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Bite-Size Burmese: Why is the Garuda Cooking Salt?
Manage episode 421294315 series 3319499
What do you do when you’re in a pinch, out of options, and desperate? In English, you might make a Last-Ditch Effort. If you’re a football player, you might throw a Hail Mary Pass. But in Burmese, you might do what the mythical bird Garuda did: cook salt. To understand the Burmese expression အကြံကုန် ဂဠုန်ဆားချက် (when the Garuda runs out of ideas, it cooks salt), you need to know the legend about the Garuda (ဂဠုန်) and its mortal enemy, the serpent Naga (နဂါး). For more on the legend, and on ways to use this expression, listen to this episode of Bite-Size Burmese. (Illustration by Burmese artist Nyan Kyal Say, NK Artbox; Intro and end music: "When my ukulele plays" by Soundroll, Upbeat.io.)
Vocabulary
အကြံ idea
ကုန်ပြီ to be depleted, to run out, to exhaust
ဂဠုန် Garuda, a mythical bird
နဂါး Naga, a mythical serpent
ကမ္ဘာရန်သူ mortal enemy
မတတ်နိုင်လို့ because it cannot be helped
သေသေကြေကြေ live or die
မထူးဘူး makes no difference
ကတုတ်ကျင်း ditch
သမ္မာကျမ်းစာ Bible
မယ်တော်မာရိ Mother Mary
ယျေဘုယျအားဖြင့် generally speaking
လူယောင်ဖန်ဆင်း to transform into a human, to take the human shape
ဒဏ္ဍာရီ legend, fable
အလွတ်ကျက် to learn by heart
Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.
37 episodes
Manage episode 421294315 series 3319499
What do you do when you’re in a pinch, out of options, and desperate? In English, you might make a Last-Ditch Effort. If you’re a football player, you might throw a Hail Mary Pass. But in Burmese, you might do what the mythical bird Garuda did: cook salt. To understand the Burmese expression အကြံကုန် ဂဠုန်ဆားချက် (when the Garuda runs out of ideas, it cooks salt), you need to know the legend about the Garuda (ဂဠုန်) and its mortal enemy, the serpent Naga (နဂါး). For more on the legend, and on ways to use this expression, listen to this episode of Bite-Size Burmese. (Illustration by Burmese artist Nyan Kyal Say, NK Artbox; Intro and end music: "When my ukulele plays" by Soundroll, Upbeat.io.)
Vocabulary
အကြံ idea
ကုန်ပြီ to be depleted, to run out, to exhaust
ဂဠုန် Garuda, a mythical bird
နဂါး Naga, a mythical serpent
ကမ္ဘာရန်သူ mortal enemy
မတတ်နိုင်လို့ because it cannot be helped
သေသေကြေကြေ live or die
မထူးဘူး makes no difference
ကတုတ်ကျင်း ditch
သမ္မာကျမ်းစာ Bible
မယ်တော်မာရိ Mother Mary
ယျေဘုယျအားဖြင့် generally speaking
လူယောင်ဖန်ဆင်း to transform into a human, to take the human shape
ဒဏ္ဍာရီ legend, fable
အလွတ်ကျက် to learn by heart
Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.
37 episodes
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