Ways to say it
| Burmese | Romanization (Wiktionary) | IPA | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| နင် | nang | /nɪ̀ɴ/ | informal |
| မင်း | mang: | /mɪ́ɴ/ | informal |
| ခင်ဗျား | hkangbya: | /kʰɪ̀ɴbjá/ /kʰəmjá/ |
polite |
| ရှင် | hrang | /ʃɪ̀ɴ/ | polite |
The choice of pronoun depends heavily on who is speaking and the social relationship with the person being addressed. While several forms exist, it is often considered more natural in polite Burmese conversation to replace the pronoun 'you' entirely with the person's name or their professional title.
Which one should you use?
The informal forms include နင် and မင်း. နင် is frequently used by females or when addressing children and younger people. The polite forms are gender-dependent: ခင်ဗျား is typically used by male speakers, while ရှင် is typically used by female speakers.
Is there a formal and an informal way to say it?
The terms နင် and မင်း are informal. The terms ခင်ဗျား and ရှင် are polite. Use the polite forms when addressing someone of higher status or an elder to maintain proper respect.
How do you pronounce it?
nang
What mistakes should you avoid?
English speakers often mistakenly use the informal forms နင် or မင်း when speaking to elders or superiors. This can sound rude. Use the polite forms instead.
Did you know?
- The polite masculine form ခင်ဗျား is actually a shortened version of the phrase သခင်ဘုရား, which translates literally to 'master lord'.
- The polite forms ခင်ဗျား and ရှင် are strictly gender-dependent, meaning the speaker must choose the word based on their own gender, not the listener's.
Examples in context
- မင်း ညာတယ်။You cheated.This sentence shows how to use the form မင်း to state that someone cheated.Tatoeba #8289624 by sithu015, translation #2549802 by CK
- မင်း ကြိုးစား။You tried.This sentence shows how to use the form မင်း to state that someone tried.Tatoeba #8274027 by sithu015, translation #20119 by CK
- မင်းအရမ်း ပင်ပန်းနေလား။Are you too tired?This sentence shows how to use the form မင်း to ask if someone is tired.Tatoeba #10905697 by zawtunlatt, translation #3930018 by Delian
- 43 more sentences on Tatoeba
Example conversation
Two friends are talking about a movie.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeနင် ဒီကားကို ကြည့်ပြီးပြီလား။nin di kar ko kyi pyi pyi lar?Have you watched this movie yet?
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungမကြည့်ရသေးဘူး။ma kyi ya thay buu.I haven't watched it yet.
- မြတ်နိုး Myat Noeနင် ကြည့်ချင်လား။nin kyi chin lar?Do you want to watch it?
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungအင်း၊ ကြည့်ချင်တယ်။inn, kyi chin tal.Yes, I want to.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “you” translations and entries နင်, မင်း, ခင်ဗျား, ရှင်, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ခင်ဗျား, နင်, မင်း, ရှင်, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
