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Burmese (Myanmar) style guide

  • Normative reference: Myanmar–English Dictionary. Myanmar Language Commission. 1993. ISBN978-1- 881265-47-4
  • Adhere to the normative source. Any deviation fails a string in most cases. When more than one solution is possible, consult the other topics in this guide.
  • Informative references: Burmese language resources.

Voice

  • Three principles: warm and relaxed; crisp and clear; ready to lend a hand.
  • Keep the audience in mind. Use technical terms for technical audiences. Use common words and phrases for consumers.
  • Write short, easy-to-read sentences.
  • Avoid passive voice. It is hard to read and understand quickly.
  • Be pleasant. Make explanations individualized and enjoyable to read.
  • Avoid slang. Use colloquialisms with care. Stay professional in a conversational tone.
  • Avoid the corporate we, such as We're proud to introduce… or We want you to know. Keep the focus on you, the reader.
  • Keep the general style clear, friendly, and concise. Use language that resembles everyday conversation, not formal technical language.
  • Feel free to choose words that are not standard translations when that stays true to the intent of the source.
  • Do not translate literally. Consider the intent of the text and what the customer needs to know to complete the task.
  • Burmese everyday conversation uses a lot of pronouns. To address the user, (သင) ် is always good and polite.

Word choice

  • Use approved terminology for key terms, technical terms, and product names.
  • Prefer short, simple, everyday words. Short words save space on screen and read faster.
  • en App: use app, not application or program.
  • en Pick, choose: use pick in more fun, less formal or light-weight situations (pick a color, not choose a color) and choose for more formal situations. Do not use select unless the UI needs it.
  • en Drive: use for general reference to any drive type (hard drive, CD drive, external hard drive). Use the specific drive type if necessary.
  • en Get: fine as a synonym for obtain or come into possession of. Avoid it for other general meanings.
  • en Info: use in most situations unless information fits the context better. Use info when you point the reader elsewhere (for more info, see <link>).
  • en PC: use for personal computing devices. Use computer for situations about PCs and Macs.
  • en You: address the user as you, directly or indirectly through first- and second-person pronouns. Avoid third-person references such as user. They sound formal and impersonal.
  • en PC -> my ပီစီ. PC is also known as ကွနပ် ျူတာ၊ ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ရ ေးသေးု ကွနပ ် ျူတာ but ပီစီ is used for short-form.
  • en App -> my အက်ပ်. It is the short word of application in Burmese အက်ပလီရကေးရငှ ေး် and most people know it.

Words and phrases to avoid

  • Avoid an unnecessarily formal tone. Avoid spam words and characters. Avoid technical jargon wherever possible.
  • en Achieve -> en Do
  • en As well as -> en Also, too
  • en Attempt -> en Try
  • en Configure -> en Set up
  • en Encounter -> en Meet
  • en Execute -> en Run
  • en Halt -> en Stop
  • en Have an opportunity -> en Can
  • en However -> en But
  • en Give/provide guidance, give/provide information -> en Help
  • en In addition -> en Also
  • en In conjunction with -> en With
  • en Locate -> en Find
  • en Make a recommendation -> en Recommend
  • en Modify -> en Change
  • en Navigate -> en Go
  • en Obtain -> en Get
  • en Perform -> en Do
  • en Purchase -> en Buy
  • en Refer to -> en See
  • en Resolve -> en Fix
  • en Subsequent -> en Next
  • en Suitable -> en Works well
  • en Terminate -> en End
  • en Toggle -> en Switch
  • en Utilize -> en Use
  • For Burmese there is no such word to avoid. Refer to Myanmar Language Commission.

