Nominalized Relative Clauses (လုပ်တာ)
Grammar Rule in 30 Seconds
Add 'ta' (တာ) to any verb to turn the entire action into a noun, like adding '-ing' in English.
- Add တာ to a verb to make it a noun: စား (eat) → စားတာ (eating/the act of eating).
- Use it to describe 'the thing that...': ကျွန်တော်ဝယ်တာ (The thing I bought).
- Negate by placing မ before the verb: မစားတာ (Not eating/The act of not eating).
Nominalization with 'Ta' (တာ)
| Type | Burmese Structure | English Equivalent | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Affirmative
|
Verb + တာ
|
Doing / The thing that...
|
သွားတာ (Going)
|
|
Negative
|
မ + Verb + တာ
|
Not doing / The fact of not...
|
မသွားတာ (Not going)
|
|
Continuous
|
Verb + နေ + တာ
|
The act of currently doing
|
စားနေတာ (Eating right now)
|
|
Completed
|
Verb + ထား + တာ
|
The thing that has been done
|
ရေးထားတာ (What has been written)
|
|
Polite (Rare)
|
Verb + တာ + ပါ
|
Polite nominalization
|
လုပ်တာပါ (It is what I did)
|
Colloquial Contractions
| Full Form | Contracted Form | Usage Context |
|---|---|---|
|
တာကို (ta-ko)
|
တာ့ (ta')
|
Fast speech object marker
|
|
တာက (ta-ka)
|
တာ့ (ta')
|
Fast speech subject marker
|
|
တာလဲ (ta-le)
|
တာ (ta)
|
Informal questions (intonation shift)
|
Meanings
The particle 'ta' (တာ) is a nominalizer. It takes a verb or a whole clause and turns it into a noun phrase, allowing it to function as the subject, object, or topic of a sentence.
The Act of Doing
Equivalent to the English gerund (-ing). Describes the general activity.
“မုန့်စားတာ ဝါသနာပါတယ်။ (I'm fond of eating snacks.)”
“စာဖတ်တာ ဗဟုသုတရစေတယ်။ (Reading gives knowledge.)”
The Thing That...
Refers to the object of an action without naming the object explicitly.
“မနေ့ကဝယ်တာ ပျောက်သွားပြီ။ (The thing I bought yesterday is gone.)”
“သူပေးတာ အရမ်းလှတယ်။ (The thing he gave is very beautiful.)”
The Manner/Way
Describes how an action is performed.
“သူစကားပြောတာ အရမ်းမြန်တယ်။ (The way he speaks is very fast.)”
“ဟင်းချက်တာ အရသာရှိတယ်။ (The way [you] cooked is delicious.)”
The Fact That...
Nominalizes a whole event to comment on it.
“မင်းလာတာ ငါသိတယ်။ (I know [the fact] that you came.)”
“သူနေမကောင်းတာ စိတ်မကောင်းစရာပဲ။ (The fact that he is unwell is sad.)”
Reference Table
| Form | Structure | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Subject
|
Clause + တာ + က
|
သူလာတာက ထူးဆန်းတယ်။
|
The fact he came is strange.
|
|
Object
|
Clause + တာ + ကို
|
သူပြောတာကို နားထောင်ပါ။
|
Listen to what he says.
|
|
Negative
|
မ + Verb + တာ
|
မသိတာ မဆန်းပါဘူး။
|
Not knowing isn't strange.
|
|
Manner
|
Verb + တာ
|
သူကတာ လှတယ်။
|
The way she dances is beautiful.
|
|
Question
|
Verb + တာ + လဲ
|
ဘာဝယ်တာလဲ။
|
What did you buy?
|
|
Reason
|
Verb + တာ + ကြောင့်
|
မိုးရွာတာကြောင့် နောက်ကျတယ်။
|
Because of the rain, I'm late.
|
|
Time
|
Verb + တာ + ကြာပြီ
|
နေတာ ကြာပြီ။
|
It's been a long time living [here].
|
Espectro de formalidade
ခရီးသွားခြင်းကို နှစ်သက်ပါသည်။ (Expressing a preference)
ခရီးသွားတာ ကြိုက်တယ်။ (Expressing a preference)
ခရီးသွားရတာ ဝါသနာပါတယ်။ (Expressing a preference)
ခရီးထွက်တာ ရှယ်ပဲ။ (Expressing a preference)
The Functions of 'Ta'
Action
- စားတာ Eating
Object
- ဝယ်တာ The thing bought
Manner
- ပြောတာ The way of speaking
Fact
- လာတာ The fact that [he] came
Ta (တာ) vs Te (တဲ့)
Should I use 'Ta'?
Is there a noun after the verb?
Is the verb the subject or object?
Exemplos por nível
ထမင်းစားတာ ကြိုက်တယ်။
I like eating rice.
ရေကူးတာ ဝါသနာပါတယ်။
Swimming is my hobby.
အိပ်တာ ဝါသနာမပါဘူး။
I'm not fond of sleeping.
စာဖတ်တာ ကောင်းတယ်။
Reading is good.
