New Words       

ein-daun  အိမ်ထောင်  household   

ein-daun shí-deh  အိမ်ထောင် ရှိတယ်  to be married (“to have a household”)   

ǎpyo  အပျို  a spinster, an unmarried woman or girl   

ǎpyo-jì  အပျိုကြီး  an old spinster   

lu-byo-jì  လူပျိုကြီး  an old bachelor   

kwèh-deh or kwèh-dhwà-deh  ကွဲတယ် or ကွဲသွားတယ်  to split, separate, divorce   

kwèh-dhwà-ba-bi  ကွဲသွားပါပြီ။  We have split up, separated. I am divorced.   

s’oùn-deh or s’oùn-dhwà-deh  ဆုံးတယ် or ဆုံးသွားတယ်  to come to an end, to die   

s’oùn-dhwà-ba-bi  ဆုံးသွားပါပြီ။  S/he has died.   

ǎmyò-thǎmì  အမျိုးသမီး  woman, lady; wife   

ǎmyò-thà  အမျိုးသား  man, gentleman; husband   

  This Unit covers questions on marriage and children. There wasn’t room on the tape to cover talk about parents and brothers and sisters as well, but we’ve added a few words and phrases for those topics here in the booklet. You’ll find them set out at the end of this Unit.     

  Sentences     

S1  Ein-daun shí-dhǎlà?  အိမ်ထောင် ရှိသလား။  Are you married? 

S2  Shí-ba-deh.  ရှိပါတယ်။  Yes, I am. 

or  Mǎshí-ba-bù. Lu-byo-jì-ba.  မရှိပါဘူး။ လူပျိုကြီးပါ။  No, I’m an old bachelor. 

or  Mǎshí-ba-bù. Ăpyo-jì-ba.  မရှိပါဘူး။ အပျိုကြီးပါ။  No, I’m an old spinster. 

or  Mǎshí-dáw-ba-bù. Kwè-dhwà-ba-bi.  မရှိတော့ပါဘူး။ ကွဲသွားပါပြီ။  No. We have split up. 

or  Mǎshí-dáw-ba-bù. Ămyò-dhǎmì s’oùn-dhwà-ba-bi.  မရှိတော့ပါဘူး။ အမျိုးသမီး ဆုံးသွားပါပြီ။  No. My wife has died. 

or  Mǎshí-dáw-ba-bù. Ămyò-dhà s’oùn-dhwà-ba-bi.  မရှိတော့ပါဘူး။ အမျိုးသား ဆုံးသွားပါပြီ။  No. My husband has died. 

S1  Ein-daun cá-bi-là?  အိမ်ထောင် ကျပြီလား။  Are you married yet? 

S2  Houq-kéh. Cá-bi.  ဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ ကျပြီ။  Yes, I am. 

or  Mǎcá-dhè-ba-bù.  မကျသေးပါဘူး။  No, not yet. 

  Variants     

  Ein-daun-néh-là?  အိမ်ထောင်နဲ့လား။  Are you married? (“household-withquestion”) 

  Yì-zà shí-ba-deh.  ရည်းစား ရှိပါတယ်  I have a girlfriend/ boyfriend 

  Notes     

  Ein-daun mǎshí-dáw-ba-bù “I am not married any longer”. For the suffix -táw/-dáw with negated verbs, meaning “no longer, not any more”, see 5.6, 6.3, 11.3.     

  Ein-daun cá-bi-là? “Are you (is he) married yet?” A question more appropriate to persons in their twenties, the age when people usually get married. The alternative Ein-daun shí-dhǎlà? “Are you (is he) married?” can be used for older people as well. Notice the different answers to the two questions:     

  Question           Answer Yes           Answer No 

  Ein-daun cá-bi-là?      Houq-kéh. Cá-bi.      Mǎcá-dhè-ba-bù.     

  Is he married yet?      Yes, he is.      No, not yet. 

  Ein-daun shí-dhǎlà?       Houq-kéh. Shí-ba-deh.       Mǎshí-ba-bù. 

  Is he married?       Yes, he is.       No, he’s not. 

  For the verb suffix -bi/-pi see Verb Paradigms in Appendix 3 (outline grammar).     

  Kwèh-deh or kwèh-dhwà-deh, s’oùn-deh or s’oùn-dhwà-deh. The use of -dhwà (“to go”) adds a suggestion of movement: “split and go, get separated”, “end and go, come to an end”. Compare koun-dhwà-deh “to be all gone, sold out” in 4.3.     

  Ămyò-thà and ǎmyò-thǎmì are fairly respectful, almost neutral terms for husband and wife, which is why we teach them here. Other terms you may meet are:     

  k’in-bùn and zǎnì  ခင်ပွန်း၊ ဇနီး  elevated, deferential, sometimes pretentious 

  yauq-cà and meìn-má  ယောက်ျား၊ မိန်းမ  casual, verging on the disrespectful; also = man, male and woman, female 

  lin and mǎyà  လင်၊ မယား  contemptuous, except in some set compounds like lin-ba-dhà “stepson”