ပထမ / ဒုတိယ / တတိယ

First, Second and Third

Level 2

Add ဆုံး for "the very first": ပထမဆုံးအကြိမ် means "the very first time".

How It Works

These words come from Pali, the old language of Buddhist texts. They are used every day for floors, years, prizes and turns.

OrderWord
1stပထမ
2ndဒုတိယ
3rdတတိယ
4thစတုတ္ထ
5thပဉ္စမ

Compare the two orders. A counting number follows the noun: အကြိမ် နှစ်ကြိမ် (two times). An order word goes before it: ဒုတိယအကြိမ် (the second time).

From eleven up, use the number, a classifier and မြောက်: ဆယ့်နှစ်ကြိမ်မြောက် (the twelfth time).

For "last", say နောက်ဆုံး: နောက်ဆုံးဘတ်စ်ကား (the last bus).

Many common words are built this way: ပထမနေ့ (the first day), ပထမဆု (first prize), ဒုတိယနှစ် (the second year). You will see them on timetables, tickets and signs.

To say "first, before anything else" in speech, use အရင်: ဈေး အရင်သွားမယ် (I'll go to the market first).

Examples (5)

  1. ကျွန်မ မြန်မာပြည်ကို ပထမဆုံးအကြိမ် လာတာပါ။

    This is my first time in Myanmar.

    A woman speaks; ပထမဆုံးအကြိမ် means "the very first time".

  2. ကျွန်တော် ဒုတိယနှစ် ကျောင်းသားပါ။

    I'm a second-year student.

    A man speaks; ဒုတိယ comes before နှစ် (year).

  3. ဒုတိယထပ်မှာ နေတယ်။

    I live on the second floor.

    ဒုတိယထပ် means "the second floor".

  4. တတိယလမ်းမှာ ညာဘက်ကွေ့ပါ။

    Turn right at the third street.

    တတိယ comes before လမ်း (street).

  5. သူ ပြိုင်ပွဲမှာ ပထမရတယ်။

    She came first in the competition.

    ပထမရ means "win first place". သူ means "he" or "she".

Common Mistakes

  • Putting the order word after the noun, like a counting number.

    အကြိမ် ပထမ
    ပထမအကြိမ်

    Order words come before the noun.

How It Connects

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

ပထမ / ဒုတိယ / တတိယLevel 2First, Second and Third

Learn This First

First, second and third are learned next to the plain numbers.

Words in This Pattern

ပထမပထမဒုတိယတတိယ