မနေ့ကဝယ်တာ ဘယ်မှာလဲ။
Where is the thing [I] bought yesterday?
သူပေးတာ အရမ်းလှတယ်။
The thing he gave is very beautiful.
မလာတာ ကြာပြီ။
It's been a long time since [I] didn't come.
ဒါ ကျွန်တော်လုပ်တာ မဟုတ်ဘူး။
This isn't something I did.
သူစကားပြောတာ အရမ်းမြန်တယ်။
The way he speaks is very fast.
ဟင်းချက်တာ အရသာရှိလိုက်တာ။
The way [you] cooked is so delicious!
မင်းရောက်နေတာ ငါမသိဘူး။
I didn't know that you were here.
အလုပ်လုပ်တာ ပင်ပန်းလို့ နားချင်တယ်။
Because working is tiring, I want to rest.
သူပြောတာကို ကျွန်တော် သဘောမတူဘူး။
I don't agree with what he said.
ဒီလိုလုပ်တာက ပိုပြီးမြန်ဆန်စေတယ်။
Doing it this way makes it faster.
မိုးရွာနေတာတောင် သူအပြင်သွားတယ်။
Even though it was raining, he went out.
သူ့ကိုတွေ့တာ တစ်ခါပဲရှိသေးတယ်။
I have only met him once (The meeting him is only once).
နိုင်ငံရေးအကြောင်း ဆွေးနွေးတာဟာ အမြဲတမ်း အကဲဆတ်ပါတယ်။
Discussing politics is always sensitive.
လူငယ်တွေ စာမဖတ်တာဟာ စိုးရိမ်စရာ ဖြစ်လာတယ်။
The fact that young people don't read has become a concern.
သူ့ရဲ့ ပြုမူပြောဆိုတာတွေက ယဉ်ကျေးမှုမရှိဘူး။
His ways of behaving and speaking are unrefined.
အမှန်တရားကို ဖုံးကွယ်ထားတာဟာ ရေရှည်မှာ မကောင်းဘူး။
Hiding the truth is not good in the long run.
ခေတ်စနစ်တွေ ပြောင်းလဲသွားတာနဲ့အမျှ လူတွေရဲ့ စိတ်နေစိတ်ထားတွေလည်း လိုက်ပါပြောင်းလဲလာကြတယ်။
As the eras change, people's mindsets also change accordingly.
ဘာသာစကားတစ်ခုကို ကျွမ်းကျင်စွာ တတ်မြောက်တာဟာ နှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ အချိန်ပေးရတဲ့ အလုပ်မျိုးပါ။
Mastering a language proficiently is the kind of task that requires years of time.
သူ့ရဲ့ ရေးသားသီကုံးတာတွေဟာ ရှေးဆန်ပေမယ့် အနှစ်သာရရှိလှပါတယ်။
His compositions/writings are archaic but very meaningful.
တရားမျှတမှု မရှိတာကို လက်ပိုက်ကြည့်နေတာဟာ အပြစ်တစ်ခုပဲ။
Standing by and watching injustice is itself a sin.
Fácil de confundir
Both involve verbs and look similar. Learners often use 'Ta' when they should be modifying a noun.
Both are nominalizers. Learners don't know which register to use.
Erros comuns
ကျွန်တော် စား ကြိုက်တယ်။
ကျွန်တော် စားတာ ကြိုက်တယ်။
သွားတာပါဘူး။
မသွားတာပါ။
ဝယ်တာ စာအုပ် ကောင်းတယ်။
ဝယ်တဲ့ စာအုပ် ကောင်းတယ်။
သူပြောတာကို နားမလည်ဘူး။ (intended: I don't understand the way he speaks)
သူပြောပုံကို နားမလည်ဘူး။
စာဖတ်တာသည် အကျိုးရှိ၏။ (in a formal essay)
စာဖတ်ခြင်းသည် အကျိုးရှိ၏။
Padrões de frases
___ တာ ဝါသနာပါတယ်။
သူ ___ တာ အရမ်း ___ တယ်။
___ တာကို ကျွန်တော် သဘောမကျဘူး။
Real World Usage
အရင်တစ်ခေါက်မှာတာပဲ ပေးပါ။ (Give me the same thing I ordered last time.)
ဒီကုမ္ပဏီမှာ အလုပ်လုပ်တာ စိန်ခေါ်မှုရှိပါတယ်။ (Working at this company is challenging.)
အခုဘာလုပ်နေတာလဲ။ (What are you doing right now?)
ခေါင်းကိုက်တာ နှစ်ရက်ရှိပြီ။ (The headache has been for two days.)
ဒီနေ့ လျှောက်လည်တာ ပျော်စရာကြီး။ (Wandering around today was so fun!)
ညာဘက်ကွေ့တာ ပိုနီးတယ်။ (Turning right is closer.)
The 'What' Test
No 'Bu' in the Middle
Politeness through Nominalization
Manner vs. Object
Smart Tips
Always add 'ta' to the action. Never say 'I like go', say 'I like going'.
