A0 · Zero Point Chapter 4

Asking Basic Questions: 'What?' and 'Who?'

6 Total Rules
1 min
Rules in This Chapter Quick Practice

Chapter in 30 Seconds

Unlock meaningful conversations by mastering the art of asking questions in Burmese.

  • Construct basic interrogative sentences
  • Identify essential question markers
  • Formulate simple responses to inquiries
Ask, discover, and connect with the world in Burmese.

What You'll Learn

Learn to ask fundamental questions like 'What is this?' and 'Who is that?' using Burmese question words and particles. This opens up your ability to inquire about your surroundings.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

  1. 1
    By the end you will be able to: Formulate basic 'What' and 'Who' questions confidently.

Tips & Tricks (4)

💡

Listen for the tone

Native speakers often raise their pitch at the end of a 'လား' question.
frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: The Question Particle (လား)
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Keep it simple

Don't overthink the grammar. Just place 'ဘာ' where the answer would be.
frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Asking 'What?' (ဘာ)
💡

In-situ placement

Don't move 'ဘယ်သူ' to the front. Keep it where the person's name would be.
frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Asking 'Who?' (ဘယ်သူ)
💡

Rising Pitch

Always raise your pitch slightly at the end to sound natural.
frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Yes/No Questions (ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး)

Key Vocabulary (6)

ဘာ What ဘယ်သူ Who လား Question marker ဟုတ်တယ် Yes/It is မဟုတ်ဘူး No/It is not တော့ Topic marker

Real-World Preview

shopping-cart

At the Market

Review Summary

  • Statement + လား
  • ဘာ + လဲ
  • ဘယ်သူ + လဲ
  • ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး
  • Noun + တော့

Common Mistakes

Do not double-question. 'ဘာ' already implies a question, so you don't need 'လား' at the end.

Wrong: ဒါ ဘာလဲ လား
Correct: ဒါ ဘာလဲ

Use 'ဘယ်သူ' (who) for people and 'ဘာ' (what) for objects.

Wrong: သူက ဘာလဲ
Correct: သူက ဘယ်သူလဲ

The question particle always comes at the end, not the beginning.

Wrong: လား ဒါ စာအုပ်
Correct: ဒါ စာအုပ်လား

Next Steps

You have done an amazing job today! Keep questioning and keep learning.

Practice asking 'What is this?' for 5 items in your room

Continue to: Everyday Survival: Essential Phrases and Numbers

Quick Practice (10)

Correct the sentence.

Find and fix the mistake:

သွားဘူး။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: မသွားဘူး
Negative requires 'မ' and 'ဘူး'.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Responding to Questions (ဖြေဆိုနည်း)

Fix the sentence.

Find and fix the mistake:

ဘာ မင်း လုပ်လဲ

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: မင်း ဘာလုပ်လဲ
Subject first.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Asking 'What?' (ဘာ)

Fill in the blank.

မင်း စား___။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
The correct particle is 'လား'.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Yes/No Questions (ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး)

Fill in the blank.

မင်း ___ စားမလဲ။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: ဘာ
Use 'ဘာ' for objects.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Asking 'What?' (ဘာ)

Choose the correct answer.

စားမှာလား။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: စားမယ်
Affirmative future.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Responding to Questions (ဖြေဆိုနည်း)

Fix the sentence.

Find and fix the mistake:

မင်း ဘာစားသလား။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: မင်း ဘာစားသလဲ
Open-ended questions use 'လဲ'.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: The Question Particle (လား)

Fill in the blank with 'တော့'.

ကျွန်တော်___ စားမယ်။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: တော့
It marks the topic.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: The Topic Marker (တော့)

Choose the formal answer.

သဘောတူသလား။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: သဘောတူပါတယ်
Formal affirmative.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Responding to Questions (ဖြေဆိုနည်း)

Correct the sentence.

Find and fix the mistake:

တော့ သူ စားတယ်။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: သူတော့ စားတယ်။
Topic comes first.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: The Topic Marker (တော့)

Correct the sentence.

Find and fix the mistake:

Do မင်း သွားလား

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
Remove 'Do'.

frontend.learn_grammar.from_rule: Yes/No Questions (ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး)

Score: /10

Common Questions (6)

No, only for yes/no questions.
At the very end of the sentence.
No, use 'ဘယ်သူ' for people.
No, it is gender-neutral.
Yes, just add 'တွေ' to get 'ဘယ်သူတွေ'.
It marks the sentence as a question.
Previous Chapter
Building Simple Sentences: Nouns and the 'Is/Are' Particle
Next Chapter
Everyday Survival: Essential Phrases and Numbers
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