မင်္ဂလာပါ
mangga.lapa/mɪ̀ɴɡəlàbà/
The English phrase 'hello' is translated into Burmese as မင်္ဂလာပါ (mangga.lapa). Wiktionary also lists ဟဲလို (hai:lui).
Meaning: greeting (intj)
Ways to say it
| Burmese | Romanization (Wiktionary) | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| မင်္ဂလာပါ | mangga.lapa | /mɪ̀ɴɡəlàbà/ |
| ဟဲလို | hai:lui | /hɛ́lò/ |
The most common and widely used greeting in Burmese is မင်္ဂလာပါ, which functions as the equivalent of the English 'hello'. Additionally, the English loanword ဟဲလို is used for casual greetings.
What does it mean word for word?
The phrase မင်္ဂလာပါ literally means 'be auspicious' or 'may blessings be with you'.
Which one should you use?
မင်္ဂလာပါ is the standard greeting, while ဟဲလို is an informal loanword used primarily among friends or during casual telephone conversations.
Is there a formal and an informal way to say it?
မင်္ဂလာပါ is appropriate for formal settings, such as when addressing strangers, teachers or elders. In contrast, ဟဲလို is an informal way to greet others.
How do you pronounce it?
mangga.lapa /mɪ̀ɴɡəlàbà/
Did you know?
- While မင်္ဂလာပါ is the standard greeting, many Burmese people greet others by asking ထမင်းစားပြီးပြီလား, which means 'have you eaten rice yet'.
- Burmese greetings often involve a complex system of honorifics where the speaker changes their self-referential pronoun based on the status of the person they are greeting.
- The word မင်္ဂလာ is derived from the Pali word 'maṅgala', which is used across many Buddhist cultures in Southeast Asia to denote auspiciousness.
Examples in context
- ဟဲလို။Hello!This example shows how to use the informal ဟဲလို.Tatoeba #8273947 by sithu015, translation #373330 by CK
- မင်္ဂလာပါ၊ နေကောင်းလား။Hello, how are you?This example shows how to use မင်္ဂလာပါ when asking how someone is.Tatoeba #3189927 by Vortarulo, translation #138868 by CK
- မင်္ဂလာပါရှင်။mingalarpar shin.Hello.
- 1 more sentence on Tatoeba
Example conversation
Zaw Zaw and Su Su meet on the street.
- ဇော်ဇော် Zaw Zawမင်္ဂလာပါ စုစု။mingalarpar Su Su.Hello, Su Su.
- စုစု Su Suမင်္ဂလာပါ ဇော်ဇော်။mingalarpar Zaw Zaw.Hello, Zaw Zaw.
- ဇော်ဇော် Zaw Zawနေကောင်းလား။nay kaung lar?How are you?
- စုစု Su Suနေကောင်းပါတယ်။nay kaung par tal.I am well.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “hello” translations and entries မင်္ဂလာပါ, ဟဲလို, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries မင်္ဂလာပါ, ဟဲလို, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
