A1 Expressions & Patterns 1 min read 简单

Responding to Negative Questions (ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး)

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Grammar Rule in 30 Seconds

In Burmese, you answer based on the truth of the situation, not the grammar of the question.

  • If the statement is true, use 'ဟုတ်တယ်' (Yes/It is).
  • If the statement is false, use 'မဟုတ်ဘူး' (No/It is not).
  • This applies even if the question is negative: 'You aren't hungry?' -> 'Yes (I am hungry)' or 'No (I am not hungry)'.
Question (Negative) + ဟုတ်တယ် (True) / မဟုတ်ဘူး (False)

Response Table

Question Type Reality Response Meaning
Negative
True
ဟုတ်တယ်
Yes, it is true
Negative
False
မဟုတ်ဘူး
No, it is not true
Positive
True
ဟုတ်တယ်
Yes, it is true
Positive
False
မဟုတ်ဘူး
No, it is not true

Shortened Forms

Full Form Short Form Register
ဟုတ်တယ်
ဟုတ်
Informal/Quick
မဟုတ်ဘူး
မဟုတ်
Informal/Quick
ဟုတ်ကဲ့
ဟုတ်
Formal/Polite

Meanings

These particles serve as the standard affirmative and negative responses in Burmese, regardless of whether the preceding question was phrased positively or negatively.

1

Affirmative Agreement

Confirming the truth of a statement.

“ဟုတ်တယ်၊ ကျွန်တော်သွားမယ်။”

“ဟုတ်တယ်၊ အဲဒါမှန်တယ်။”

2

Negative Disagreement

Denying the truth of a statement.

“မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ ကျွန်တော်မသွားဘူး။”

“မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ အဲဒါမှားတယ်။”

Reference Table

Reference table for Responding to Negative Questions (ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး)
Form Structure Example
Affirmative
ဟုတ်တယ် + [Sentence]
ဟုတ်တယ်၊ ကျွန်တော်သွားမယ်။
Negative
မဟုတ်ဘူး + [Sentence]
မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ ကျွန်တော်မသွားဘူး။
Question
Verb + မ + Verb + လား
သွားမသွားဘူးလား။
Formal
ဟုတ်ကဲ့ + [Sentence]
ဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ ကျွန်တော်လုပ်ပါမယ်။
Short
ဟုတ် / မဟုတ်
ဟုတ်။
Clarification
မဟုတ်ဘူး + [Correction]
မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ အဲဒါမှားတယ်။

正式程度

正式
ဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ ကျွန်တော်သွားပါမယ်။

ဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ ကျွန်တော်သွားပါမယ်။ (General)

中性
ဟုတ်တယ်၊ ကျွန်တော်သွားမယ်။

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ ကျွန်တော်သွားမယ်။ (General)

非正式
ဟုတ်၊ သွားမယ်။

ဟုတ်၊ သွားမယ်။ (General)

俚语
ဟုတ်တယ်၊ သွားမယ်လေ။

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ သွားမယ်လေ။ (General)

The Truth-Based Response System

Reality

True

  • ဟုတ်တယ် Yes/True

False

  • မဟုတ်ဘူး No/False
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按水平分级的例句

1

မင်းမစားဘူးလား။

Aren't you eating?

2

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ စားမယ်။

Yes, I will eat.

3

မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ မစားဘူး။

No, I am not eating.

4

သူမလာဘူးလား။

Isn't he coming?

1

မင်းတို့မသွားဘူးလား။

Aren't you guys going?

2

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ သွားမယ်။

Yes, we are going.

3

မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ မသွားဘူး။

No, we aren't going.

4

အဲဒါမမှန်ဘူးလား။

Isn't that incorrect?

1

သူတို့အလုပ်မလုပ်ဘူးလား။

Aren't they working?

2

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ သူတို့အလုပ်လုပ်နေတယ်။

Yes, they are working.

3

မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ သူတို့နားနေတယ်။

No, they are resting.

4

ဒီလမ်းကမပိတ်ဘူးလား။

Isn't this road blocked?

1

ဒီစီမံကိန်းကမအောင်မြင်ဘူးလား။

Isn't this project successful?

2

ဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ အောင်မြင်ပါတယ်။

Yes, it is successful.

3

မဟုတ်ပါဘူး၊ အခက်အခဲရှိနေတယ်။

No, it is facing difficulties.

4

သူတို့မဆွေးနွေးဘူးလား။

Aren't they discussing it?

1

ဒီအဆိုပြုချက်ကမသင့်တော်ဘူးလား။

Isn't this proposal inappropriate?

2

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ အဲဒါကိုပြန်ပြင်ရမယ်။

Yes, it needs revision.

3

မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ ဒါကအကောင်းဆုံးပဲ။

No, this is the best.

4

အဲဒီအချက်ကမရှင်းလင်းဘူးလား။

Isn't that point unclear?

1

ဒီကိစ္စကမပြီးဆုံးသေးဘူးလား။

Isn't this matter finished yet?

2

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ နောက်ထပ်လုပ်စရာရှိသေးတယ်။

Yes, there is more to do.

