နားလည် 30초 만에
- နားလည် (na: lany) is the primary Burmese verb for 'to understand'.
- It is a compound word made of 'ear' (နား) and 'to turn/circulate' (လည်).
- It is used for both intellectual comprehension and emotional empathy.
- The negative form is 'နားမလည်ဘူး' and the polite form is 'နားလည်ပါတယ်'.
The Burmese word နားလည် (pronounced 'na: lany') is the primary verb used to express the concept of 'to understand' or 'to comprehend.' At its most fundamental level, it signifies the cognitive process of grasping meaning, following instructions, or being aware of the significance of a situation. In the Burmese language, which is rich with compound verbs, 'နားလည်' is a fascinating combination of two distinct roots: 'နား' (na:), meaning 'ear,' and 'လည်' (lany), which translates to 'to turn,' 'to revolve,' or 'to circulate.' Conceptually, this suggests that understanding occurs when the sound entering the ear 'circulates' or is 'processed' within the mind. This word is ubiquitous in daily life, appearing in everything from simple classroom interactions to complex legal and emotional discussions.
- Cognitive Grasp
- This refers to the basic ability to follow a logical explanation or a set of directions. When a student follows a teacher's lecture, they use this word.
- Empathy and Relationship
- Beyond logic, it is used to describe mutual understanding between people. It implies an emotional connection or a shared perspective between friends or partners.
ကျွန်တော် နားလည်ပါတယ်။ (I understand.)
In social contexts, the word is often accompanied by the polite particle 'ပါ' (par). For instance, if someone is explaining a difficult concept and asks if you follow, responding with 'နားလည်ပါတယ်' (na: lany par tal) is the standard polite way to confirm comprehension. Conversely, if you are lost, 'နားမလည်ပါဘူး' (na: ma lany par bu:)—where 'မ' (ma) is the negative particle—is the essential phrase for any traveler or student. Interestingly, Burmese speakers also use this word to imply 'forgiveness' or 'tolerance' in certain contexts, particularly when someone says 'Please understand my situation' (ကျွန်တော့်အခြေအနေကို နားလည်ပေးပါ).
The versatility of 'နားလည်' makes it a cornerstone of Burmese communication. It bridges the gap between mere hearing and actual comprehension. In Burmese culture, where indirect communication is common, 'understanding' often involves reading between the lines, and the word 'နားလည်' encompasses this nuanced perception as well. Whether you are navigating a busy market in Yangon or discussing philosophy in a teahouse, mastering this verb is your first step toward true integration into the linguistic landscape of Myanmar.
Using 'နားလည်' in a sentence requires an understanding of Burmese syntax, which follows a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order. Unlike English, where the verb 'understand' comes before the object, in Burmese, the verb almost always concludes the sentence or the specific clause. This creates a psychological buildup where the listener waits for the final verb to determine the action's status. To say 'I understand Burmese,' you would structure it as 'I (Subject) + Burmese (Object) + understand (Verb).'
- The Negative Construction
- To negate the verb, the particle 'မ' (ma) is placed before the verb, and the sentence usually ends with 'ဘူး' (bu:). Example: နားမလည်ဘူး (Does not understand).
သူက မြန်မာစကားကို ကောင်းကောင်း နားလည်တယ်။ (He understands Burmese well.)
When you want to express the *ability* to understand rather than just the fact of understanding, you can append 'နိုင်' (naing) to the verb, creating 'နားလည်နိုင်တယ်' (can understand). This is useful when discussing complex topics or foreign languages. Furthermore, the word can be turned into a noun, 'နားလည်မှု' (na: lany hmu), which means 'understanding' or 'mutual agreement.' This is frequently seen in news reports regarding diplomatic negotiations or peace talks.
Another common pattern involves the use of 'ပေး' (pay), which means 'to give' but serves as an auxiliary verb meaning 'to do something for someone.' Saying 'နားလည်ပေးပါ' (na: lany pay par) literally means 'Please give me (the act of) understanding,' which is a very common way to say 'Please be patient with me' or 'Please empathize with my situation.' This usage highlights the communal and empathetic nature of the Burmese language.
In the bustling streets of Yangon or the quiet villages of the Shan State, 'နားလည်' is a constant companion. You will hear it most frequently in instructional settings. In a classroom, a teacher will repeatedly ask 'နားလည်လား?' (Do you understand?) to ensure the students are following the lesson. In a workplace, a manager might explain a task and wait for the employee to nod and say 'နားလည်ပါပြီ' (I have understood now).
- Daily Transactions
- When bargaining at a market, if a price is explained based on quality, a buyer might say 'နားလည်ပါတယ်' to acknowledge the explanation before counter-offering.
