Ways to say it
| Burmese |
|---|
| ဝမ်းနည်းပါတယ်။ |
| ဆောရီးနော်။ |
The way you express "sorry" in Burmese depends on whether you are expressing deep sympathy or making a quick social apology. Use ဝမ်းနည်းပါတယ်။ when you want to express genuine sorrow or sympathy for someone's misfortune. Use the loanword ဆောရီးနော်။ for casual social apologies, such as being late or making a small mistake in conversation.
What does it mean word for word?
The phrase ဝမ်းနည်းပါတယ်။ literally means "to be sad" or "to feel sorrow".
Which one should you use?
ဝမ်းနည်းပါတယ်။ is used to express genuine regret or sorrow, but it is not typically used for minor social apologies like bumping into someone.
Is there a formal and an informal way to say it?
ဆောရီးနော်။ is an informal, colloquial way to apologize derived from the English word "sorry".
How does it change in a sentence?
In the form ဆောရီးနော်။, the particle နော် at the end acts as a softening particle to make the apology sound more friendly or to seek the listener's understanding.
Did you know?
- The word ဝမ်း in ဝမ်းနည်းပါတယ်။ refers to the 'abdomen' or 'belly', reflecting an ancient linguistic connection between the physical gut and the seat of deep emotions.
- In Burmese, if you want to apologize for an action rather than express a feeling of sadness, you would use different verbs entirely, such as တောင်းပန်ပါတယ်။ which means 'to ask for forgiveness'.
- Burmese speakers often prefer to use physical gestures, like a slight bow or placing hands together, alongside apologies to signal the level of sincerity being offered.
Examples in context
- သတင်းကြားလို့ ဝမ်းနည်းပါတယ်။tha din kyar lo wan nee bar tal.I am sorry to hear the news.
- ကျွန်တော် တကယ် ဝမ်းနည်းပါတယ်။kyun taw ta kyal wan nee bar tal.I am truly sorry.
Example conversation
Aung Aung expresses his sympathy to Myat Noe after her pet passed away.
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungသေဆုံးသွားတာ ဝမ်းနည်းပါတယ်။thay sone thwar dar wan nee bar tal.I am sorry that it passed away.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်။kyay zoo tin bar tal.Thank you.
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungစိတ်မကောင်းမဖြစ်ပါနဲ့။sate ma kaung ma phit par nae.Please don't be too sad.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeဟုတ်ကဲ့ပါ၊ အောင်အောင်။hoke kae par, Aung Aung.Okay, Aung Aung.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “sorry” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
