2.1. Eating and drinking. 
1. lesson
New Words
ba ဘာ what?
sà-deh စားတယ် to eat
thauq-teh သောက်တယ် to drink
Example sentences
S1 Peq-si thauq-thălà? ပက်စီ သောက်သလား။ Did you drink a Pepsi?
S2 Măthauq-pa-bù. မသောက်ပါဘူး။ No, I didn’t.
S1 Ba thauq-thălèh? ဘာ သောက်သလဲ။ What did you drink?
S2 Kouq thauq-pa-deh. ကုတ် သောက်ပါတယ်။ I drank a Coke.
S1 Han-ba-ga sà-deh-naw? ဟံဘာဂါ စားတယ်နော်။ You do eat hamburgers, don’t you?
S2 Măsà-ba-bù. မစားပါဘူး။ No, I don’t.
S1 Ba sà-dhălèh? ဘာ စားသလဲ။ What do you eat?
S2 Háw-dáw sà-ba-deh. ဟော့ဒေါ့ စားပါတယ်။ I eat hotdogs.
Some foods and drinks known in Burma under their foreign names
Cocacola, Pepsi, Seven-Up, Fanta, Sparkling, Vimto, limejuice, Horlicks, Ovaltine, Milo, cocoa, coffee, beer, whisky, rum, sandwich, hamburger, hotdog, biscuit (= US cookie)
ba “what?” is derived from beh-ha “which one?” Questions containing ba, like questions containing beh-ha, take the suffix -thălèh/-dhălèh (see the note in Lesson 1.11).
Present and past. The suffixes -pa-deh and -pa-bù(or their voiced forms -ba-deh and -ba-bù), which mark statements, and the suffixes -thălèh, -thălà , and -teh-naw (or their voiced forms -dhălèh, -dhălà, and -deh-naw), which mark questions, can refer either to the present or to the past. So, for example, Peq-si thauq-thălà? can mean either “Do you drink Pepsi?” or “Did you drink Pepsi?” Which meaning the speaker has in mind is usually obvious from the context. It is surprising how rarely there is any ambiguity – and if a sentence is ambiguous, there are words one can use to make one’s meaning clear.
Singular and plural. Burmese is similarly economical in indicating singular and plural. A sentence like H an-ba-ga sà-dhălà? can mean either “Did you eat a hamburger?” or “Did you eat hamburgers?” Again, there are ways of indicating singular and plural in Burmese, but you don’t always need to use them.
Word order. As noted earlier (1.9), in Burmese the verb is the last element in the sentence: K ouq thauq-pa-deh “I drank a Coke” is literally “Coke drank”.