The Basics : Counting in Burmese Numerics

When you learn Burmese, studying the basic is the most crucial steps. 

In this blog, I've listed out the numbers in Burmese and how to pronounce them plus some examples for you to read through. It isn't difficult at all as it follows a pattern after 1-10! 

Burmese numbers: 0 to 10

English	Burmese	Myanglish
One	၁	tit
Two	၂	nit
Three	၃	thone
Four	၄	lay
Five	၅	ngar
Six	၆	chout
Seven	၇	khon / khon-nit
Eight	၈	shit
Nine	၉	koe
Ten	၁၀	tit-sal

People usually confuse the One and Two since it sounds a little similar. But once you have a hang of it, it's pretty easy. "One" has the very obvious 'T' sound and "Two" starts with the 'N' sound. Listen carefully and you'll hear the difference! 

One more thing you need to take note is that number Seven is a little special. The long form is kon-nit but depending on the situation, sometimes we will just say khon.

For example, when you're reading a phone number "76543" you say "khon chout ngar lay thone". You will notice, we use the short form of seven. But when you are counting something, we usually use the long form. For example, "7 people" is "khon-nit yout" ,  "7 animals" is "khon-nit kaung" and so on.

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Moving on, you'll learn how you construct Burmese numbers from 11 to 19. Put "sal" +  the number that’s missing to make the number you want. So Eleven in Burmese is “10-1”, or sal-tit. 

Here’s 11 to 19, just so you can see it in practice.

Burmese numbers: 11 to 19

English	Burmese	Myanglish
Eleven	၁၁	sal-tit
Twelve	၁၂	sal-nit
Thirteen	၁၃	sal-thone
Fourteen	၁၄	sal-lay
Fifteen	၁၅	sal-ngar
Sixteen	၁၆	sal-chout
Seventeen	၁၇	sal-khon / khon-nit
Eighteen	၁၈	sal-shit
Nineteen	၁၉	sal-koe

Easy, right?

Next, we need to look at double-digit numbers beyond 19. We’ll start with multiples of 10, the numbers that end in 0 – so 20, 30, 40 and so on.

Forming big numbers like 20, 30, 40 and beyond is simple! We just need to say the first number followed by "sal"

That is, 20 is said “2-10”, or "nit-sal".  30 is "thone-sal" and so on. 

Depending on the digits you have, the naming changes. 

Just like how we put "sal" for double digits, we put "yar" for triple digits. Here's a summary of all the changes you need to make. 

Multiple digits

English	Burmese	Myanglish
10	၁၀	tit-sal
100	၁၀၀	tit-yar
1000	၁,၀၀၀	tit-taung
10,000	၁၀,၀၀၀	tit-thaung
100,000	၁၀၀,၀၀၀	tit-thein
1,000,000	၁,၀၀၀,၀၀၀	tit-than
10,000,000	၁၀,၀၀၀,၀၀၀	tit-ka-htay

So far so good? If there's anything unclear, just leave a comment and I'll help you as much as I can! Good luck learning Burmese.