ပွင့် / ဖွင့်
Paired Verbs for Happening and Doing
The doing verb usually has a breathier first letter, or an added ှ: ပွင့် and ဖွင့်, နိုး and နှိုး.
How It Works
English uses "open" for both "the door opened" and "she opened the door". Burmese has many verbs in pairs for this.
| It happens | Someone does it |
|---|---|
| ပွင့် (come open) | ဖွင့် (open) |
| ကျ (fall) | ချ (put down, drop) |
| ပြတ် (snap) | ဖြတ် (cut) |
| ပျက် (break down) | ဖျက် (destroy, delete) |
| နိုး (wake up) | နှိုး (wake someone) |
| လွတ် (be free) | လွှတ် (let go) |
Look at the first letter. In many pairs the doing verb has the breathier partner of the same letter: ပ becomes ဖ, and က becomes ခ. In others it adds ှ: နိုး becomes နှိုး.
Use the happening verb when nobody is named as the cause: လေတိုက်လို့ တံခါး ပွင့်သွားတယ် (the wind blew the door open). Use the doing verb with a person: ပြတင်းပေါက် ဖွင့်ပေးပါ (please open the window).
A happening verb often takes သွား for a change that just took place: ပွင့်သွားတယ်, ကျကွဲသွားတယ်.
Not every verb has a partner. For a verb without one, add စေ to say someone made it happen.
Examples (5)
- လေတိုက်လို့ တံခါး ပွင့်သွားတယ်။
The wind blew the door open.
ပွင့် is the happening verb: the door came open.
- ကျေးဇူးပြုပြီး ပြတင်းပေါက် ဖွင့်ပေးပါ။
Please open the window.
ဖွင့် is the doing verb, used for a person's action.
- ဖန်ခွက် ကျကွဲသွားတယ်။
The glass fell and broke.
ကျ is the happening verb: the glass fell by itself.
- ဖန်ခွက်ကို စားပွဲပေါ် ချထားပါ။
Put the glass down on the table.
ချ is the doing partner of ကျ.
- မနက် ခုနစ်နာရီမှာ နိုးတယ်၊ ပြီးတော့ ကလေးတွေကို နှိုးတယ်။
I wake up at seven and then wake the kids.
နိုး is waking up, and နှိုး is waking someone else.
Common Mistakes
Using the doing verb for something that happened by itself.
လေတိုက်လို့ တံခါး ဖွင့်သွားတယ်။လေတိုက်လို့ တံခါး ပွင့်သွားတယ်။Nobody opened the door, so use the happening verb ပွင့်.
How It Connects
Learn This First
Happening verbs often take သွား, and a verb with no partner uses စေ.
Related Patterns
Words in This Pattern
Practice ပွင့် / ဖွင့် in Bubblegum
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