’re in a pinch? Want to know why the Burmese say, Maung Po and the Tiger should go back to the wa...

The Mons, an ethnic group with its own distinct language and culture, exist in both Burma and Thailand. The Mon script is considered a source of the current Burmese script. The conventional view is Bagan’s conquest of the Mons in 1057 reshaped the character of Bagan, the first Burmese empire, as a Buddhist kingdom. 

Mon also happens to be the mother tongue of my cohost Mol Mol from BLAY (Burmese Language Academy of Yangon). In this episode, we discuss the link between Mon and Burmese words, Mon dishes and Burmese dishes, and traces of Mon names that can...

Gone to live in the village of the sacred spirits (နတ်ရွာစံတယ်), flown away (ပျံလွန်တော်မူတယ်), has taken up residence in Nirvana (ပရိနိဗ္ဗာန်စံတယ် ) ... They all mean "to die," but depending on the type of person involved, some terms may be appropriate, others may not be. Then there are also monosyllabic terms you might use to describe death disdainfully or sarcastically, the Burmese equivalent of "kick the bucket" or "gone six feet under." If your life depends on it, will you be able to pick the correct verb to describe a queen's death, a monk's death, or a good-riddance death? Listen to this Bite-Size episode for a crash course the Burmese way to die. (Illustration by Burmese artist Nyan Kyal S...

Is Burmese difficult to learn--in particular, for English speakers? What’s the difference between Burmese and English grammar and sentence structures? And how do Burmese tones affect Burmese learners? How does the Burmese expression ရေးတော့အမှန် ဖတ်တော့ အသံ sum up a hurdle Burmese learners must face? To discuss these, I invited Professor Justin Watkins, who specializes in Burmese and Linguistics. His students include researchers, diplomats, and NGO staffs, among others. Listen to our chat, and pick up a few fancy grammar terms to shock or surprise your own Burmese tutors. (Music clips from Uppbeat.io)

Vocabulary

သဒ္ဒါ grammar
စာပေ literature
ဘာသာဗေဒ linguistics
လက်ဦးဆရာ...

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the prince of Denmark told his trusted friend Horatio, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." In this episode, I introduce you to Burmese phrases that stemmed from the word မိုး (sky, heaven) and မြေ (ground, earth). You might say "someone is on cloud nine" in English. We say in Burmese "he or she can neither see the sky nor feel the wind" (မိုးမမြင်လေမမြင်). You might complain that someone is not dependable because he or she shows up "only once in a blue moon," but in Burmese, you might accuse the same person of being "a golden spirit droppe...

For today’s episode, I invited a special guest – the mesmerizing voice behind the podcast စာဖတ်ပြမယ် or “I’ll read you stories.” The podcaster Win Ei regularly uploads recorded audio clips of Burmese short stories and essays to entertain us weekly with her voice. For many Burmese booklovers, her voice is what they hear before going to bed. In this episode, she discusses why and how she became addicted to books, how she chooses what to read every week, and which stories were her personal favorites. If you want to pick up some Burmese words and expressions related to Burmese literary genres, listen to our...

What might inspire someone in Burma to donate? The reasons can range from celebrating a birthday or remembering a loved one who has passed away to supporting a monastery or nunnery. A rite of passage, such as a young man becoming a novice monk or a young woman getting her ears pierced, could also prompt a community to hold a general feast, where everyone is welcome. For Burmese language learners, describing a donation might be much harder than making a donation. The meals you offer to the monks and nuns are called ဆွမ်း (alms); and when you donate money to them, it’s...

Where are your hidden talents hiding? If you’re speaking Burmese, they might be hiding under the leaves. The Burmese expression for someone with a hidden talent is ရွက်ပုန်းသီး -- meaning "a fruit hidden under the leaves." And someone you might call a Plain Jane in English is ရွက်ကြမ်းရေကျို or "tea brewed with plain leaves" in Burmese. Someone who can adapt to any situation, be comfortable in any circumstance or environment is ရွက်ကျပင်ပေါက် or "a plant that regrows wherever its leaves may fall." The Burmese word for leaves on trees and sails on ships are the same. Both are referred to as ရွက်. So the Burmese version of "full sail ahead" is ရွက်စုံဖွင့် or "raise all sails." In this ep...

My students -- not all, but the rowdy and curious ones -- often ask me, how do you curse in Burmese? What is the Burmese version of the F-word or the C-word? Since this is supposed to be a G-rate podcast, I won’t be going anywhere near those. But there are well-worn insults, acceptable forms of name calling for the deserving ones. The terms range from wishing someone a horrible death to calling somebody a rice-wasting, earth-burdening thing, to comparing them to the film of oil floating on the water -- a useless impurity, a surface-only type of be...

The peculiar nature of traditional Burmese names is, they usually do not have last names or family names. Instead, they’re chosen based on the day of the week a person is born. In other words, when you hear someone’s full name, you can often tell which day of the week he or she was born on.

Not only that, in Burmese astrology, the weekday of your birth also determines your spiritual animal, compatible marital allies, incompatible business partners, and your lucky number. In this episode, my cohost Mol Mol from BLAY, Burmese language academy of Yang...

When are Venetian blinds not Venetian? In Burmese language, they become Chinese shutters (တရုတ်ကပ်). (Variations of the design are also known as Louvre window or Jalousie window.) The spiky chayote, called Buddha's palm in Chinese (佛手瓜) due to its shape, is called Gurkha fruit (ဂေါ်ရခါးသီး) in Burmese. Cement, even when locally made with Burmese dirt, is still called British dirt (ဘိလပ်မြေ). Today, fizzy, carbonated soft drinks like Coca-Cola or 7-Up are called Canned drinks (သံဗူး), but in the past, they were called British juice (ဘိလပ်ရည်). In this episode of Bite-Size Burmese, I introduce you to the Burmese names of some foreign objects. Who brought them to the country? The clues are in the names themselves. (Illustration by Burmese artist...

Balderdash, baby talk, pillow talk, a clumsy act, a half-ass job, or a cuddly pet? Chances are, there's a four-letter, four-syllable word to describe it. They give your speech a certain meter and rhythm and make you sound musical. But many of them also sound quite similar. For language learners, the challenge is not to mix them up and use the wrong one. In this episode, I introduce you to a handful of four-letter expressions to impress or amaze your friends and tutors. Intro and end music: "When my ukulele plays" by Soundroll, Upbeat.io.

Vocabulary<...