တကယ်
ta.kai/dəɡɛ̀/
The English word 'really' can be translated into Burmese as တကယ် (ta.kai).
တကယ် is an adverb used to mean 'actually'. You can also use the phrase တကယ်လား as an interjection to express surprise or to ask 'Is that true?'
Meaning: actually (adv)
Which one should you use?
While တကယ် is used as an adverb meaning 'really', the form တကယ်တော့ is used as a discourse marker meaning 'actually' or 'as a matter of fact' when you are introducing a contrasting truth.
How does it change in a sentence?
To add stronger emphasis, similar to saying 'really indeed' or 'truly' in English, you can add the particle ပဲ (pè) to the end of the word to create the form တကယ်ပဲ.
How do you pronounce it?
The word is pronounced /dəɡɛ̀/ (ta.kai).
Did you know?
- Burmese speakers may repeat the word as တကယ် တကယ် (ta.kai ta.kai) to express extreme disbelief or to insist that something is absolutely true.
- The phrase တကယ်တော့ often signals a 'polite correction' in Burmese culture, allowing the speaker to disagree with someone without being confrontational.
- In spoken Burmese, the 't' sound at the start of တကယ် is often softened or dropped entirely, making it sound more like အကယ် or /dəɡɛ̀/.
Examples in context
- ကျွန်တော် သင် မေးတဲ့ မေးခွန်း ကို တကယ်ပဲ နား မလည် ဘူး။I don't really understand your question.This sentence is useful for showing how to use တကယ် when expressing a lack of understanding.Tatoeba #8274183 by sithu015, translation #8273927 by CK
- သူ တကယ် ချစ်တာပါ။thu ta-ge chit tar bar.He really loves her.
- ဒီစာအုပ်က တကယ် စိတ်ဝင်စားဖို့ ကောင်းတယ်။dee sa-oak ka ta-ge sate-win-sar-pho kaung-tal.This book is really interesting.
Example conversation
Two friends are discussing a movie they just watched.
- ခိုင်ခိုင် Khine Khineဒီရုပ်ရှင်က တကယ် ကောင်းတယ်။dee yoat-shin ka ta-ge kaung-tal.This movie is really good.
- မင်းမင်း Min Minဟုတ်တယ်၊ ကျွန်တော်လည်း သဘောကျတယ်။hoat-tal, kyun-taw-lal tha-baw-kya-tal.Yes, I liked it too.
- ခိုင်ခိုင် Khine Khineမင်း တကယ် သဘောကျတာလား။min ta-ge tha-baw-kya-tar-lar?Do you really like it?
- မင်းမင်း Min Minတကယ် သဘောကျတာပါ။ta-ge tha-baw-kya-tar-bar.I really like it.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “really” translations and entries တကယ်, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
