ရည်းစား
rany:ca:/jízá/gender neutral
The Burmese word for girlfriend is ရည်းစား (rany:ca:).
ရည်းစား is used to refer to a female partner in a romantic relationship. This Burmese term is gender-neutral.
Meaning: a female partner in a romantic relationship (noun)
What does it mean word for word?
The term ရည်းစား functions as a single unit meaning sweetheart or lover.
How do you pronounce it?
rany:ca:
Did you know?
- The second part of the word ရည်းစား, စား, is debated by linguists as to whether it refers to 'eating' or serves as an emphatic particle meaning 'exceed'.
- When introducing a girlfriend to elders, using the term ရည်းစား can sometimes feel slightly too direct or blunt, so more polite or indirect descriptions of the relationship are often preferred.
- In many social contexts, instead of using the term ရည်းစား, people might use the word 'darling' or 'honey' translated into Burmese to express affection, as ရည်းစား can sometimes feel too much like a label for a 'status' rather than a term of endearment.
Examples in context
- ကျွန်တော့်မှာ ရည်းစားရှိတယ်။kyan taw hmar yee zar shi tal.I have a girlfriend.
- သူ့မှာ ရည်းစားရှိလား။thu hmar yee zar shi lar?Does he have a girlfriend?
- သူ့ရည်းစားက အရမ်းလှတယ်။thu yee zar ka ayan hla tal.His girlfriend is very beautiful.
Example conversation
Aung Aung and Myat Noe are talking about their personal lives.
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungမြတ်နိုးမှာ ရည်းစား ရှိလား။Myat Noe mhar yeizarr shi lar?Does Myat Noe have a boyfriend?
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeမရှိပါဘူး၊ ကျွန်မမှာ ရည်းစား မရှိဘူး။ma shi bar boo, kyun ma mhar yeizarr ma shi boo.No, I don't have a boyfriend.
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungကျွန်တော့်မှာတော့ ရည်းစား ရှိပါတယ်။kyun taw mhar taw yeizarr shi ba tal.As for me, I have a girlfriend.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeဟုတ်လား၊ ဝမ်းသာပါတယ် အောင်အောင်။hoot lar, wan thar bar tal Aung Aung.Really? I'm happy for you, Aung Aung.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “girlfriend” translations and entries ရည်းစား, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ရည်းစား, CC BY-SA 4.0.
