Aspectual Compound Verbs (လုပ်ပြီးသွားသည်)
Grammar Rule in 30 Seconds
Use 'Verb + ပြီး + သွား' to show an action is 100% finished and the moment has passed.
- Combine the main verb with ပြီး (finish) and သွား (go) for total completion.
- Example: စားပြီးသွားပြီ (sa-pyi-thwa-pyi) means 'I have already finished eating.'
- The final particle ပြီ (pyi) is usually added to signal a change in state.
Aspectual Chain Construction
| Verb Root | Completion (Pyi) | Directional (Thwa) | Final Particle | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
စား (Eat)
|
ပြီး
|
သွား
|
ပြီ
|
Finished eating
|
|
လုပ် (Do)
|
ပြီး
|
သွား
|
ပြီ
|
Finished doing
|
|
သောက် (Drink)
|
ပြီး
|
သွား
|
ပြီ
|
Finished drinking
|
|
ရေး (Write)
|
ပြီး
|
သွား
|
ပြီ
|
Finished writing
|
|
ကြည့် (Watch)
|
ပြီး
|
သွား
|
ပြီ
|
Finished watching
|
Colloquial Contractions
| Full Form | Spoken Short Form | Usage |
|---|---|---|
|
ပြီးသွားပြီ
|
ပြီးပြီ (Pyi-pyi)
|
Very common in fast speech
|
|
ပြီးသွားပြီလား
|
ပြီးပြီလား (Pyi-pyi-lar)
|
Standard question form
|
Meanings
A compound verb structure used to emphasize the absolute completion of an action, often implying that the state has changed or the opportunity to act has passed.
Total Completion
Indicates that a task is fully concluded and no longer in progress.
“သူ ထမင်းစားပြီးသွားပြီ။ (He has finished eating.)”
“စာမေးပွဲ ပြီးသွားပြီ။ (The exam is over.)”
Irreversible Change
Used when an action results in a state that cannot be easily undone.
“မှန် ကွဲသွားပြီ။ (The glass has broken.)”
“ပန်းသီး ပုပ်သွားပြီ။ (The apple has gone rotten.)”
Reference Table
| Form | Structure | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
Affirmative
|
Verb + ပြီးသွားပြီ
|
ဝယ်ပြီးသွားပြီ (Already bought)
|
|
Question
|
Verb + ပြီးသွားပြီလား
|
ဝယ်ပြီးသွားပြီလား (Bought it yet?)
|
|
Negative (Result)
|
မ + Verb + သေးဘူး
|
မဝယ်သေးဘူး (Haven't bought yet)
|
|
Polite Affirmative
|
Verb + ပြီးသွားပါပြီ
|
စားပြီးသွားပါပြီ (Finished eating [polite])
|
|
Past Emphasis
|
Verb + ပြီးသွားခဲ့ပြီ
|
သေဆုံးပြီးသွားခဲ့ပြီ (Had already passed away)
|
Espectro de formalidad
အစီရင်ခံစာ ရေးသားပြီးစီးသွားပါပြီ။ (Work environment)
Report ရေးပြီးသွားပြီ။ (Work environment)
Report ပြီးသွားပြီ။ (Work environment)
ပြီးပြီဟေ့။ (Work environment)
The Completion Chain
Action
- လုပ် Do
Finish
- ပြီး End
Away
- သွား Go
Simple vs. Aspectual Completion
Is the action finished?
Is the action 100% done?
Common Verbs with this Rule
Daily Tasks
- • လျှော် (Wash)
- • ချက် (Cook)
- • ရှင်း (Clean)
Ejemplos por nivel
စားပြီးပြီ။
Finished eating.
သွားပြီ။
Gone.
အလုပ် ပြီးသွားပြီ။
The work is finished already.
သူ ပြန်သွားပြီ။
He has already gone back.
မိုး ရွာပြီးသွားပြီ။
The rain has already finished falling.
စာအုပ် ဖတ်ပြီးသွားပြီလား။
Have you finished reading the book?
စီမံကိန်းကတော့ လုံးဝ ပြီးသွားပါပြီ။
As for the project, it has been completely finished.
အခွင့်အရေး ဆုံးရှုံးသွားပြီ။
The opportunity has been lost.
ထိုကိစ္စမှာ အပြီးသတ် ဆုံးဖြတ်ပြီးသွားပြီ ဖြစ်သည်။
Regarding that matter, a final decision has already been made.
ခေတ်ဟောင်း စနစ်များ ပျက်သုဉ်းသွားပြီ။
The systems of the old era have completely perished.
အတိတ်က အရိပ်အယောင်များမှာ ဝေဝါးပြီး ပျောက်ကွယ်သွားချေပြီ။
The shadows of the past have blurred and vanished entirely.
