A2 Determiners 1 min read 简单

Demonstratives: 'This', 'That', 'These', 'Those' (ဒီ / ဟို / အဲဒီ)

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Grammar Rule in 30 Seconds

Use 'Di' for near, 'Ho' for far, and 'Ae-di' for things already mentioned or near the listener.

  • Use 'ဒီ' (di) for objects close to you: 'ဒီစာအုပ်' (this book).
  • Use 'ဟို' (ho) for objects far from both people: 'ဟိုအိမ်' (that house).
  • Use 'အဲဒီ' (ae-di) for things mentioned before or near the listener: 'အဲဒီခွေး' (that dog).
👉 [ဒီ/ဟို/အဲဒီ] + 📦 [Noun] + (🔢 Classifier)

Demonstrative Usage Table

Distance Burmese Pronunciation English Equivalent Usage
Near Speaker
ဒီ
di
This
Objects within reach
Near Listener
အဲဒီ
ae-di
That
Objects near the other person
Far from Both
ဟို
ho
That (over there)
Objects at a distance
Mentioned Before
အဲဒီ
ae-di
That (the one)
Abstract ideas/past topics
Plural Near
ဒီ...တွေ
di...tway
These
Multiple objects near speaker
Plural Far
ဟို...တွေ
ho...tway
Those
Multiple objects far away

Pronoun Forms (Adding 'Har')

Demonstrative Pronoun Form Meaning
ဒီ (di)
ဒီဟာ (di-har)
This thing / This one
ဟို (ho)
ဟိုဟာ (ho-har)
That thing / That one
အဲဒီ (ae-di)
အဲဒီဟာ (ae-di-har)
That thing (near you)

Meanings

Demonstratives in Burmese function as determiners that specify the physical or metaphorical distance of a noun relative to the speaker and listener.

1

Physical Proximity

Using 'di' for things within reach and 'ho' for things at a distance.

“ဒီခုံမှာ ထိုင်ပါ။ (Sit in this chair.)”

“ဟိုတောင်က မြင့်တယ်။ (That mountain is high.)”

2

Contextual/Discourse Reference

Using 'ae-di' to refer to something previously discussed in a conversation.

“အဲဒီလူကို သိလား။ (Do you know that person [we just talked about]?)”

“အဲဒီနေ့က မိုးရွာတယ်။ (It rained that day.)”

Reference Table

Reference table for Demonstratives: 'This', 'That', 'These', 'Those' (ဒီ / ဟို / အဲဒီ)
Form Structure Example
Affirmative
Dem + Noun
ဒီခွေး (This dog)
Negative (with verb)
Dem + Noun + Verb + ဘူး
ဒီခွေး မကိုက်ဘူး (This dog doesn't bite)
Question
Dem + Noun + လား
ဟိုအိမ်လား (Is it that house?)
Plural
Dem + Noun + တွေ
ဒီလူတွေ (These people)
Specific (Classifier)
Dem + Noun + Class. + Plural
ဒီစာအုပ် နှစ်အုပ် (These two books)
Directional
Dem + ဘက် (side)
ဟိုဘက် (That side/way)

正式程度

正式
ဤအရာကို ကျွန်ုပ် နှစ်သက်ပါသည်။

ဤအရာကို ကျွန်ုပ် နှစ်သက်ပါသည်။ (Shopping/Choosing)

中性
ဒီဟာကို ကျွန်တော် ကြိုက်တယ်။

ဒီဟာကို ကျွန်တော် ကြိုက်တယ်။ (Shopping/Choosing)

非正式
ဒီဟာ ကြိုက်တယ်ဗျာ။

ဒီဟာ ကြိုက်တယ်ဗျာ။ (Shopping/Choosing)

俚语
ဒီကောင် လန်းတယ်ဟ။ (This guy/thing is cool!)

ဒီကောင် လန်းတယ်ဟ။ (This guy/thing is cool!) (Shopping/Choosing)

The 3 Zones of Burmese Pointing

Speaker

Zone 1: Near Me

  • ဒီ (di) This

Zone 2: Near You

  • အဲဒီ (ae-di) That

Zone 3: Far Away

  • ဟို (ho) That over there

English vs Burmese Demonstratives

English
This Near
That Far
Burmese
Di Near Me
Ae-di Near You
Ho Far

Which Pointing Word to Use?

1

Can you touch it?

YES
Use 'Di'
NO
Next question...
2

Is it near the listener or just mentioned?

YES
Use 'Ae-di'
NO
Use 'Ho'

Common Demonstrative Phrases

⏰

Time

  • • ဒီနေ့ (Today)
  • • ဟိုတုန်းက (Back then)
  • • အဲဒီအချိန် (That time)
📍

Place

  • • ဒီမှာ (Here)
  • • ဟိုမှာ (There)
  • • အဲဒီမှာ (Right there)
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按水平分级的例句

1

ဒီရေက အေးတယ်။

This water is cold.

2

ဟိုပန်းသီး ပေးပါ။

Give (me) that apple.

