Bite-Size Burmese: Choking on Happiness, Flattened by Sadness

Many Burmese words describing how you feel—happy, sad, depressed, and so on—are constructed with the root words ဝမ်း for "belly" or "womb," and စိတ် for "the mind." The phrase ဝမ်းသာတယ် "to be glad, to be happy" literally translates to "the belly is pleasant, favorable." The opposite phrase ဝမ်းနည်းတယ် "to be sad or unhappy" is "the belly is deficient." 

To feel an overwhelming happiness is ဝမ်းသာလုံးဆို့နေတယ်, a picturesque phrase that means "to be choking on a ball of happiness." And to be overtaken by sadness or grief is ဝမ်းနည်းပက်လက် , an adverb describing someone grieving in a horizontal, face-up position. 

In this episode, I introduce you to words and phrases to describe feelings and emotions—with melodramatic, hyperbolic options if you so desire.  (Music: "Sunshine Dreams" by Kaazoom, Pixabay)

Vocabulary

• ဝမ်းသာတယ် to be happy, glad
• ဝမ်းနည်းတယ် to be unhappy, sad
• ဝမ်းသာအားရ happily, with great happiness (adverb)
• ဝမ်းမြောက်ဝမ်းသာ happily, with great happiness (adverb)
• ဝမ်းပန်းတသာ happily, with great happiness (adverb)
• ဝမ်းသာအယ်လဲ happily, with great happiness (adverb)
• ဝမ်းသာလုံးဆို့နေတယ် to be overwhelmed with happiness (lit. to be choking on a ball of happiness)
• ဝမ်းနည်းပက်လက် to be unhappy (lit. sad and flat)
• စိတ်ကောင်းတယ် to be kind, good-natured
• စိတ်မကောင်းဘူး to be sad
• စိတ်ထားမကောင်းဘူး to be of spiteful, malicious temperament 
• စိတ်ပုတ်တယ် to be spiteful, malicious (lit. to have a rotten mind)
• စိတ်ဆင်းရဲတယ် to be depressed, frustrated (lit. the mind is impoverished)
• စိတ်ညစ်တယ် to be depressed, frustrated (lit. the mind is tainted, dirty)
• စိတ်ချမ်းသာတယ် to be content, satisfied, delighted (lit. the mind is luxurious)