ဆရာ
hca.ra/sʰəjà/
The Burmese word for teacher is ဆရာ (hca.ra). Wiktionary also lists ဆရာမ (hca.rama.).
Meaning: person who teaches (noun)
Ways to say it
| Burmese | Romanization (Wiktionary) | IPA | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ဆရာ | hca.ra | /sʰəjà/ | |
| ဆရာမ | hca.rama. | /sʰəjàma̰/ | feminine |
ဆရာ refers to a person who teaches and can be used to mean 'teacher' or 'sir' when addressing a male teacher directly. The feminine form, ဆရာမ, is used for a female teacher and can serve as a respectful way to address her as 'madam'.
Which one should you use?
ဆရာ is used specifically for a male teacher or is used as a gender-neutral term for a teacher in a general sense. ဆရာမ is the feminine form used specifically for a female teacher.
How does it change in a sentence?
To create the feminine form ဆရာမ, the suffix မ is added to the masculine form.
How do you pronounce it?
hca.ra
When do people say it?
You can use ဆရာ to address a male teacher as 'Sir' and ဆရာမ to address a female teacher as 'Madam'.
Did you know?
- Burmese culture places such high value on teachers that ဆရာ is traditionally listed among the five most respected people in a person's life, alongside parents.
- In Myanmar, the term ဆရာ is used as a respectful title for professionals beyond schooling, such as doctors, lawyers and engineers.
- The word ဆရာ shares an ancient root with the Sanskrit term ācārya, which traditionally refers to a spiritual preceptor or a master of sacred knowledge.
Examples in context
- တွန်က ဆရာကောင်းတယောက်ဆိုတာကို ကျွန်တော်သိပါတယ်။I know that Tom is a good teacher.This sentence is useful for describing someone as a good ဆရာ.Tatoeba #10923804 by zawtunlatt, translation #7921160 by CK
- ကျွန်တော့်ဆရာက အရမ်းမိုက်ပါတယ်။kyan taw sayar ka ayan mike par tal.My teacher is very cool.
- သူကတော့ ဘာသာစကားသင်တဲ့ ဆရာတစ်ယောက်ပါ။thu ka taw bar thar sa kar thin tae sayar ta yauk par.He is a teacher who teaches languages.
- 1 more sentence on Tatoeba
Example conversation
Two students are talking about their class.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeဒီနေ့ ဆရာ လာမလား။di nay sayar lar ma lar?Will the teacher come today?
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungလာမယ်လို့ ထင်ပါတယ်။lar mal lo htin par tal.I think he will.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeဆရာက အရမ်းတော်တာပဲ။sayar ka ayan taw tar pal.The teacher is very talented.
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungဟုတ်တယ်၊ ကျွန်တော်လည်း သဘောကျတယ်။hote tal, kyun taw lal tha baw kya tal.Yes, I like him too.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “teacher” translations and entries ဆရာ, ဆရာမ, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ဆရာ, ဆရာမ, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