Use 'ta' as the subject and follow it with an adjective.
Treat the whole preceding clause as a single noun block.
Swap 'ta' for 'chin' in your writing.
Pronúncia
The 'Ta' Tone
The particle 'ta' is usually pronounced with a low, heavy tone, but in fast speech, it can become shorter and neutral.
Glottal Stop in Negatives
When using 'Ma-' + Verb + 'Ta', the 'Ma' is a short, weak syllable.
Question Intonation
ဘာလုပ်တာလဲ? (Rising at the end)
Asking for information about an action.
Memorize
Mnemônico
Think of 'Ta' as the 'Tag' you put on a verb to turn it into a 'Thing'.
Associação visual
Imagine a verb (like a running man) being placed inside a cardboard box labeled 'TA'. Now the running man is a package you can carry around (a noun).
Rhyme
When a verb needs to be a noun, put a 'Ta' and settle down!
Story
A chef is cooking (verb). He puts his 'cooking' into a bowl (the particle 'Ta'). Now he can hand the 'cooking' (the noun) to a customer. Without the bowl, the cooking just splashes everywhere!
Word Web
Desafio
Look around your room. Pick 3 actions you did today and turn them into 'Ta' phrases (e.g., 'Cleaning the room', 'Drinking coffee').
Notas culturais
Using 'Ta' to describe someone's actions can be a polite way to give feedback without being too direct. For example, 'Speaking like this is a bit...' is softer than 'You speak badly.'
On Facebook, Burmese users often use 'Ta' phrases as status updates to describe their current state or feelings about an event.
Derived from the realis sentence marker 'te' (တယ်) combined with a historical nominalizing suffix.
Iniciadores de conversa
အားလပ်ချိန်မှာ ဘာလုပ်တာ ကြိုက်လဲ။
မြန်မာစာသင်ရတာ ဘယ်လိုနေလဲ။
မနေ့က သတင်းထဲမှာ ပြောတာကို ကြားလိုက်လား။
Temas para diário
Erros comuns
Test Yourself
ကျွန်တော် စာဖတ်___ ကြိုက်တယ်။
Which one means 'The thing he said is true'?
Find and fix the mistake:
မလာဘူးတာ မကောင်းဘူး။
လှတယ် / သူ / တာ / က
I don't like his driving.
Answer starts with: သူက...
Identify the 'Object' sense of 'Ta'.
A: ဟင်းက ဘယ်လိုလဲ။ B: ချက်___ အရမ်းကောင်းတယ်။
Match each item on the left with its pair on the right:
Score: /8
Exercicios praticos
8 exercisesကျွန်တော် စာဖတ်___ ကြိုက်တယ်။
Which one means 'The thing he said is true'?
Find and fix the mistake:
မလာဘူးတာ မကောင်းဘူး။
လှတယ် / သူ / တာ / က
I don't like his driving.
Identify the 'Object' sense of 'Ta'.
A: ဟင်းက ဘယ်လိုလဲ။ B: ချက်___ အရမ်းကောင်းတယ်။
Match: 1. စားတာ 2. စားတဲ့ထမင်း 3. စားတယ်
Score: /8
Perguntas frequentes (8)
Yes! `ကောင်းတာ` (being good) or `လှတာ` (being beautiful) are common. It turns the quality into a noun phrase.
`တဲ့ဟာ` (te-ha) literally means 'the thing that'. `တာ` (ta) is more versatile and can also mean 'the way' or 'the fact'. In casual speech, `တာ` is used more often.
Rarely. In formal writing, you should use `ခြင်း` (chin) or `ချက်` (chet) depending on the context.
Burmese doesn't use 'that'. You nominalize the thought with `တာ` and add `လို့ထင်တယ်` (lo-thin-te).
Yes, by adding `တွေ` (tway). For example, `သူလုပ်တာတွေ` means 'the things that he did'.
In informal speech, `တာလဲ` (ta-le) is the standard way to ask 'what/why/how' questions about an action.
Usually no. `တာ` is used for present and past. For future, `မှာ` (hma) is sometimes used before `တာ` in specific patterns, but it's less common.
No, they are homonyms in some transcriptions but have different origins and tones in Burmese script.
Scaffolded Practice
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Mastery Progress
Needs Practice
Improving
Strong
Mastered
In Other Languages
-ing / that-clause
Burmese 'ta' is a suffix, while English uses prefixes like 'that' or suffixes like '-ing'.
koto (こと) / no (の)
Japanese distinguishes between 'koto' and 'no' based on the following verb; Burmese mostly uses 'ta' for everything in speech.
de (的)
Chinese 'de' is also used for adjectives and possession, whereas Burmese 'ta' is strictly for nominalizing verbs.
el + infinitive / lo que
Burmese doesn't have an 'infinitive' form; it nominalizes the verb root directly.
Substantiviertes Verb / das, was
German grammar relies on case and gender for the nominalized noun, which Burmese lacks.
Masdar (مصدر)
Arabic Masdars are distinct words; Burmese 'ta' is a grammatical attachment.