ဆရာပြောတာကို ကျွန်တော် နားလည်ပါတယ်။ (I understand what the teacher said.)
You will also encounter this word in media and entertainment. In Burmese soap operas (dramas), characters often have dramatic confrontations where one pleads, 'မင်း ငါ့ကို နားမလည်ဘူး!' (You don't understand me!). Here, the word carries heavy emotional weight, signifying a lack of empathy or a breakdown in a relationship. On the news, when reporting on international treaties, the term 'နားလည်မှုစာချွန်လွှာ' (Memorandum of Understanding or MOU) is used constantly, showing the word's formal and legal applications.
Finally, 'နားလည်' is used in religious and philosophical contexts. In Buddhist sermons, monks discuss the importance of 'understanding' the Four Noble Truths. While more technical terms like 'သဘောပေါက်' (grasping the essence) or 'သိမြင်' (perceiving/seeing) might be used for deep spiritual enlightenment, 'နားလည်' remains the gateway verb for the initial comprehension of these profound concepts.
For English speakers learning Burmese, the most common mistake is confusing 'နားလည်' (to understand) with 'သိ' (to know). While in English we might say 'I know what you mean' and 'I understand what you mean' interchangeably, Burmese is more specific. 'သိ' (thi) is generally used for facts, information, or knowing a person. 'နားလည်' is used for the comprehension of concepts, reasons, or languages. Using 'သိ' when you mean 'understand' can make you sound slightly robotic or imprecise.
- The 'Ear' Confusion
- Because 'နား' means ear, beginners sometimes think the word only applies to things they hear. However, you use 'နားလည်' for things you read or see as well.
Wrong: ကျွန်တော် မြန်မာစာကို သိတယ်။ (I 'know' Burmese - sounds like knowing a fact). Correct: ကျွန်တော် မြန်မာစာကို နားလည်တယ်။ (I 'understand' Burmese).
Another frequent error is the incorrect placement of the negative particle. Some learners might say 'မနားလည်ဘူး' (ma na: lany bu:). While this is technically understandable, it sounds disjointed. The standard negative is 'နားမလည်ဘူး' (na: ma lany bu:), where the 'ma' splits the compound. This is a common feature of Burmese compound verbs where the negation often sits between the two components, though for 'နားလည်', placing 'ma' in the middle is the most natural-sounding version for native speakers.
Finally, learners often struggle with the distinction between 'နားလည်' (understand) and 'သဘောပေါက်' (grasp/realize). 'နားလည်' is the broad term, whereas 'သဘောပေါက်' is that 'Aha!' moment of sudden realization. If you have been trying to solve a puzzle and finally get it, 'သဘောပေါက်ပြီ!' is more appropriate than 'နားလည်ပြီ'. Using the latter in that specific moment isn't 'wrong,' but it lacks the nuance of the sudden breakthrough.
While 'နားလည်' is your go-to word, the Burmese language offers several alternatives that can make your speech more precise and sophisticated. Depending on the depth of understanding or the context, you might choose a different verb. Understanding these nuances is key to moving from a beginner to an intermediate level of fluency.
- သဘောပေါက် (Thabaw Pauk)
- This literally means 'the nature/essence bursts through.' It is used for a sudden realization or grasping a complex concept. It is the 'I get it now' word.
- ရိပ်မိ (Yate Mi)
- This means 'to sense' or 'to suspect.' It is used when you understand something that wasn't explicitly said—like picking up on a hint or a secret.
သူပြောချင်တဲ့ အဓိပ္ပာယ်ကို ကျွန်တော် သဘောပေါက်သွားပြီ။ (I have grasped the meaning of what he wants to say.)
For formal or literary contexts, you might encounter 'သိမြင်' (thi myin), which combines 'to know' and 'to see.' This is often used in philosophical or religious texts to describe a deep, enlightened understanding of the truth. On the other hand, in very casual slang, young people might use English loanwords or shortened expressions, but 'နားလည်' remains the most respected and widely used term across all demographics.
Another interesting alternative is 'တတ်' (tat), which means 'to know how to' or 'to be skilled in.' If you say 'မြန်မာစကား တတ်တယ်' (I know/understand Burmese), it implies a level of functional skill. However, 'နားလည်' focuses more on the comprehension aspect. If you can read a book but can't speak well, you would say you 'နားလည်' the language but might not 'တတ်' it perfectly yet.
재미있는 사실
The literal meaning 'the ear turns' reflects an ancient physiological belief or metaphor that understanding involves the physical or spiritual 'turning' of the sensory organ to process sound.
