Ways to say it
| Burmese | Romanization (Wiktionary) | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| ပိုက်ဆံ | puikhcam | /paɪʔsʰàɴ/ |
| ငွေကြေး | ngwe-kre: | /ŋwèt͡ɕé/ |
| ကြေးငွေ | kre:ngwe | /t͡ɕéŋwè/ |
| ငွေ | ngwe | /ŋwè/ |
In Burmese, there are several ways to refer to money depending on the context. The term ငွေ is a very common, shorter way to refer to money and is frequently used as a prefix or a component in compound words related to financial transactions or value. For more technical or formal discussions involving economics or official monetary systems, the term ငွေကြေး is used.
What does it mean word for word?
The word ပိုက်ဆံ literally refers to 'pocket money' or money kept in a pocket or pouch.
Which one should you use?
The forms differ mainly by their level of formality and specific application: ပိုက်ဆံ is the most common word for money used in everyday spoken conversation. ငွေ is a common, short way to say money. ငွေကြေး is a formal term specifically used for currency or monetary affairs, and ကြေးငွေ is another variation of these terms.
How do you pronounce it?
puikhcam (paɪʔsʰàɴ)
Did you know?
- The everyday word for money, ပိုက်ဆံ, is actually a loanword from the Hindi word 'paisā'.
- In Burmese, the word ငွေ means both 'money' and 'silver'.
- The Burmese word ကြေးငွေ uses the component ကြေး, which can also refer to 'copper' or 'bronze', hinting at the historical use of metal in currency.
Examples in context
- ငွေက စကားပြော တယ်။Money talks.This sentence shows how to use the form ငွေ to express the idiom 'Money talks'.Tatoeba #8274017 by sithu015, translation #18631 by CK
- ငါ့ ငွေ ပေါ်က မင်း လက်ကို ဖယ် လိုက် စမ်း။Keep your hands off my money.This sentence demonstrates using the form ငွေ in a possessive context.Tatoeba #8275297 by sithu015, translation #8229967 by CK
- ဒီထဲမှာ ပိုက်ဆံ မရှိဘူး။di hte mha paik san ma shi bu.There is no money in here.
Example conversation
Min Min and Hnin Hnin are checking their wallets before going out.
- မင်းမင်း Min Minမင်းမှာ ပိုက်ဆံ ရှိလား။min mhar paik san shi lar.Do you have any money?
- နှင်းနှင်း Hnin Hninအနည်းငယ်ပဲ ရှိတယ်။a nee nge pal shi tal.I only have a little.
- မင်းမင်း Min Minငါ့ကို နည်းနည်း ချေးလို့ ရမလား။nga ko nae nae chay lo ya ma lar.Can you lend me a little?
- နှင်းနှင်း Hnin Hninရတာပေါ့၊ မင်းမင်း။ya dar paw, Min Min.Sure, Min Min.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “money” translations and entries ပိုက်ဆံ, ငွေကြေး, ကြေးငွေ, ငွေ, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ကြေးငွေ, ငွေ, ပိုက်ဆံ, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