3

မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ အားလုံးပြီးသွားပြီ။

No, everything is finished.

4

သူတို့မသဘောတူဘူးလား။

Don't they agree?

容易混淆

Responding to Negative Questions (ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး) 对比 မှန်တယ် vs ဟုတ်တယ်

Learners use 'မှန်တယ်' to agree with a person, but it actually means 'it is factually correct'.

Responding to Negative Questions (ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး) 对比 မဟုတ်ဘူး vs မဟုတ်ပါဘူး

Learners don't know when to add 'ပါ'.

Responding to Negative Questions (ဟုတ်တယ် / မဟုတ်ဘူး) 对比 Negative questions

Learners mirror the negative.

常见错误

✗

မစားဘူးလား -> မစားဘူး (No, I'm not eating)

✓

မစားဘူးလား -> မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ မစားဘူး

You must include the particle before the sentence.
✗

Mirroring the negative

✓

Use truth-based response

Don't say 'Yes' just because the question is negative.
✗

Forgetting the follow-up

✓

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ [sentence]

It sounds rude to just say 'Hote-de'.
✗

Using 'မှန်တယ်' as a response

✓

Use 'ဟုတ်တယ်'

'မှန်တယ်' is for facts, not conversational agreement.
✗

Inconsistent register

✓

Use 'ဟုတ်ကဲ့' in formal settings

Mixing informal 'Hote-de' in formal contexts.
✗

Ignoring the context

✓

Add context

The particle alone is not enough.
✗

Misusing 'မဟုတ်ပါဘူး'

✓

Use 'မဟုတ်ဘူး' for neutral

Over-formalizing neutral speech.
✗

Over-complicating the response

✓

Keep it simple

Adding too many particles.
✗

Misinterpreting rhetorical questions

✓

Identify intent

Responding to a rhetorical question as if it were a real one.
✗

Incorrect particle usage

✓

Check truth value

Confusing the truth value.
✗

Ignoring dialectal nuance

✓

Use standard

Using regional slang in formal writing.
✗

Misusing formal particles

✓

Contextual awareness

Using 'ဟုတ်ကဲ့' in a very casual setting.
✗

Syntactic errors

✓

Proper sentence structure

Incorrect word order after the particle.

句型

___, [Sentence].

မင်း ___ လား။

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ ___။

မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ ___။

Real World Usage

Texting constant

ဟုတ်။

Ordering Food very common

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ အဲဒါယူမယ်။

Job Interview common

ဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ ကျွန်တော်လုပ်နိုင်ပါတယ်။

Travel common

ဟုတ်တယ်၊ ဒီကားကသွားတယ်။

Social Media very common

ဟုတ်တယ်လေ။

Debate occasional

မဟုတ်ပါဘူး၊ အချက်အလက်ကမမှန်ဘူး။

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💡

Keep it simple

Don't overthink the negative question. Just answer the truth.
⚠️

Don't mirror

Never mirror the negative structure of the question.
🎯

Add context

Always add a short sentence after the particle for clarity.
💬

Politeness

Use 'ဟုတ်ကဲ့' with elders or in formal settings.

Smart Tips

Pause and identify the truth first.

Question: မသွားဘူးလား -> Answer: မသွားဘူး (Wrong) → Question: မသွားဘူးလား -> Answer: ဟုတ်တယ်၊ သွားမယ် (Correct)

Always use 'ဟုတ်ကဲ့'.

ဟုတ်တယ် (Informal) → ဟုတ်ကဲ့ (Formal)

Always add a full sentence.

ဟုတ်တယ် (Ambiguous) → ဟုတ်တယ်၊ ကျွန်တော်လုပ်မယ် (Clear)

Use 'မဟုတ်ဘူး' followed by the truth.

မဟုတ်ဘူး (Abrupt) → မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ အဲဒါမှားတယ် (Polite correction)

发音

IPA: /hoʊʔ dɛ/

Tonal clarity

Ensure the 'Hote' has a clear falling tone.

Affirmative

ဟုတ်တယ် ↘

Confident agreement

Negative

မဟုတ်ဘူး ↘

Definitive disagreement

记住它

记忆技巧

Think of 'Hote-de' as 'Hold it, that's true' and 'Ma-hote-bu' as 'My, that's not true'.

视觉联想

Imagine a scale. If the scale tips to the truth, you place a 'Hote-de' weight on it. If it tips to a lie, you place a 'Ma-hote-bu' weight.

Rhyme

Hote-de is true, Ma-hote-bu is not, use them both on the spot.

Story

A student is asked 'Aren't you hungry?'. The student thinks: 'I am hungry'. So they say 'Hote-de'. Then they are asked 'Don't you like spicy food?'. They think: 'I hate spicy food'. So they say 'Ma-hote-bu'.

Word Web

ဟုတ်တယ်မဟုတ်ဘူးဟုတ်ကဲ့မှန်တယ်မလား

挑战

Ask yourself 5 negative questions today and answer them out loud using the correct particle.

