ဘာ
bha/bà/
The English word "what" is translated into Burmese as ဘာ (bha).
ဘာ is an interrogative pronoun. It can be used as a standalone question, such as ဘာလဲ to mean "What is it?" or "What?" when you didn't hear or understand something.
Meaning: what? (interrogative pronoun) (pron)
Which one should you use?
Adding the classifier တွေ after ဘာ indicates that the speaker is asking about multiple things or "what things".
How does it change in a sentence?
The interrogative ဘာ is often combined with the copula လဲ to form the question "what is it?" or "what?"
How do you pronounce it?
The romanization is bha and the IPA is /bà/.
Did you know?
- Burmese grammar typically places the interrogative word ဘာ in the position where the answer would be, rather than always at the start of the sentence.
- If you use ဘာ too bluntly without polite particles, you might sound like you are snapping at someone or expressing sudden shock rather than just asking a question.
- The word ဘာ is a cognate with the word hpa used for 'what' in the Jingpho language.
Examples in context
- ဘ၀ ဆိုတာ ဘာလဲWhat is life?This sentence is useful for asking about the nature of life using ဘာ.Tatoeba #6692698 by zawtunlatt, translation #5607234 by mailohilohi
- ဘာတွေ ပျော်နေတာလဲ!What fun!This sentence uses ဘာ to express an exclamation about fun.Tatoeba #8274068 by sithu015, translation #36026 by CM
- သင် ဘာကို ဆိုလိုတာလဲ။What do you mean?This sentence uses ဘာ to ask about the meaning of someone's words.Tatoeba #3388350 by sithu015, translation #24706 by CK
- 7 more sentences on Tatoeba
Example conversation
Min Min and Hnin Hnin are talking in a cafe.
- မင်းမင်း Min Minမင်း ဘာ စားချင်လဲ။min bar sar chin lal?What do you want to eat?
- နှင်းနှင်း Hnin Hninငါ ဘာစားရမလဲ မသိသေးဘူး။nga bar sar ya ma lal ma thi thay buu.I don't know what I should eat yet.
- မင်းမင်း Min Minဒီမှာ ဘာ အစားအစာရှိလဲ။di hmar bar a sar a sar shi lal?What food is here?
- နှင်းနှင်း Hnin Hninဒီမှာ မုန့်ဟင်းခါး ရှိတယ်။di hmar mont hin khar shi tal.There is mohinga here.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “what” translations and entries ဘာ, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ဘာ, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
