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

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). 

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