1

အဲဒီအင်္ကျီက လှတယ်။

That shirt (you are wearing) is beautiful.

2

ဒီစာအုပ်တွေက ဘယ်သူ့ဟာလဲ။

Whose are these books?

1

အဲဒီကိစ္စကို ကျွန်တော် စဉ်းစားနေတယ်။

I am thinking about that matter (we discussed).

2

ဟိုဘက်လမ်းမှာ ဆိုင်အသစ်ရှိတယ်။

There is a new shop on that street over there.

1

အဲဒီလိုမျိုး လုပ်တာ မကောင်းဘူး။

Doing it that way is not good.

2

ဒီအချက်အလက်တွေက မှန်ကန်ပါတယ်။

These data points are correct.

1

ထိုစဉ်အခါက မြန်မာပြည်သည် အေးချမ်းခဲ့သည်။

At that time, Myanmar was peaceful.

2

ဤစာတမ်းသည် အရေးကြီးသော အချက်များကို ဖော်ပြထားသည်။

This document presents important points.

1

အဲဒီဖြစ်ရပ်အပေါ် အခြေခံ၍ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ ဆုံးဖြတ်ရမည်။

Based on that occurrence, we must decide.

2

ဟိုအဝေးဆီက လွင့်ပျံ့လာသော တေးသံသာ။

The sweet melody drifting from that far distance.

容易混淆

Demonstratives: 'This', 'That', 'These', 'Those' (ဒီ / ဟို / အဲဒီ) 对比 Ae-di vs Ho

Both can mean 'that'. Learners use 'Ho' for things the listener is holding.

Demonstratives: 'This', 'That', 'These', 'Those' (ဒီ / ဟို / အဲဒီ) 对比 Di vs Ee

Learners see 'Ee' (ဤ) in books and try to say it.

Demonstratives: 'This', 'That', 'These', 'Those' (ဒီ / ဟို / အဲဒီ) 对比 Demonstrative vs Pronoun

Using 'Di' alone as 'This is...'

常见错误

✗

စာအုပ် ဒီ (Sarpoke di)

✓

ဒီစာအုပ် (Di sarpoke)

Demonstratives must come BEFORE the noun.
✗

ဟိုအင်္ကျီ (pointing to a shirt the listener is wearing)

✓

အဲဒီအင်္ကျီ (Ae-di in-gyi)

Use 'Ae-di' for things near the listener, not 'Ho'.
✗

ဒီ (standing alone as a subject)

✓

ဒီဟာ (Di-har)

In spoken Burmese, 'Di' needs a noun or 'har' (thing) to function as a pronoun.
✗

Using 'Di' in a formal legal document.

✓

Using 'Ee' (ဤ)

Formal writing requires literary demonstratives.

句型

ဒီ ___ က ဘယ်လောက်လဲ။

ဟိုမှာရှိတဲ့ ___ ကို မြင်လား။

အဲဒီ ___ က ကျွန်တော့်ဟာ မဟုတ်ဘူး။

Real World Usage

Shopping at a market constant

ဒီဟာ ဘယ်လောက်လဲ။ (How much is this?)

Giving directions very common

ဟိုလမ်းဆုံမှာ ကွေ့ပါ။ (Turn at that intersection over there.)

Office meeting common

အဲဒီအချက်ကို ပြန်ကြည့်ရအောင်။ (Let's look at that point again.)

Texting friends constant

အဲဒီနေ့က ပျော်စရာကြီးနော်။ (That day was so fun, right?)

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🎯

The 'Ae-di' Shortcut

If you aren't sure if something is far enough for 'Ho', just use 'Ae-di'. It's the safest 'that' for conversation.
⚠️

Don't forget Classifiers

When saying 'this one' or 'that one', always use 'Di + Classifier' (e.g., Di-khu) for better sounding Burmese.
💬

Polite Pointing

Avoid pointing with your foot at objects (especially 'Ho' objects on the ground), as it is very disrespectful in Myanmar culture.

Smart Tips

Always use 'Ae-di'. Using 'Ho' makes it sound like the object is far away from both of you.

ဟိုဖုန်းက ဘာအမျိုးအစားလဲ။ → အဲဒီဖုန်းက ဘာအမျိုးအစားလဲ။

Don't just say 'Di'. Add 'har' to make it a subject.

ဒီ ကောင်းတယ်။ → ဒီဟာ ကောင်းတယ်။

Use 'Ae-di' to refer back to characters or places you've already introduced.

ဒီလူက... ဟိုလူက... → ဒီလူက... အဲဒီလူက...

发音

di (low/flat), ho (low/flat), ae-di (creaky-low)

Tonal clarity

Di (ဒီ) is flat and long. Ho (ဟို) is also flat. Ae-di (အဲဒီ) has a sharp start.

Emphasis

ဒီ... ဟာ (Deee... har)

Stretching 'Di' adds emphasis like 'THIS very one'.

记住它

记忆技巧

Di is by my knee, Ho is far to go, Ae-di is for you and me.

