If you pronounce Burmese words exactly the way they're written, you might not sound like a native speaker at all. That's because Burmese speakers tend to voice many suffixes, particles, auxiliary verbs, and compound words differently from how they're spelled. For example, the affirmative verb suffix တယ် (tae) is always written the same way. But the verb "စားတယ် (to eat)" is usually pronounced စားဒယ် (sar dae). On the other hand, the verb "သောက်တယ် (to drink)" is pronounced သောက်တယ် (thauk tae). The phrase "သွားချင်တယ် (want to go)" is pronounced သွာဂျင်ဒယ် (thwar jin dae), but for "ချက်ချင်တယ် (want to cook)," it's ချက်ချင်ဒယ် (chet chin dae). The phenomenon -- called "tone shifting" by some, "consonant shifting" by others -- is not random. Most native speakers execute the shift in the same way. Yet, if you ask them to explain it, many may not be able to, because they learned to do it by example, not by rules. In this special episode, Chiang Mai-based Burmese language teachers Zin Mar (Akkhaya) and Su (Burmese Chatter Talk) join me to untangle this Gordian knot. First, we give you examples in everyday speech where it commonly occurs. Next, we spell out the rules -- how the shift is done, what triggers it, and what cancels it. Finally, we offer some suggestions on how you, as a learner, might deal with this. Want your Burmese to sound more natural? Then let us help you do the consonant shift. (Illustration generated in ChatGPT; music courtesy of Pixabay.) Examples in the episode Note that standard pronunciations reflecting consonant shifts are provided in parentheses. စားချင်တယ် (စားဂျင်ဒယ်) want to eat သွားချင်တယ် (သွားဂျင်ဒယ်) want to go သောက်ချင်တယ် (သောက်ချင်ဒယ်) want to drink ချက်ချင်တယ် (ချက်ချင်ဒယ်) want to cook စားဖူးတယ် (စားဘူးဒယ်) have eaten သွားဖူးတယ် (သွားဘူးဒယ်) have gone သောက်ဖူးတယ် (သောက်ဖူးဒယ်) have drunk ချက်ဖူးတယ် (ချက်ဖူးဒယ်) have cooked ကောင်းကောင်း (ကောင်းဂေါင်း) well, adverb လေးလေးစားစား (လေးလေးစားဇား) respectfully, adverb မြန်မြန်ဆန်ဆန် (မြန်မြန်ဆန်ဇန်) swiftly, adverb တိတိကျကျ (တိဒိကျဂျ) precisely, adverb ပေါ့ပေါ့ပါးပါး (ပေါ့ဘော့ပါးဘား) light-heartedly, adverb Note that သှ represents the th sound as in English words like "they, though, them." သိသိသာသာ (သိသှိသာသှာ) obviously, adverb ကျောင်းသား (ကျောင်းသှား) student စစ်သား (စစ်သား) soldier မင်းသား (မင်းသှား) actor, prince အရပ်သား (အရပ်သား) civilian ထမင်းချက် (ထမင်းဂျက်) chef ကလေးထိန်း (ကလေးဒိန်း) babysitter မင်္ဂလာဆောင် (မင်္ဂလာဇောင်) wedding တစ်ကျပ် (ဒဂျပ်) one kyat နှစ်ကျပ် (နှကျပ်) two kyats သုံးကျပ် (သုံးဂျပ်) three kyats လေးကျပ် (လေးဂျပ်) four kyats ငါးကျပ် (ငါးဂျပ်) five kyats ခြောက်ကျပ် (ခြောက်ကျပ်) six kyats Glottal stop diacritics in Burmese -က်, -စ်, -တ်, -ပ် When tone shifting occurs က, ခ (k, kh) consonants shift to ဂ (g) စ, ဆ (s, hs) consonants shift to ဇ (z) တ, ထ (t, ht) consonants shift to ဒ (d) ပ, ဖ (p, ph) consonants shift to ဘ (b) သ (th, like in think) consonant shifts to သှ (th, like in they) Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.
