ထား

A Result Left in Place

Level 3

Requests often use ထားပါ for keeping something: ဒီဖုန်းနံပါတ်ကို မှတ်ထားပါ။ (Please make a note of this phone number.)

How It Works

ထား means "put" or "keep". After another verb, it says the action is done and its result is still there, often ready for later.

FormEnglish
ဖွင့်ထားတယ်it has been left open
ချက်ထားတယ်I've cooked it and it's ready
ဝယ်ထားတယ်I've bought it in advance
ရေးထားပါwrite it down and keep it
မပိတ်ထားဘူးit hasn't been shut

ထား is for a finished result. For an action still going on, use နေ: စာရေးနေတယ် (I'm writing a letter). Then စာရေးထားတယ် means the letter is written and ready.

The negative keeps ထား: မီး မပိတ်ထားဘူး (The light hasn't been switched off).

On its own, ထား means "put": စားပွဲပေါ်မှာ ထားပါ (Put it on the table).

Shops and offices use it too: ဆိုင်ပိတ်ထားတယ် (The shop is closed).

Examples (5)

  1. တံခါး ဖွင့်ထားတယ်။

    The door has been left open.

    ထား shows the door is still open.

  2. ကျွန်မ ထမင်းချက်ထားတယ်။

    I've cooked some rice, and it's ready.

    A woman speaks. The cooked rice is waiting.

  3. ကျွန်တော် လက်မှတ် နှစ်စောင် ဝယ်ထားတယ်။

    I've bought two tickets.

    A man speaks. He has the tickets ready. Tickets take စောင်.

  4. ဒီဖုန်းနံပါတ်ကို မှတ်ထားပါ။

    Please make a note of this phone number.

    မှတ်ထားပါ asks the listener to keep it.

  5. မီး မပိတ်ထားဘူး။

    The light hasn't been switched off.

    The negative keeps ထား after the verb.

Common Mistakes

  • Using ထား for an action still going on.

    ကျွန်မ အခု စာရေးထားတယ်။
    ကျွန်မ အခု စာရေးနေတယ်။

    A woman is writing right now. ထား is for a finished result, so use နေ.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

ထားLevel 3A Result Left in Place

Learn This First

ထား is a helper that is easy to mix up with ပြီ.

Words in This Pattern

ထား