မ…လည်းရတယ်

Not Having to

Level 3

Without မ, လည်းရတယ် gives permission: ဒီမှာ ဓာတ်ပုံရိုက်လည်း ရပါတယ်။ (You can take photos here.)

How It Works

လည်း means "even" or "also", and ရတယ် means "it's OK". With မ in front of the verb, the whole pattern says the action is not needed.

FormExampleEnglish
no needမလာလည်းရတယ်။You don't have to come.
politeမလာလည်း ရပါတယ်။You don't need to come.
questionမလာလည်း ရလား။Is it OK if I don't come?
permissionလာလည်း ရတယ်။You can come too.

Keep it apart from မ…ရဘူး. That one means "must not": မလာရဘူး (You mustn't come). The two look alike, so check for လည်း.

A shop or a host uses it to put you at ease: ဖိနပ် မချွတ်လည်း ရပါတယ် (You don't need to take your shoes off).

To say you must do something, use ရ: လာရမယ် (You have to come).

Examples (5)

  1. မနက်ဖြန် မလာလည်းရတယ်။

    You don't have to come tomorrow.

    မ…လည်းရတယ် says coming is not needed.

  2. ဖိနပ် မချွတ်လည်း ရပါတယ်ရှင်။

    You don't need to take off your shoes.

    A woman puts her guest at ease.

  3. ကျွန်တော် ဒီနေ့ မသွားလည်း ရလား။

    Is it OK if I don't go today?

    A man asks with ရလား.

  4. ပိုက်ဆံ အခု မပေးလည်း ရတယ်။

    You don't have to pay now.

    The listener may pay later.

  5. ဒီမှာ ဓာတ်ပုံရိုက်လည်း ရပါတယ်။

    You can take photos here.

    Without မ, the pattern gives permission.

Common Mistakes

  • Dropping လည်း, which turns it into "must not".

    မနက်ဖြန် မလာရဘူး။
    မနက်ဖြန် မလာလည်းရတယ်။

    The first sentence means "You mustn't come tomorrow". Keep လည်း for "you don't have to".

How It Connects

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

မ…လည်းရတယ်Level 3Not Having to

Learn This First

Not having to is easiest to learn next to not allowed, and it uses လည်း.

Words in This Pattern

မလည်းရ