视觉联想

Imagine a circle around yourself labeled 'DI'. Imagine a circle around your friend labeled 'AE-DI'. Everything outside both circles is 'HO'.

Rhyme

Di is near, Ho is there, Ae-di is the one we share.

Story

A traveler holds a map (Di map). He points to a mountain on the horizon (Ho mountain). He asks the local about the village they just discussed (Ae-di village).

Word Web

ဒီ (di)ဟို (ho)အဲဒီ (ae-di)ဒီဟာ (di-har)ဟိုဘက် (ho-bet)အဲဒီလို (ae-di-lo)

挑战

Look around your room. Point to 3 things near you using 'Di', 3 things far away using 'Ho', and 1 thing you just thought about using 'Ae-di'.

文化笔记

When pointing with 'Ho', it is more polite to use your whole hand or a nod of the head rather than just the index finger, which can be seen as aggressive.

Speakers might use 'Ae-di' more frequently in place of 'Di' for emphasis or politeness in certain dialects.

Derived from Tibeto-Burman roots where spatial deixis is often categorized by height or visibility.

对话开场白

“

ဒီဟင်းက ဘာလဲ။

“

ဟိုအဆောက်အဦးက ဘာလဲ။

“

အဲဒီအကြောင်းကို ဘယ်လိုထင်လဲ။

日记主题

Describe 5 items on your desk using 'Di'.
Write about a trip you took and describe things you saw far away using 'Ho'.
Summarize a conversation you had recently using 'Ae-di' to refer to the topics.

常见错误

Incorrect

正确

Incorrect

正确

Incorrect

正确

Incorrect

正确

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Test Yourself

Choose the correct word for an object you are holding. 多项选择

___ ဖုန်းက အသစ်ပါ။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: ဒီ
Since you are holding it, it is near the speaker ('Di').
Fill in the blank to refer to a topic your friend just mentioned.

___ အကြောင်း ကျွန်တော် မသိဘူး။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: အဲဒီ
'Ae-di' is used for things recently mentioned in conversation.
Correct the word order: 'Sarpoke ho' (That book). Error Correction

Find and fix the mistake:

စာအုပ် ဟို

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: ဟို စာအုပ်
The demonstrative must come before the noun.
Match the Burmese word to its distance. Match Pairs

Match each item on the left with its pair on the right:

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: 1-Near Speaker, 2-Far, 3-Near Listener
This is the standard 3-way deictic system.

Score: /4

练习题

4 exercises
Choose the correct word for an object you are holding. 多项选择

___ ဖုန်းက အသစ်ပါ။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: ဒီ
Since you are holding it, it is near the speaker ('Di').
Fill in the blank to refer to a topic your friend just mentioned.

___ အကြောင်း ကျွန်တော် မသိဘူး။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: အဲဒီ
'Ae-di' is used for things recently mentioned in conversation.
Correct the word order: 'Sarpoke ho' (That book). Error Correction

Find and fix the mistake:

စာအုပ် ဟို

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: ဟို စာအုပ်
The demonstrative must come before the noun.
Match the Burmese word to its distance. Match Pairs

1. ဒီ, 2. ဟို, 3. အဲဒီ

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: 1-Near Speaker, 2-Far, 3-Near Listener
This is the standard 3-way deictic system.

Score: /4

常见问题 (6)

Yes, but you usually add the location particle 'ma' to get 'Di-ma' (ဒီမှာ).

'Ho' is for physical distance from both people. 'Ae-di' is for things near the listener or things in the mind/conversation.

Use 'Di' + Noun + 'tway' (တွေ). For example: 'Di sarpoke tway' (These books).

Yes, in formal writing, 'Ee' (ဤ) is used instead of 'Di'.

No, Burmese demonstratives are gender-neutral.

Yes, 'Ae-di lu' means 'that person'. It is neutral and polite.

Scaffolded Practice

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

Mastery Progress

Needs Practice

Improving

Strong

Mastered

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In Other Languages

Spanish high

Este, Ese, Aquel

Burmese demonstratives don't change for gender or number.

Japanese high

Ko, So, A

Japanese demonstratives change form significantly when becoming pronouns (Kore vs Kono).

German moderate

Dieser, Jener

German demonstratives must decline for case, gender, and number.

Arabic moderate

Hadha, Dhalika

Burmese lacks the gender agreement found in Arabic demonstratives.

French low

Ce...-ci, Ce...-là

Burmese demonstratives are standalone words placed before the noun.

Learning Path

Prerequisites

Next
Using Demonstratives with Nouns (ဒီစာအုပ်)

Related Grammar Rules

C1

Using (လူတိုင်း) for 'Everyone'
A0

Using 'This' and 'That' (ဒီ / ဟို)
A2

Using Demonstratives with Nouns (ဒီစာအုပ်)
A2

Using (တိုင်း) for 'Every'
A2

Quantifiers: 'Many', 'Few' (အများကြီး / အနည်းငယ်)
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