발음 가이드
- Pronouncing 'lany' with a high tone like 'lan'. It must be low.
- Failing to aspirate the 'n' sound correctly.
- Pronouncing the 'a' in 'na' too long.
- Ignoring the glottal stop potential in connected speech.
- Mixing up the 'l' sound with an 'r' sound.
수준별 예문
ကျွန်တော် နားလည်ပါတယ်။
I understand (polite).
Subject (implied) + Verb + Polite Particle + Sentence Ender.
နားလည်လား?
Do you understand?
Verb + Question Particle.
နားမလည်ပါဘူး။
I don't understand.
Negative construction: Verb-split with 'ma' and 'bu'.
သူ နားလည်တယ်။
He understands.
Third person subject + Verb.
နည်းနည်း နားလည်တယ်။
I understand a little.
Adverb 'နည်းနည်း' before the verb.
ဆရာမ၊ နားမလည်ဘူး။
Teacher, I don't understand.
Addressing the person before the statement.
အခု နားလည်ပြီ။
I understand now.
Adverb 'အခု' (now) + Verb + 'ပြီ' (change of state).
အားလုံး နားလည်လား?
Does everyone understand?
'အားလုံး' means everyone/all.
သူပြောတာကို ကျွန်တော် နားလည်တယ်။
I understand what he said.
Using 'တာ' to nominalize the previous clause.
မြန်မာစကားကို ကောင်းကောင်း နားလည်လား?
Do you understand Burmese well?
'ကောင်းကောင်း' is the adverb for 'well'.
ဒီစာအုပ်ကို သူ နားမလည်ဘူး။
He doesn't understand this book.
Object 'စာအုပ်' (book) before the verb.
ကျွန်တော် နားလည်အောင် ရှင်းပြပါ။
Please explain so that I understand.
'အောင်' acts as 'so that' or 'in order to'.
သူတို့ တစ်ယောက်နဲ့တစ်ယောက် နားလည်ကြတယ်။
They understand each other.
'ကြ' is the plural marker for verbs.
အရင်က နားမလည်ခဲ့ဘူး။
I didn't understand before.
'ခဲ့' indicates the past tense.
စကားပြန်က နားလည်အောင် ပြောပေးတယ်။
The interpreter spoke so they could understand.
'ပေး' indicates an action done for someone.
မင်း ဘာလို့ နားမလည်တာလဲ?
Why don't you understand?
'ဘာလို့' means why; 'လဲ' is the question particle for wh-questions.
သူ့ရဲ့ ခံစားချက်ကို ကျွန်တော် နားလည်ပေးနိုင်ပါတယ်။
I can understand (empathize with) his feelings.
'နိုင်' means can/be able to.
ဒီသင်ခန်းစာက နားလည်ရ ခက်တယ်။
This lesson is difficult to understand.
'ရ' here acts as a linker meaning 'to [verb]'.
နားလည်မှုရှိဖို့ အရေးကြီးတယ်။
It is important to have understanding.
Using 'မှု' to create a noun from the verb.
သေချာ နားလည်အောင် ဖတ်ကြည့်ပါ။
Try reading it to understand clearly.
'ကြည့်' as an auxiliary meaning 'to try doing'.
ကျွန်မ အခြေအနေကို နားလည်ပေးမယ်လို့ မျှော်လင့်ပါတယ်။
I hope you will understand my situation.
'လို့' marks the preceding clause as a thought/hope.
တစ်ဦးကိုတစ်ဦး နားလည်မှု လွဲနေကြတယ်။
They are misunderstanding each other.
'လွဲ' means to miss or be wrong; 'နေ' is the continuous aspect.
ဒီစက်ကို ဘယ်လိုသုံးရမလဲဆိုတာ နားလည်ပြီလား?
Do you understand how to use this machine now?
'ဆိုတာ' acts as a noun clause marker.
သူက လူကြီးတွေ ပြောတာကို နားလည်လွယ်တယ်။
He understands what elders say easily.
'လွယ်' means easy.
နိုင်ငံရေး အခြေအနေကို လေးလေးနက်နက် နားလည်ဖို့ လိုအပ်ပါတယ်။
It is necessary to understand the political situation deeply.
'လေးလေးနက်နက်' is a formal adverb for 'deeply'.
နှစ်ဦးနှစ်ဖက် နားလည်မှုစာချွန်လွှာ လက်မှတ်ရေးထိုးခဲ့ကြသည်။
Both sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
'နားလည်မှုစာချွန်လွှာ' is the formal term for MOU.
