Meaning
Consuming medication for health.
Cultural Background
Health is often discussed openly. Asking if someone has 'drunk their medicine' is a sign of intimacy and care, not an intrusion of privacy. Many still prefer traditional herbal medicine, which is often bitter and liquid, reinforcing the use of the verb 'thauk'. During Buddhist sabbath days, some people avoid taking certain medicines if they believe it might interfere with their fasting, though most accept 'say' as an exception. The youngest in the family is usually tasked with bringing water to the elders when it is time for them to 'say thauk'.
The Water Rule
If you need water to swallow it, use 'thauk'. This covers 99% of oral medicines in Myanmar.
Avoid 'Sar'
Using 'sar' (eat) for medicine will make you sound like a non-native speaker or someone from a very specific remote region.
Meaning
Consuming medication for health.
The Water Rule
If you need water to swallow it, use 'thauk'. This covers 99% of oral medicines in Myanmar.
Avoid 'Sar'
Using 'sar' (eat) for medicine will make you sound like a non-native speaker or someone from a very specific remote region.
Politeness Matters
When telling an elder to take medicine, always add 'ပါဦး' (par oon) to make it sound like a gentle suggestion rather than a command.
Test Yourself
Choose the correct verb to complete the sentence: 'နေမကောင်းရင် ဆေး____ပါ။'
နေမကောင်းရင် ဆေး____ပါ။
In Burmese, the standard verb for taking medicine is 'thauk' (to drink).
Fill in the blank with the correct particle for a polite request.
ဆေးသောက်____။
'ပါ' (par) makes the sentence a polite request or instruction.
Complete the dialogue between a doctor and a patient.
Doctor: ဒီဆေးကို တစ်နေ့ နှစ်ကြိမ် ____။ Patient: ဟုတ်ကဲ့ပါ ဆရာ။
The doctor is instructing the patient to take the medicine.
Match the phrase to the correct situation.
Which phrase would you use to remind your grandfather to take his pills?
'Say thauk par oon' is the polite way to remind someone to take oral medicine.
🎉 Score: /4
Visual Learning Aids
Practice Bank
4 exercisesနေမကောင်းရင် ဆေး____ပါ။
In Burmese, the standard verb for taking medicine is 'thauk' (to drink).
ဆေးသောက်____။
'ပါ' (par) makes the sentence a polite request or instruction.
Doctor: ဒီဆေးကို တစ်နေ့ နှစ်ကြိမ် ____။ Patient: ဟုတ်ကဲ့ပါ ဆရာ။
The doctor is instructing the patient to take the medicine.
Which phrase would you use to remind your grandfather to take his pills?
'Say thauk par oon' is the polite way to remind someone to take oral medicine.
🎉 Score: /4
Frequently Asked Questions
5 questionsYes, vitamins are called 'ar say' (strength medicine) and you 'thauk' them just like any other pill.
Historically, Burmese medicine was liquid. The language hasn't changed even though the medicine now comes in pills.
It is neutral. For very formal writing, use 'say hmi we thi'.
It's still 'say thauk'. Since it's actually a liquid, the verb 'thauk' fits perfectly!
You say 'ဆေးသောက်ဖို့ မေ့သွားတယ်' (Say thauk pho may thwar tal).
Related Phrases
ဆေးထိုးတယ်
similarTo get an injection.
ဆေးလူးတယ်
similarTo apply ointment.
အားဆေး
specialized formVitamins or supplements.
ဆေးရုံ
builds onHospital.
ဆေးဆိုင်
builds onPharmacy.
