ကြ
Several People Doing It
ကြ is most common in requests and in "let's": စားကြရအောင်။ (Let's eat, everyone.)
How It Works
Burmese verbs have no ending for "he" or "they". A speaker adds ကြ to show that a group does something.
| One person | A group |
|---|---|
| ထိုင်ပါ။ (Please sit.) | ထိုင်ကြပါ။ (Please sit, everyone.) |
| သွားရအောင်။ (Let's go.) | သွားကြရအောင်။ (Let's all go.) |
| သူ လာမယ်။ (He'll come.) | သူတို့ လာကြမယ်။ (They'll come.) |
ကြ goes right after the verb and before any ending. With သူတို့ or တွေ, the group is already clear, but speakers still add ကြ often.
Teachers and hosts use ကြ all the time when they speak to a room: ဝင်ကြပါ (Come in, everyone).
In the negative, ကြ still goes right after the verb: မလာကြဘူး (They aren't coming). In a question it comes before the question ending: လာကြမလား (Are you all coming?)
Leave ကြ out when only one person acts, even when you are speaking to a group.
Examples (5)
- ထိုင်ကြပါ။
Please sit down, everyone.
ကြ shows the request is for a group.
- ကလေးတွေ ကျောင်းသွားကြပြီ။
The children have gone to school.
ကြ goes with ကလေးတွေ (the children).
- သူတို့ မနက်ဖြန် ပြန်ကြမယ်။
They're going back tomorrow.
ကြ comes before the ending မယ်.
- စားကြရအောင်။
Let's eat, everyone.
ကြ comes before ရအောင်.
- ဘာသောက်ကြမလဲ။
What will you all have to drink?
ကြ shows the question is for several people.
Common Mistakes
Using ကြ when you speak to one person.
ဆရာ၊ ထိုင်ကြပါ။ဆရာ၊ ထိုင်ပါ။Said to one teacher, ကြ is wrong, because it means several people.
Putting ကြ after ပါ.
ထိုင်ပါကြ။ထိုင်ကြပါ။ကြ goes right after the verb, before ပါ.
How It Connects
Learn This First
ကြ marks a group on the verb, so groups and polite requests come first.
Related Patterns
Learn Next
Patterns that build on this one.
Words in This Pattern
Practice ကြ in Bubblegum
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