ဘယ်နှ… / ဘယ်လောက်
How Many and How Much
These questions end with လဲ, the ending for questions with a question word.
How It Works
Each answer tells you how to ask the question. If the answer is a number and a classifier, ask with ဘယ်နှ and the same classifier.
| Question | English | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| ဘယ်နှယောက်လဲ။ | How many people? | သုံးယောက်ပါ။ |
| ဘယ်နှခွက်လဲ။ | How many cups? | နှစ်ခွက်ပါ။ |
| ဘယ်လောက်လဲ။ | How much is it? | ငါးထောင်ပါ။ |
| ဘယ်လောက်ကြာလဲ။ | How long does it take? | တစ်နာရီပါ။ |
You will also see ဘယ်နှ written ဘယ်နှစ်, as in ဘယ်နှစ်ယောက်. Both are the same word.
ဘယ်လောက် covers amounts you do not count one by one: money, time and distance. To ask the time, say ဘယ်နှနာရီ ရှိပြီလဲ။
When you shop, ask the price with ဘယ်လောက်လဲ, and the amount with ဘယ်နှ: ဒါ ဘယ်နှခု ကျန်သေးလဲ။ (How many of these are left?) The seller answers with a number and a classifier, or with a price in ကျပ်.
Examples (5)
- ဒါ ဘယ်လောက်လဲ။
How much is this?
ဘယ်လောက်လဲ asks the price.
- မိသားစု ဘယ်နှယောက် ရှိလဲ။
How many people are in your family?
ဘယ်နှယောက် asks how many people.
- ကော်ဖီ ဘယ်နှခွက် ယူမလဲ။
How many cups of coffee would you like?
ဘယ်နှ joins the classifier for cups, ခွက်.
- မန္တလေးကို ဘယ်လောက်ကြာလဲ။
How long does it take to get to Mandalay?
ဘယ်လောက် with ကြာ asks how long.
- အခု ဘယ်နှနာရီ ရှိပြီလဲ။
What time is it now?
ဘယ်နှနာရီ asks which hour it is.
Common Mistakes
Ending a question-word question with လား.
ဒါ ဘယ်လောက်လား။ဒါ ဘယ်လောက်လဲ။A question with ဘယ် ends with လဲ. လား is for yes-or-no questions.
Leaving out the classifier after ဘယ်နှ.
ကော်ဖီ ဘယ်နှ ယူမလဲ။ကော်ဖီ ဘယ်နှခွက် ယူမလဲ။ဘယ်နှ always joins a classifier.
How It Connects
Learn This First
How many and how much use counting words and end with လဲ.