Bite-Size Burmese: Why is the Garuda Cooking Salt? Artwork

Learn Burmese from Natural Talk

Hello! Greetings from the Burmese corner! I'm Kenneth Wong, a Burmese language instructor, author, and translator. This is a podcast series for intermediate and advanced Burmese language learners who want to learn Burmese by listening to natural conversation. Every two weeks or so, my cohost Mol Mol from Burmese Language Academy of Yangon (BLAY), some guest speakers, and I record and upload an episode on a specific topic. At the end of each episode, you'll find the keywords and phrases with their meanings. You can reach BLAY from its Facebook page: BurmeseLanguageAcademyofYangon. For more on the podcast series, visit the Learn Burmese from Natural Talk blog: http://burmeselessons.blogspot.com/

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Learn Burmese from Natural Talk

Bite-Size Burmese: Why is the Garuda Cooking Salt?

May 31, 2024 • kennethwongsf • Season 3 • Episode 35

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