文化笔记

Politeness is key. Always use 'ဟုတ်ကဲ့' with elders.

People often shorten 'ဟုတ်တယ်' to 'ဟုတ်' in quick texts.

More formal particles might be used to show respect.

The particles derive from the verb 'ဟုတ်' (to be true).

对话开场白

“

မင်းမစားဘူးလား။

“

သူတို့မလာဘူးလား။

“

ဒီအလုပ်ကမခက်ဘူးလား။

“

ဒီစီမံကိန်းကမအောင်မြင်ဘူးလား။

日记主题

Write about a time someone asked you a negative question.
Describe a disagreement you had.
Discuss a project that didn't go as planned.
Analyze a debate you watched.

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 response to 'မင်းမစားဘူးလား။' (You are eating). 多项选择

မင်းမစားဘူးလား။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
Since you are eating, it is true, so use 'ဟုတ်တယ်'.
Fill in the blank.

မင်းမသွားဘူးလား။ ___၊ မသွားဘူး။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: b
Since you are not going, it is false, so use 'မဟုတ်ဘူး'.
Correct the sentence. Error Correction

Find and fix the mistake:

မစားဘူးလား -> မစားဘူး (Wrong)

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
You need the particle 'ဟုတ်တယ်'.
Build a sentence. Sentence Building

Respond to 'သူမလာဘူးလား။' (He is coming).

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
He is coming, so it is true.
Match the response to the truth. Match Pairs

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

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
True corresponds to 'ဟုတ်တယ်'.
Which is more formal? 多项选择

Choose the formal response.

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: b
'ဟုတ်ကဲ့' is the most formal.
Fill in the blank.

ဒီအလုပ်ကမခက်ဘူးလား။ ___၊ ခက်တယ်။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
If it is hard, it is true.
Correct the register. Error Correction

Find and fix the mistake:

Using 'ဟုတ်' to a boss.

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
Use 'ဟုတ်ကဲ့' for formal settings.

Score: /8

练习题

8 exercises
Choose the correct response to 'မင်းမစားဘူးလား။' (You are eating). 多项选择

မင်းမစားဘူးလား။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
Since you are eating, it is true, so use 'ဟုတ်တယ်'.
Fill in the blank.

မင်းမသွားဘူးလား။ ___၊ မသွားဘူး။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: b
Since you are not going, it is false, so use 'မဟုတ်ဘူး'.
Correct the sentence. Error Correction

Find and fix the mistake:

မစားဘူးလား -> မစားဘူး (Wrong)

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
You need the particle 'ဟုတ်တယ်'.
Build a sentence. Sentence Building

Respond to 'သူမလာဘူးလား။' (He is coming).

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
He is coming, so it is true.
Match the response to the truth. Match Pairs

True -> ?

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
True corresponds to 'ဟုတ်တယ်'.
Which is more formal? 多项选择

Choose the formal response.

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: b
'ဟုတ်ကဲ့' is the most formal.
Fill in the blank.

ဒီအလုပ်ကမခက်ဘူးလား။ ___၊ ခက်တယ်။

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
If it is hard, it is true.
Correct the register. Error Correction

Find and fix the mistake:

Using 'ဟုတ်' to a boss.

✓ Correct! ✗ Not quite. Correct answer: a
Use 'ဟုတ်ကဲ့' for formal settings.

Score: /8

常见问题 (8)

Burmese uses specific particles `ဟုတ်တယ်` and `မဟုတ်ဘူး` to ensure clarity.

No, you always answer based on the truth of the situation.

Use it in formal situations or with elders.

No, `မှန်တယ်` means 'factually correct', while `ဟုတ်တယ်` is for conversational agreement.

You can say 'မသေချာဘူး' (I'm not sure).

Yes, it's common in informal texting.

Because Burmese logic is truth-based, not grammar-based.

Yes, but `ဟုတ်တယ်` and `မဟုတ်ဘူး` are standard everywhere.

Scaffolded Practice

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

Mastery Progress

Needs Practice

Improving

Strong

Mastered

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In Other Languages

Japanese low

hai/iie

Burmese particles are more strictly truth-conditional.

Spanish low

sí/no

Burmese uses the same particle regardless of the question's polarity.

French low

oui/non/si

Burmese avoids the need for a third particle like 'si'.

German low

ja/nein/doch

Burmese uses the same particle for all truth-based responses.

Chinese moderate

shi/bu shi

Burmese particles are more conversational.

Arabic low

na'am/la/bala

Burmese does not have a specific 'contradiction' particle.

Learning Path

Prerequisites

Previous
Negative Questions (မ...ဘူးလား)

Related Grammar Rules

A1

Offering Help: 'Can I help you?' (ကူညီပေးရမလား)
B2

Expressing Uncertainty: 'I wonder if...' (လုပ်မလားမသိဘူး)
A0

Formal and Informal Greetings (မင်္ဂလာပါ / နေကောင်းလား)
A0

Introducing Yourself: 'My name is...' (ကျွန်တော့်/ကျွန်မ နာမည်က...ပါ)
A0

Saying 'Thank you' (ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်)
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