Burmese By Ear/Essential Myanmar Introduction to the Burmese Language John Okell

2.1. Eating and drinking.

2. numbers

Numbers 

Prices in dollars. Dollars are counted in much the same way as kyats; example: 

   lè-daw-la   ၄-ဒေါ်လာ   $4 

   s’éh-ngà-daw-la   ၁၅-ဒေါ်လာ   $15 

   tăyá k’un-năs’éh thoùn-daw-la   ၁၇၃-ဒေါ်လာ   $173 

There is one important difference. When you were saying round numbers of kyats you omitted the word caq, but when you have a round number of dollars you keep the word daw-la but put it in front of the number; examples: 

   daw-la lè-zeh   ဒေါ်လာ လေးဆယ်   $40 

   daw-la tăyá ngà-zeh   ဒေါ်လာ တစ်ရာ့ ငါးဆယ်   $150 

   daw-la shiq-t’aun   ဒေါ်လာ ရှစ်ထောင််   $8000 

The same principle operates for anything else you can count. We call it “the Round Number Rule”. Examples: 

   s’éh-kò-ga-lan   ဆယ့်ကိုး ဂါလန်   19 gallons 

   ga-lan hnăs’eh   ဂါလန် နှစ်ဆယ်   20 gallons 

   hnăyá ká-zéh ngà-main   နှစ်ရာ့ ကိုးဆယ့် ငါးမိုင််   295 miles 

   main thoùn-ya   မိုင် သုံးရာ   300 miles 

There is one exception to the Round Number Rule. Although the number 10 ends in a zero and is mathematically a round number, it is treated in speech as an unround number: 

   s’eh daw-la   ဆယ် ဒေါ်လာ   10 dollars 

   s’eh ga-lan   ဆယ် ဂါလန်   10 gallons 

   s’eh main   ဆယ် မိုင်   10 miles 

and so on. 

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