Sample voice text

  • Address the user to take action. en The password isn’t correct, so please try again. Passwords are case-sensitive. -> my စကာေးဝှက်မှာေးယွငေး် ရနပါသဖြင့်် ရက ေးဇေးဖပိုပပီေး ရနာက်တစ်ကကဂမ် ကကဂိုေးစာေးရပေးပါ။ စကာေးဝှက်ရတွဟာ တစ်လုေးနတ့် စ်လုေး စာလ ုေးအကကီေးအရသေးကအစ မှတ်သာေးထာေးတစ့် ကာေးဝှက်န ့် တညီြဂုလ့် ဂုအပ်ပါတယ်။; give a short and friendly instruction to repeat the action.
  • en This product key didn’t work. Please check it and try again. -> my ဒီ ထတု ်ကုနအ် မှတ်စဉ် ကဂု အသုေးဖပိုလဂုမ ပါ။ ့် ရက ေးဇေးဖပို၍ စစ်ရ ေးပပီေး ရနာက်တစ် ကကဂမ်ကကဂိုေးစာေးကကည်ပါ။့်; ask the user casually and politely to re-check and re-try.
  • en All ready to go -> my အာေးလေးု အ ငသ် ငဖ့်် ြစ်ပါပပီ; casual and short message that setup has completed.
  • en Would you like to continue? -> my သင က် ်လက်လုပ်ရ ာငခ ် ငပါသလာ် ေး; use the second person pronoun you to politely address the user.
  • en Give your PC a name—any name you want. If you want to change the background color, turn high contrast off in PC settings. -> my သင့်် ပ့် ီစီကဂု ကကဂိုက်တ့် နာမည်တစ်ခုရပေးပါ။ ရနာက်ခအရ ာငရ် ဖပာငေး် လလဂုပါက ပီစီ ့် သတ်မှတ်ခ က်မ ာေးထမှာ ဖမငမ် ာေးရသာကွဖပာေးခ က် ကဂု ပဂတ်လဂုက်ပါ။ ့်; address the user directly with the second person pronoun to take the necessary action.
  • Promoting a feature. en Let apps give you personalized content based on your PC’s location, name, account picture, and other domain info. -> my သင့်် ပ့် ီစီ တည်ရန ာ၊ နာမည်၊ အရကာငရ့်် ုပ်ပုနငှ ့်် တဖခာေးဒမဂနဂု ေး် အခ ကအလက် မ ာ် ေးကဂု အရဖခခပပီေး ကဂုယ်လဂုခ ငသလဂု ် ဖပိုလုပ် န အက် ်ပ်ကဂု ုေးဖြတ်ခွငရ့်် ပေးလဂုက်ပါ။; add familiarity with everyday words such as PC.
  • Providing how-to guidelines. en To go back and save your work, click Cancel and finish what you need to. -> my ဖပနသ် ွာေးြဂုန့် ့်သင့်် အ့် လုပ်ကဂု သမဂ ်ေး ညေး် ြဂုအ့် တွက် ပယ်ြ က်ဖခငေး် ကဂုနပဂှ ်ပပီေး အပပီေးသတ်စ ာကဂစစမ ာေးကဂု ဖပိုလုပ်ပါ။; short and clear action description, achieved with the second person pronoun.
  • en To confirm your current picture password, just watch the replay and trace the example gestures shown on your picture. -> my အခုဖပိုလုပ်ထာေးတ ရုပ့် ်ပစကု ာေးဝှက်ကဂု အတည်ဖပိုြဂုအ့် တွက် သင့်် ရ့် ုပ်ပုရပေါ်မှာ ဖပသတ့် ဖပနလ် ည်ရြာ်ဖပခ ကန် ့်ဥပမာ ဟနပန် မ ာ် ေးကဂု ကကညရ့်် ှုရပေးပါ။; voice is simple and natural. The user is not overloaded with information. They are told only what they need to make a decision.
  • en It’s time to enter the product key. It should be on the box that the Windows DVD came in or in an email that shows you bought Windows. When you connect to the Internet, we’ll activate Windows for you. -> my ထတ်ကု ုနအမှတ်စဉ်် ကဂု ရုက်ဂ ထညရပေးပါ။ ့်် အမှတ်စဉ်ကဂု ဝယ်ယလာသည့်် Windowsဒဗီ ွီဒရီ ခွ သုမဂ ့် ဟုတ် Windowsဝယ်ယ ထာေးရကကာငေး် ဖပသတ ့် အငတ် ာနက်ခ ဂတ်ထာေးလြွင် မမဂ ဂတဂုမ့် အေးီ ရမေးလ်တွင ရ် တွွေ့ ဖမငန် ငဂု ပ် ါတယ်။ Windowsကဂု မှတ်ပုတငရ် ပေးပါမယ်။; speak to the user directly and naturally with the second person pronoun you.
  • Explanatory text and providing support. en The updates are installed, but Windows 8 Setup needs to restart for them to work. After it restarts, we’ll keep going from where we left off. -> my အပ်ဒတ်မ ဂ ာေး သွငေး် ပပီေးပါပပီ။ ဒါရပမယ့်် Windows 8 Setup အရနဖြင့်် လုပ်ရ ာငမှုစ် န် စက်ဖပနစ် ြဂု လ့် ဂုပါလဂမ့််မယ်။ စက်ဖပနစ် ပပီေးလြွင် က နရ် နခသ့် ည်ရ့် န ာမှ က်သွာေးမှာပါ။; the language is natural and reassuring. Use of we gives a more personal feel.
  • en If you restart now, you and any other people using this PC could lose unsaved work. -> my အခု စက်ဖပနစပါ် က ဒပီ ီစီကဂု အသုေးဖပိုရနတ့် သငန် ့်တဖခာေးသတဂု ့် မသမ်ေးဂ ညေး် ရသေးတ အလု့် ပ်ရတွ ုေးရှုေးရကာငေး် ေးု ရှုေးနငဂု ပါ် တယ်။; voice is clear and natural about what happens if this action is taken.
  • en This document will be automatically moved to the right library and folder after you correct invalid or missing properties. -> my ဒစီ ာ ွက်စာတမ်ေး မ့် ှာေးယွငေး် ရနတ့် ဒါမှမဟုတ် ရပ ာက် ုေးရနတ အ့် ာရတွကဂု မှနကန် ရအာင် ် ဖပိုလုပ်ပပီေးမှ ရန ာမှန် စာကကည်တ့် ဂုက်န ့် ြဂုလ်ဒါထကဂု အလဂုအရလ ာက် ရ ာက်ရသွာေးှဂ မှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ။်; direct expression of the action to be taken.
  • en Something bad happened! Unable to locate downloaded files to create your bootable USB flash drive. -> my တစ်ခုခု မှာေးယွငေး် ရနပါတယ်။ ဘုလုပ်နငဂု ရသာ ် USB ြလက်ရှ်ဒရုဂက် ြနတ် ေးီ ြဂု ရ့် ဒါငေး် လုပ် လုပ်ထာေးတ ြ့် ဂုငရတ် ွကဂု ရှာမရတွွေ့ပါ။; avoid complex wording and use simple language.

