Burmese/Myanmar

Printable View

January 30th, 2011, 03:50 AM
Demonic_Duck

Burmese/Myanmar

Does anyone have any knowledge of this language at all? Just yesterday I decided to learn a little bit as my housemates come from Burma. It's seems quite an unusual language to me, and totally the opposite to Russian - Russian is very heavy on grammar, full of long words, but not too difficult for pronunciation, whereas Burmese seems to consist almost entirely of 1 syllable words with miniscule differences in pronunciation and tone which can make all the difference in meaning. And grammar seems almost non-existent... it's such a relief to not see the words "declension" or "conjugation" anywhere in sight :D

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else has any experience with Burmese.
January 30th, 2011, 05:24 AM
alexsms

it's interesting, i read that Indonesian also has some easy grammar, if it has it at all, maybe it's typical of South East Asia, i don't know
January 30th, 2011, 06:13 AM
sperk

I have an ancient course in it written by a British guy. The thing I remember about it is that it has only two tones and even then there is apparently some debate as to whether they are even tones, in contrast to it's neighbors (Vietnam, Thailand, Laos) which are real tonal languages. Interesting script.
January 30th, 2011, 03:45 PM
Demonic_Duck

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexsms

it's interesting, i read that Indonesian also has some easy grammar, if it has it at all, maybe it's typical of South East Asia, i don't know

Yes, I have been told that this is characteristic of languages from this area, but never having studied any of them before it comes as a pleasant surprise :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sperk

I have an ancient course in it written by a British guy. The thing I remember about it is that it has only two tones and even then there is apparently some debate as to whether they are even tones, in contrast to it's neighbors (Vietnam, Thailand, Laos) which are real tonal languages. Interesting script.

It actually has 3 tones, low, high and "creaky" (which is like trying to say a high tone whilst being strangled). And I haven't even begun to get my head around the script yet, but I do think it's very beautiful (according to omniglot, the reason for the characters' rounded appearance is that the script was originally written on palm leaves which would tear with sharp corners).

The course I'm using is from this website:
Burmese By Ear or Essential Myanmar: Learn Burmese: SOAS
It's available for free and seems good so far.