2.5. Wanting to ...
2. numbers
Numbers
Counting discrete items
k’ú/gú ခု item, unit, article
han-ba-ga c’auq-k’ú ဟံဘာဂါ ခြောက်ခု six hamburgers
s’ìn-wíc’ hnăk’ú ဆင်းဝိချ် နှစ်ခု two sandwiches
han-ba-ga thoùn-gú ဟံဘာဂါ သုံးခု three hamburgers
s’ìn-wíc’ lè-gú ဆင်းဝိချ် လေးခု four sandwiches
In Burmese, instead of asking for three hamburgers, you ask for: “hamburger three units”, in just the same way as you ask for “coffee three cups” or “Pepsi five bottles”. Compare the examples above with –
kaw-p’i thoùn-gweq ကော်ဖီ သုံးခွက် three cups of coffee
Peq-si ngà-loùn ပက်စီ ငါးလုံး five bottles/cans of Pepsi
Counting in round numbers also follows the same pattern (“dollars five-tens” etc):
daw-la ngà-zeh ဒေါ်လာ ငါးဆယ် fifty dollars
paun ngà-ya ပေါင် ငါးရာ five hundred pounds
Voicing. K’ú is voiced to gú except after -ă and -q. See the examples, and “Voicing Rule” in Appendix 1.
Weakening. The numbers tiq, hniq, k’un-hniq weaken before k’ú as usual (Lesson 1.5).