မေမေ
meme/mèmè/
The Burmese word for "mom" is မေမေ (meme).
မေမေ is an affectionate, informal way to address or refer to one's mother, similar to using "mommy" or "mom" in English.
Which one should you use?
While မေမေ is used affectionately within the family, အမေ is the more standard and neutral term for "mother". For a highly formal context, use မိခင်.
Is there a formal and an informal way to say it?
မေမေ is an informal and affectionate term. Use မိခင် if you need a formal way to say "mother".
How do you pronounce it?
/mèmè/
Did you know?
- If you were to use the formal မိခင် in a casual conversation with your own mother, it would sound strangely cold, almost as if you were reading from a legal document.
- While မေမေ is used for one's own mother, people often use the term ဒေါ် as a prefix for older women to show respect, effectively treating them as maternal figures.
- In Burmese culture, children often continue to call their mother မေမေ well into adulthood, regardless of their age or professional status.
Examples in context
- မေမေ သွားတော့မယ်။may may thwa taw mal.Mom is leaving now.
Example conversation
Two siblings are talking at home.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeကျော်ကျော်၊ မေမေ လာပြီ။Kyaw Kyaw, may may lar pyi.Kyaw Kyaw, mom is here.
- ကျော်ကျော် Kyaw Kyawမေမေ ဘာဝယ်လာလဲ။May may bar wal lar lae?What did mom buy?
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeမသိဘူး၊ သွားမေးကြည့်ပါ။Ma thi buu, thwar may kyi par.I don't know, go ask her.
- ကျော်ကျော် Kyaw Kyawဟုတ်ပြီ၊ သွားမေးမယ်။Hoke pyi, thwar may mal.Okay, I will go ask.
Sources
- Pronunciation: Wiktionary entry မေမေ, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
