Listen "Bite-Size Burmese: Choking on Happiness, Flattened by Sadness"
Episode Synopsis
Many Burmese words describing how you feel—happy, sad, depressed, and so on—are constructed with the root words ဝမ်း for "belly" or "womb," and စိတ် for "the mind." The phrase ဝမ်းသာတယ် "to be glad, to be happy" literally translates to "the belly is pleasant, favorable." The opposite phrase ဝမ်းနည်းတယ် "to be sad or unhappy" is "the belly is deficient." To feel an overwhelming happiness is ဝမ်းသာလုံးဆို့နေတယ်, a picturesque phrase that means "to be choking on a ball of happiness." And to be overtaken by sadness or grief is ဝမ်းနည်းပက်လက် , an adverb describing someone grieving in a horizontal, face-up position. In this episode, I introduce you to words and phrases to describe feelings and emotions—with melodramatic, hyperbolic options if you so desire. (Music: "Sunshine Dreams" by Kaazoom, Pixabay)Vocabularyဝမ်းသာတယ် to be happy, gladဝမ်းနည်းတယ် to be unhappy, sadဝမ်းသာအားရ happily, with great happiness (adverb)ဝမ်းမြောက်ဝမ်းသာ happily, with great happiness (adverb)ဝမ်းပန်းတသာ happily, with great happiness (adverb)ဝမ်းသာအယ်လဲ happily, with great happiness (adverb)ဝမ်းသာလုံးဆို့နေတယ် to be overwhelmed with happiness (lit. to be choking on a ball of happiness)ဝမ်းနည်းပက်လက် to be unhappy (lit. sad and flat)စိတ်ကောင်းတယ် to be kind, good-naturedစိတ်မကောင်းဘူး to be sadစိတ်ထားမကောင်းဘူး to be of spiteful, malicious temperament စိတ်ပုတ်တယ် to be spiteful, malicious (lit. to have a rotten mind)စိတ်ဆင်းရဲတယ် to be depressed, frustrated (lit. the mind is impoverished)စိတ်ညစ်တယ် to be depressed, frustrated (lit. the mind is tainted, dirty)စိတ်ချမ်းသာတယ် to be content, satisfied, delighted (lit. the mind is luxurious) Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.
More episodes of the podcast Learn Burmese from Natural Talk
On Diplomacy and Language
28/11/2025
On Burmese Poetry
19/09/2025
On Animal Farm, Part II
04/09/2025
On Animal Farm, Part I
11/08/2025
On Dowry
01/07/2025
On Thingyan and Thaan Jaat
15/04/2025
On Chinese New Year
21/02/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.