Pattern: verb + တယ် (te)
Add တယ် (te) to the verb stem to form the present tense.
စား → စားတယ်
Pattern: verb + ခဲ့တယ် (khe te)
Add ခဲ့တယ် (khe te) to the verb stem to form the past tense.
စား → စားခဲ့တယ်
Pattern: verb + မယ် (me)
Add မယ် (me) to the verb stem to form the future tense.
စား → စားမယ်
Pattern: verb + နေတယ် (nay te)
Add နေတယ် (nay te) after the verb stem for an ongoing action happening now.
စား → စားနေတယ်
Pattern: verb + ပြီးပြီ (pyi pyi)
Add ပြီးပြီ (pyi pyi) after the verb stem to show an action already completed.
စား → စားပြီးပြီ
Pattern: verb + ပါ (ba / pa)
Add ပါ (ba/pa) to the verb stem for polite requests or commands.
စား → စားပါ (“please eat”)
Pattern: verb + ပါ (pa)
Add ပါ (pa) to the verb stem to form a polite command or invitation.
စား → စားပါ (“please eat”)
Pattern: verb + ပါတယ် (pa te)
Add ပါတယ် (pa te) to the verb stem for formal or very polite statements.
လာ → လာပါတယ်
Important notes:
Spoken Burmese verbs usually keep a stable stem and add final particles such as တယ် (neutral or factual), လား (yes–no questions), or မှာ (future or intention). Past completed events often use ခဲ့ before the final particle, and future plans often end with မယ်.
Unlike languages such as Spanish or French, the Burmese verb stem itself rarely changes for person or gender. Who did the action is shown by the subject noun or pronoun, not by endings on the verb. Word order is typically subject – object – verb when both subject and object are present (e.g. “rice eat” order: ထမင်းစားတယ်).
Example: စား + တယ် → စားတယ် (neutral statement: eats / is eating / will eat depending on context and time words around the clause).
Example: စား + ခဲ့ + တယ် → စားခဲ့တယ် (completed before the moment of speaking; often translated “ate” or “had eaten”).
Many actions pair a noun or loanword with လုပ်, ပေး, ယူ (e.g. အလုပ်လုပ် “to work”). The first piece carries the meaning; the light verb carries tense and reality marking.
A common spoken pattern is မ + verb stem + a final marker. ဘူး often closes a negative statement or reply (e.g. မလာဘူး “didn’t come / isn’t coming,” depending on context). Polite negatives add ပါ, as in မစားပါဘူး “I won’t eat / I don’t eat” in a polite refusal.
There is no single English-style “do not” that works in every sentence; learners should notice which final particle the speaker pairs with မ in fixed phrases.
Yes–no questions often replace the statement final with လား (e.g. လာလား “Will you come?” / “Are you coming?”). Content questions use question words (ဘာ, ဘယ်, ဘယ်လောက်, …) in their usual slot in the clause.
ရှိ expresses having something or something being there; its negative is often မ ရှိဘူး. For identity or classification (“be a teacher,” “be cheap”), Burmese often uses ဖြစ် or other patterns rather than copying English “be” in one fixed way.
Besides the three-way present / past / future glosses in this app, Burmese adds extra words after the verb stem to shade meaning:
The verb table in Koilingua focuses on တယ် / ခဲ့တယ် / မယ် so you can compare verbs side by side; add these helpers as you hear them in real speech.
Serial verbs: Two (or more) verb stems can follow one another with a single subject and one tense marking at the end, describing two actions in sequence or a manner of action (e.g. go and do something, come and see). The last verb usually carries the main final particle for the whole clause.
Compound predicates: Noun + လုပ်, noun + ပေး, noun + ယူ, and similar patterns behave like one lexical verb for learning purposes. The “regular / compound” labels in the list flag whether you are looking at a single stem or a multi-word predicate where the first part is often a noun or loanword.
One main verb stem; add တယ် / ခဲ့တယ် / မယ် (or မှာ) in speech as in the app. Most everyday action verbs you will meet first fall here.
Stems like သွား or လာ use the same particle pattern in colloquial speech, but some verbs have suppletive or literary alternates you will see later in reading.
Treat the whole expression as one predicate: the light verb (လုပ်, ပေး, …) takes the same time markers as a simple verb.
Loanwords from English often slot into these frames (ဖုန်းခေါ် “phone / call,” အီးမေးလ်ပို့ “send email”).
Learn each verb with the sample sentence in the list, not only the bare stem: Burmese listeners expect time and politeness from the whole clause, not from the stem alone.
Read the transliteration out loud, then hide the romanization and read only the Myanmar line until the shapes feel familiar.
Save verbs you are actively using to favorites and run the quiz when you have at least three saved; the quiz mixes translation, conjugation strings, and sentence meaning.
When you hear new particles (နေတယ်, ပြီ, ချင်တယ်), note which verb they attach to and imitate whole phrases rather than translating word by word from English.