ဘာသာစကားတစ်ခုကို နားလည်ရုံနဲ့ မလုံလောက်ပါဘူး။
Just understanding a language is not enough.
'ရုံနဲ့' means 'just by' or 'merely'.
သူ့ရဲ့ လုပ်ရပ်ကို ဘယ်သူမှ နားမလည်နိုင်ကြဘူး။
No one can understand his actions.
'ဘယ်သူမှ...မ...ဘူး' means 'no one'.
ဒီသီအိုရီကို နားလည်ဖို့ အချိန်အများကြီး ပေးရတယ်။
It takes a lot of time to understand this theory.
'ပေးရတယ်' here means 'to have to give/spend'.
နားလည်မှု လွဲမှားခြင်းဟာ ပြဿနာရဲ့ အစပဲ။
Misunderstanding is the beginning of the problem.
'ခြင်း' is another way to form a noun from a verb.
သင်ခန်းစာကို ပြန်လည် နားလည်အောင် ကြိုးစားပါ။
Try to re-understand the lesson.
'ပြန်လည်' means 'again' or 'anew' in formal contexts.
ယဉ်ကျေးမှု ကွဲပြားခြင်းကို နားလည်ခြင်းက ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးအတွက် အရေးပါသည်။
Understanding cultural differences is important for peace.
Formal sentence structure using 'ခြင်း' and 'အရေးပါ' (be important).
ဤစာတမ်း၏ ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ကို အကျယ်တဝင့် နားလည်သဘောပေါက်ရန် လိုအပ်ပါသည်။
It is necessary to extensively comprehend the purpose of this paper.
High formal register using 'အကျယ်တဝင့်' (extensively).
လူသားတို့၏ စိတ်နေစိတ်ထားကို နားလည်ရန်မှာ ခက်ခဲနက်နဲလှပေသည်။
Understanding the human psyche is difficult and profound.
Literary ending 'လှပေသည်' for emphasis.
သမိုင်းကြောင်းကို နားလည်မှသာ ပစ္စုပ္ပန်ကို သုံးသပ်နိုင်မည်ဖြစ်သည်။
Only by understanding history can one analyze the present.
'မှသာ' means 'only if/only when'.
နားလည်မှု လွဲချော်ခြင်းများကြောင့် ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာသော ပဋိပက္ခများကို ဖြေရှင်းရမည်။
Conflicts arising from misunderstandings must be resolved.
Using 'လွဲချော်' as a more formal version of 'လွဲ' (to miss/err).
သိပ္ပံပညာရှင်များသည် စကြဝဠာ၏ နိယာမများကို နားလည်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းနေကြသည်။
Scientists are striving to understand the laws of the universe.
Use of 'နိယာမ' (law/principle).
စကားလုံးများ၏ နောက်ကွယ်မှ ဆိုလိုရင်းကို နားလည်ရန် အရေးကြီးသည်။
It is important to understand the meaning behind the words.
'နောက်ကွယ်မှ' means 'from behind'.
အပြန်အလှန် နားလည်မှုကို အခြေခံ၍ ဆက်ဆံရေးကို တည်ဆောက်သင့်သည်။
Relationships should be built based on mutual understanding.
'အခြေခံ၍' means 'based on'.
ဤဥပဒေသည် ပြည်သူများ နားလည်ရလွယ်ကူစေရန် ရေးသားထားခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။
This law is written so that it is easy for the public to understand.
'စေရန်' means 'in order to cause/make'.
သဘာဝတရား၏ အနန္တတန်ခိုးကို လူသားတို့အနေဖြင့် အပြည့်အဝ နားလည်နိုင်စွမ်း မရှိသေးပေ။
Humans do not yet have the capacity to fully understand the infinite power of nature.
Use of 'နိုင်စွမ်း' (capacity/power to do).
ဗုဒ္ဓ၏ တရားတော်များကို နက်နက်ရှိုင်းရှိုင်း နားလည်ခြင်းသည် နိဗ္ဗာန်သို့ ရောက်ကြောင်းဖြစ်သည်။
Deeply understanding the Buddha's teachings is the path to Nirvana.
Highly formal/religious context.
ခေတ်သစ် ကမ္ဘာ့အခြေအနေကို နားလည်ရန်မှာ ပထဝီနိုင်ငံရေး ဗဟုသုတ ကြွယ်ဝရန် လိုအပ်သည်။
To understand the modern world situation, one needs rich geopolitical knowledge.
'ကြွယ်ဝ' means to be rich/abundant.
သူ၏ ကဗျာများသည် ဖတ်ရှုသူ၏ နှလုံးသားကို နားလည်စေနိုင်သော စွမ်းအားရှိသည်။
His poems have the power to make the reader's heart understand.
