Ways to say it
| Burmese | Romanization (Wiktionary) | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| ကူ | ku | /kù/ |
| ကူညီ | ku-nyi | /kùɲì/ |
The verb refers to the act of providing assistance to someone or something. While ကူ serves as the root, the word အကူ can be used as a noun to describe a person or persons who provide assistance with a task.
Which one should you use?
The word ကူ is the base root for helping, but ကူညီ is the more complete and standard version used for the verb 'to help' or 'to assist'. In an emergency situation, such as when drowning or being attacked, do not use these verbs. Instead, use the specific cry of distress ကယ်ပါ.
Related words
How does it change in a sentence?
To turn the verb into a polite request for help, you should add the verb ပေး (to give) and the polite particle ပါ to the verb, forming ကူညီပေးပါ.
How do you pronounce it?
/kù/
What mistakes should you avoid?
Do not use the words for assistance to call for help in an emergency. Use ကယ်ပါ instead.
Did you know?
- The phrase ကူညီ is a beautiful linguistic construction where ညီ means 'to be even' or 'to be in accordance with'. To help someone is literally to bring things into balance or alignment with them.
- When asking for help politely, you do not just say 'help', you actually say 'help give'. By adding the verb ပေး, which means 'to give', you are asking the person to 'give' their assistance to you.
Examples in context
- ကူညီကြပါ!Help!This sentence shows the use of the form ကူ in a call for help.Tatoeba #8273969 by sithu015, translation #435084 by lukaszpp
- ကျေးဇူးပြုလို့ ကျွန်တော့် ကို ကူညီပြီး ဒီ တံခါး ကို ဖွင့်ပေး ပါလား ခင်ဗျား။Please help me open this door.This sentence demonstrates a request for assistance using the form ကူ.Tatoeba #8275301 by sithu015, translation #7285364 by CK
- ဒီအလုပ်ကို ကျွန်မကို ကူပေးပါ။di a lote ko kyun ma ko ku pay bar.Please help me with this work.
Example conversation
Myat Noe asks Min Min for help with a heavy box.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeမင်းမင်း၊ ဒီသေတ္တာလေး ကူမပေးနိုင်မလား။min min, dee thay tta lay ku ma pay nine ma lar.Min Min, can you help me with this box?
- မင်းမင်း Min Minရပါတယ်။ ကျွန်တော် ကူပေးမယ်။ya ba tal. kyan taw ku pay mal.Sure. I will help you.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်ရှင်။kyay zoo tin ba tal shin.Thank you very much.
- မင်းမင်း Min Minကိစ္စမရှိပါဘူး။kate sa ma shi ba buu.No problem.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “help” translations and entries ကူ, ကူညီ, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ကူ, ကူညီ, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
