Sentences     

S1  Nà leh-dhălà?  နားလည်သလား။  Do you understand? 

S2  Houq-kéh. Nà leh-ba-deh.  ဟုတ်ကဲ့။ နားလည်ပါတယ်။  Yes, I do. 

S1  Saq-thălà?  စပ်သလား။  Is it hot to taste? 

S2  Măsaq-pa-bù.  မစပ်ပါဘူး။  No, it isn't. 

Notes 

Voicing. The suffix -thlais voiced to -dhălà except after a syllable ending in -q. See “Voicing Rule” in Appendix 1. 

Questions ending in -naw encourage S2 to answer Yes, whereas questions ending in -thălà /-dhălà don’t attempt to push S2 in either direction. Compare these two examples: 

    Caiq-thălà?   ကြိုက်သလား။   Do you like it? 

    Caiq-teh-naw?   ကြိုက်တယ်နော်။   You do like it, don't you? 

Earlier you learned Ne-kaùn-deh-naw? “You’re well, aren’t you?” as a form of greeting. The question also occurs in three other versions. Here are all four: 

  1    Ne-kaùn-deh-new?   နေကောင်းတယ်နော်။   You are well, aren't you? 

  2    Ne-kaùn-dhălà?   နေကောင်းသလား။   Are you well? 

  3    Ne-kaùn-là?   နေကောင်းလား။   Are you well? 

  4    Ne-kaùn-yéh-là?   နေကောင်းရဲ့လား။   Are you well? 

As greetings formulae, all four are used interchangeably. The second form in this list uses the regular question ending you have just learned. The third is a reduced version of that. And the fourth uses the suffix -yéh in place of the suffix -dhă-: see the verb suffixes section in Appendix 3 (outline grammar). 

  In all four cases the answer is the same: 

    Ne-kaùn-ba-deh.   နေကောင်းပါတယ်။   I’m fine.