Common Burmese idioms and proverbs with their figurative meanings explained, for an upper-level learner. Front: the Burmese idiom or proverb (with romanization). Back: literal meaning and figurative meaning.
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- လူတစ်ရာ၊ စိတ်တစ်ရာ (Lu ta yar, seik ta yar)
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A hundred people, a hundred minds; a proverb meaning everyone has different opinions and tastes- ခွေးတစ်ကောင်ဟောင်လျှင် တစ်ရွာလုံးဟောင် (Khway: ta kaung haung: shin ta ywar lone: haung:)
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If one dog barks, the whole village barks; a proverb meaning rumors and reactions spread quickly through a crowd- ရေတိမ်တွင် ငါးကြီးမနေ (Yay tein twin ngar: kyi: ma nay)
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Big fish do not live in shallow water; a proverb meaning great people do not settle for small or unsuitable situations- မိုက်တယ်ဆိုတာ သိရင် ပညာရှိပါပြီ (Maik te hso tar thi yin pyinnyar shi par pyi)
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If you know that you are foolish, you already have wisdom; a proverb about the value of self-awareness- သစ်ပင်ကြီးကျရင် မျှင်ပါကြွေ (Thit pin kyi: kya yin hnyin par kywe)
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When a great tree falls, its fibers scatter too; a proverb meaning when someone powerful falls, those close to them are affected as well- ခေါင်းရှုပ်တယ် (Khaung: shoke te)
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Literally the head is tangled; means to be confused- မျက်စိပြူးတယ် (Myet si pyu: de)
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Literally the eyes bulge; means to be shocked or very surprised- မျက်နှာပျက်တယ် (Myet nhar pyet te)
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Literally the face spoils; means to look upset or embarrassed- နှလုံးသွေးခုန်တယ် (Hna lone: thway khun de)
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Literally the heart pounds; means to feel nervous or excited- ပါးစပ်ပေါ့တယ် (Par sat pau de)
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Literally the mouth is light; describes someone who talks too much and cannot keep a secret- လက်ရှည်တယ် (Let shay de)
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Literally long-handed; describes someone who steals- နှလုံးသားကျိုးတယ် (Hna lone: thar: kyo: de)
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Literally the heart breaks; means to be heartbroken- ခေါင်းငုံ့တယ် (Khaung: noun de)
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Literally to lower the head; means to feel ashamed or humbled- ရင်ထဲပူတယ် (Yin htell pu de)
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Literally the chest burns inside; means to feel worried or anxious- နှုတ်ခမ်းပေါ့တယ် (Hnoke khan: pau de)
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Literally the lips are light; describes a person who gossips easily
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