Phone number formats

  • 01 555 423 (local or domestic call)
  • 01 555 423 လဂုငေး် ခွ 123 (phone number with extension number)
  • +95 (9) 7885 14981 (international call for mobile phone)
  • +95 (1) 251 311 (international call for fixed line)

Sorting order

  • Sort by the consonants: က, ခ, ဂ, ဃ, င, စ, , ဇ, စ , ည, ဋ, ဌ, ဍ, ဎ, ဏ, တ, ထ, ဒ, ဓ, န, ပ, ြ, ဗ, ဘ, မ, ယ, , လ, ဝ, သ, ဟ, ဠ, အ per Myanmar Spelling Dictionary, Myanmar Language Commission, Second Edition, 2003.

Measurement units

  • Prefer full forms for measurement units. Abbreviated forms are not familiar to the Burmese audience and may mislead. Use the Burmese full form wherever possible. The more familiar length units (kilometer, millimeter) are an exception and can take the abbreviations below.
  • en Kilometer -> my ကီလဂုမီတာ, abbreviation km
  • en Meter -> my မီတာ, abbreviation m
  • en Decimeter -> my ရဒစီမီတာ, abbreviation N/A
  • en Centimeter -> my စငတီမီတ် ာ, abbreviation cm
  • en Millimeter -> my မီလီမီတာ, abbreviation mm
  • en Hectoliter -> my ဟက်တဂုလီတာ, abbreviation N/A
  • en Liter -> my လီတာ, abbreviation N/A
  • en Deciliter -> my ရဒစီလီတာ, abbreviation N/A
  • en Centiliter -> my စငတီလ် ီတာ, abbreviation N/A
  • en Milliliter -> my မီလီလီတာ, abbreviation N/A
  • en Ton -> my တန်, abbreviation N/A
  • en Kilogram -> my ကီလဂုဂ မ်, abbreviation kg
  • en Pound -> my ရပါင်, abbreviation N/A
  • en Gram -> my ဂ မ်, abbreviation N/A
  • en Decigram -> my ရဒစီဂ မ်, abbreviation N/A
  • en Centigram -> my စငတီဂ် မ်, abbreviation N/A
  • en Milligram -> my မီလီဂ မ်, abbreviation N/A
  • en Inch -> my လက်မ, abbreviation N/A
  • en Feet -> my ရပ, abbreviation N/A
  • en Mile -> my မဂုင်, abbreviation N/A
  • en Gallon -> my ဂါလ, abbreviation N/A

