How a Verb Phrase Is Built

Foundations

Each helper has its own slot, so မသွားချင်သေးဘူး (I don't want to go yet) always keeps that order.

How It Works

A Burmese verb phrase works like a train. The verb is the engine, and each helper word joins in its own place behind it.

SlotWhat goes thereExample
1မ (not)မ
2the verbသွား (go)
3want, can, know howချင်, နိုင်, တတ်
4time and stageနေ, ခဲ့, သေး
5polite ပါပါ
6the endingတယ်, မယ်, ဘူး, လား

Most phrases fill only two or three slots: သွားချင်တယ်။ (I want to go), မသွားနိုင်ပါဘူး။ (I can't go). မ always sits right before the verb, never before a helper.

Examples (5)

  1. ကျွန်မ ရှမ်းခေါက်ဆွဲ စားချင်တယ်။

    I want to eat Shan noodles.

    Verb စား, then ချင် (want), then the ending တယ်.

  2. ကျွန်တော် မြန်မာစကား ပြောတတ်ပါတယ်။

    I can speak Burmese.

    Verb ပြော, then တတ် (know how), then ပါ, then တယ်.

  3. သူ စာဖတ်နေတယ်။

    She is reading.

    နေ after the verb shows the action is going on now.

  4. မနက်ဖြန် မလာနိုင်ဘူး။

    I can't come tomorrow.

    မ goes before the verb လာ, and နိုင် (can) follows it.

  5. အခု မစားချင်သေးဘူး။

    I don't want to eat yet.

    Five pieces in order: မ, စား, ချင်, သေး, ဘူး.

Common Mistakes

  • Putting မ before the helper word.

    သွားမချင်ဘူး။
    မသွားချင်ဘူး။

    မ goes right before the verb, and the helper ချင် follows the verb.

  • Putting ပါ after the ending.

    သွားတယ်ပါ။
    သွားပါတယ်။

    ပါ takes the slot just before the ending, so the ending stays last.

How It Connects

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

How a Verb Phrase Is BuiltFoundations

Learn This First

A verb phrase is built step by step toward its ending, so the main endings come first.

Learn Next

Patterns that build on this one.

Words in This Pattern

မပါ