Things to know about Burmese
Burmese is spoken in Burma, where it is the official language.
Typing Burmese Characters
Burmese is written in a syllabic alphabet, meaning that each character represents a consonant sound followed by an inherent vowel sound, which can be changed by adding diacritic marks. Vowels can also be written as independent characters. In addition, there are tone marks that can appear above other characters. Burmese text is written from left to right, like English.
To type Burmese characters:
- Position your cursor somewhere where you can type, and verify that the virtual keyboard layout is set to Burmese.
- Locate the character you want on the virtual keyboard, then click on it or press the corresponding key on your physical keyboard. Additional characters are available by holding down the Shift key. To type the tonal marks that can appear above characters, type the character first, then type the mark. Certain additional characters are available by clicking
beside the virtual keyboard. See Typing special scripts for details.
Learning Burmese Tones
As you work with your Burmese content, pay special attention to the tones used by the native speakers when they pronounce each word. Different tones can change a word's meaning. In many of the activities, you can listen to words as many times as you need to recognize their tones.
Using Transliterated Burmese Content
You may have some transliterated Burmese content in addition to content which uses the actual Burmese characters. Transliterated content can help you master vocabulary and pronunciation before tackling a new writing system.
You do not have to type actual Burmese characters in transliterated Burmese content. You can type the transliterations anywhere typed answers are required.
The transliterated Burmese content may use a variety of special characters to indicate tone. See Typing accents or special characters for instructions on typing these characters.