လူမှုအသိုင်းအဝိုင်း၏ စံနှုန်းများမှာ တစ်စတစ်စ ပြောင်းလဲပြီးသွားခဲ့ပြီ။
The standards of society have gradually and completely undergone a transformation.
Fácil de confundir
Learners mix up 'currently doing' with 'already done'.
Both refer to the past.
Errores comunes
စားပြီသွား
စားပြီးသွားပြီ
မပြီးသွားဘူး
မပြီးသေးဘူး
သိပြီးသွားပြီ
သိပြီ
ပြီးသွားခဲ့ပြီလား
ပြီးသွားပြီလား
Patrones de oraciones
ကျွန်တော်/ကျွန်မ ___ ပြီးသွားပြီ။
Real World Usage
ငါ ရောက်ပြီးသွားပြီ။ (I've already arrived.)
ကျွန်တော် အရင်က ဒီလိုမျိုး အလုပ်တွေ လုပ်ပြီးသွားပါပြီ။ (I have done this kind of work before.)
မှာပြီးသွားပြီလား။ (Have you already ordered?)
The 'Gone' Logic
Don't over-use 'Khè'
Politeness
Smart Tips
Add 'thwa' to your 'pyi' to show you are totally done.
Use the question form 'pyi-thwa-pyi-lar' for a polite check.
Always use 'thwa' to show the change is complete.
Pronunciación
The 'Pyi' reduction
In fast speech, 'pyi' (ပြီး) is often shortened and almost blends into 'thwa'.
Falling-Rising
ပြီးသွားပြီလား ⤴️
Standard question intonation.
Memorízalo
Mnemotecnia
Think of 'Pyi' as the 'Period' at the end of a sentence and 'Thwa' as the action 'Walking away' from you.
Asociación visual
Imagine a runner crossing a finish line (Pyi) and then continuing to walk into the locker room (Thwa). The race is not just over; the runner is gone.
Rhyme
When the work is through, add Pyi and Thwa too!
Story
A chef finishes cooking a meal (Pyi). He then hands it to a waiter who carries it away (Thwa). The chef says 'Chat-pyi-thwa-pyi' (Finished cooking and it's gone).
Word Web
Desafío
Look around your room. Identify three things you have already done today and say them out loud using the [Verb] + ပြီးသွားပြီ structure.
Notas culturales
Confirming completion is a sign of reliability. Using 'pyi-thwa-pyi' shows you are attentive to your duties.
Burmese is a verb-final language that uses serial verb constructions to express aspect.
Inicios de conversación
ဒီနေ့ အလုပ်တွေ ပြီးသွားပြီလား။
မြန်မာစာ သင်ခန်းစာ ပြီးသွားပြီလား။
ရုပ်ရှင် ကြည့်ပြီးသွားပြီလား။
Temas para diario
Errores comunes
Test Yourself
ကျွန်တော် စာ ___။
ကား ထွက်___သွားပြီ။
Find and fix the mistake:
သူ စားသွားပြီးပြီ။
Have you finished the work?
Answer starts with: a...
Score: /4
Ejercicios de practica
4 exercisesကျွန်တော် စာ ___။
ကား ထွက်___သွားပြီ။
Find and fix the mistake:
သူ စားသွားပြီးပြီ။
Have you finished the work?
Score: /4
Preguntas frecuentes (6)
Yes, `ပြီးပြီ` is perfectly fine for simple completion. `ပြီးသွားပြီ` is just more emphatic and sounds more like a complete thought.
In many Asian languages, 'go' acts as an auxiliary to show that an action has moved away from the present and is now in the past.
You don't use this rule for negatives. Say `မပြီးသေးဘူး` (ma-pyi-thay-bu).
Yes, but in very formal writing, `ပြီးသွားပြီ` might be replaced by `ပြီးစီးခဲ့ပြီ`.
No, when it follows another verb and 'pyi', it almost always functions as an aspect marker, not a verb of motion.
No, stative verbs like 'love' or 'know' don't usually use 'thwa' because they don't have a discrete end point.
Scaffolded Practice
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4
Mastery Progress
Needs Practice
Improving
Strong
Mastered
In Other Languages
Pretérito Perfecto (He comido)
Burmese uses 'go' (thwa) as the auxiliary, whereas Spanish uses 'have'.
Passé Composé
French is a tense; Burmese is an aspect.
Perfekt
Burmese applies 'thwa' to almost all completed actions, not just motion.
~てしまった (~te shimatta)
Japanese 'shimatta' often implies regret; Burmese 'pyi-thwa' is usually neutral.
قد + Past Verb (Qad)
Arabic uses a particle before the verb; Burmese uses verbs after the main verb.