Metaphorical use of understanding.
အနုပညာ၏ အနှစ်သာရကို နားလည်ခံစားတတ်ခြင်းသည် လူမှုဘဝကို မြှင့်တင်ပေးသည်။
Being able to understand and feel the essence of art elevates social life.
Compound verb 'နားလည်ခံစား' (understand and feel).
နားလည်မှု လွဲမှားခြင်း၏ အကျိုးဆက်များကို ကြိုတင် ဟန့်တားနိုင်ရမည်။
The consequences of misunderstanding must be prevented in advance.
'ဟန့်တား' means to prevent/hinder.
ဤဒဿနသည် လူသားတို့၏ ဖြစ်တည်မှုကို နားလည်ရန် အသစ်သော ရှုထောင့်ကို ပေးစွမ်းသည်။
This philosophy provides a new perspective for understanding human existence.
'ပေးစွမ်း' is a formal word for 'provide/bestow'.
အမှန်တရားကို နားလည်ခြင်းသည် လွတ်မြောက်ခြင်း၏ ပထမခြေလှမ်း ဖြစ်သည်။
Understanding the truth is the first step of liberation.
Philosophical statement structure.
자주 쓰는 조합
자주 쓰는 구문
နားလည်ပါပြီ
နားလည်ပေးပါ
နားလည်မှုယူ
နားလည်မှုစာချွန်လွှာ
နားမလည်လို့ပါ
နားလည်လွယ်အောင်
နားလည်လက်ခံ
နားလည်တတ်သူ
နားလည်နိုင်စွမ်း
နားလည်မှု လွဲတာ
관용어 및 표현
"နားရည်ဝ"
To be used to hearing something so much that you understand it perfectly or are bored of it.
ဒီစကားတွေကတော့ နားရည်ဝနေပါပြီ။
Informal"နားစွင့်"
To listen attentively (the 'ear' is alert), a precursor to understanding.
သတင်းကို နားစွင့်နေတယ်။
Neutral"နားဝင်ချို"
To be pleasant to the ear (easy to understand and agree with).
သူ့စကားက နားဝင်ချိုတယ်။
Neutral"နားပူနားဆာလုပ်"
To pester someone (making their 'ears hot'), making it hard for them to 'understand' peacefully.
ကလေးက နားပူနားဆာ လုပ်နေတယ်။
Informal"နားအေးပါးအေး"
Peace and quiet (ears are cool), allowing for clear understanding.
နားအေးပါးအေး နေချင်တယ်။
Idiomatic"နားမဝင်"
Refusing to listen or understand; stubborn.
ဘယ်လိုပြောပြော နားမဝင်ဘူး။
Informal"နားစွင့်ထား"
Keep your ears open (be ready to understand/hear news).
သတင်းကို နားစွင့်ထားပါ။
Neutral"နားမျက်စိဖွင့်"
To open one's ears and eyes (to become enlightened/informed).
ဗဟုသုတရှာပြီး နားမျက်စိဖွင့်ပါ။
Literary"နားယောင်"
To be easily swayed by what one hears (misunderstanding the truth).
သူ့စကားကို နားမယောင်နဲ့။
Informal"နားထောင်ကောင်း"
Good to listen to (logical and understandable).
သူ့ဟောပြောချက်က နားထောင်ကောင်းတယ်။
Neutral어휘 가족
명사
동사
형용사
관련
암기하기
기억법
Think of your 'Ear' (Na:) 'Turning' (Lany) like a satellite dish to catch the signal of meaning.
시각적 연상
Visualize a small gear inside an ear turning as someone speaks to you.
Word Web
챌린지
Try to use 'နားလည်ပါတယ်' three times today whenever someone explains something to you, even in English thoughts.
어원
Burmese is a Tibeto-Burman language. The word is a compound of two native roots.
원래 의미: နား (Ear) + လည် (To turn/revolve).
Sino-Tibetan > Tibeto-Burman > Lolo-Burmese > Burmish > Burmese.Summary
The word 'နားလည်' is essential for any Burmese learner to communicate comprehension. It literally translates to 'the ear turns/circulates,' suggesting the processing of sound into meaning. Example: ကျွန်တော် နားလည်ပါတယ် (I understand).
- နားလည် (na: lany) is the primary Burmese verb for 'to understand'.
- It is a compound word made of 'ear' (နား) and 'to turn/circulate' (လည်).
- It is used for both intellectual comprehension and emotional empathy.
- The negative form is 'နားမလည်ဘူး' and the polite form is 'နားလည်ပါတယ်'.