Abbreviations

  • Abbreviated forms are not familiar to the Burmese audience and may mislead. Use the Burmese full form wherever possible. With proper context the abbreviated form is fine.
  • LED -> LED
  • LCD -> LCD
  • UV -> UV

Acronyms

  • Acronyms are words made up of the initial letters of major parts of a compound term. Examples: WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), DNS (Domain Name Server), HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
  • Some acronyms are localized. Most are not. Do not localize acronyms like SIM, UIM. They are familiar to the target audience. Translate less popular acronyms in full form so end users understand.
  • Localized: en A.M -> my မနက်
  • en P.M -> my ညရန/ည
  • en FAQ -> my ရမေးရလရ့် ှဂရသာ ရမေးခွနေး် မ ာေး
  • Unlocalized: TGIF -> TGIF; AFK -> AFK; OS -> OS

Adjectives

  • Burmese has no standard adjectives. It has verbs that carry the meaning to be X, where X acts as an English adjective. These verbs modify a noun with the grammatical particle တ ့် in spoken Burmese, literary form ရသာ, suffixed as follows.
  • Speaking: ရခ ာတ လ ့်; Written: ရခ ာရသာလ; gloss: "beautiful" + adjective particle + "person"
  • Adjectives may also form a compound with the noun, for example လ ရခ ာ ("person" + "be beautiful").
  • en Personal computer -> my ကဂုယ်ရ ေးသေးီ သနအ် ့် သုေးဖပိုရသာ ကွနပ် ျူတာ
  • en Wireless mouse -> my ကကဂိုေးမ့် ရမာက်စ်
  • en Operating system -> my လုပ်ရ ာငသည် စန့်် စ်
  • en One key recovery -> my တစ်ခ က်ခလုတ် ဖပနဖပ် ငဖခ် ငေး်

Articles

  • Unlocalized feature names are used without definite or indefinite articles. Some English words stay unlocalized.
  • Windows 8.1 -> Windows 8.1
  • en USB Cable -> my USB ကကဂိုေး
  • Intel -> Intel; Core i3 -> Core i3
  • Localized feature names: English words are mostly transliterated in IT terminology.
  • en DVD-ROM -> my ဒဗီ ီဒစက်ီ
  • en Internet -> my အငတာ် နက်
  • en Email -> my အေးီ ရမေးလ်
  • en Java -> my ဂ ာဗာေး
  • For an English loan word, check motivation (does the English word have formally motivated features that integrate into the Burmese noun class system), analogy (is there an equivalent Burmese term whose article could be used), and frequency (is the term used in other technical documentation, and which article is most often used).
  • Most IT terms are not localized yet. Leave them as English for comprehension.
  • Always check approved terminology to confirm a new loan word and its proper article, to avoid inconsistencies.

Compounds

  • Keep compounds understandable and clear. Avoid overly long or complex compounds. Unintuitive compounds are an intelligibility and usability issue.
  • Burmese compounds combine verbs and nouns, verb and verb, verb and noun, or noun and noun. The combined meaning differs from each word alone.
  • Translate an English word that includes a space or hyphen without a space and without a hyphen. Use a space only when the source and the context require it.
  • en Half-time -> my အခ ဂနတစ်ဝက် ်
  • en Business card -> my စီေးပွာေးရ ေးကဒ်
  • en Wi-Fi -> my ၀ိုဂုငြ် ဂုင်
  • en Anti-virus -> my ဗဂုငေး် ပ်စ်ကာကွယ်ရ ေး
  • en Power cable -> my ပါဝါကကဂိုေး

Conjunctions

  • Conjunctions help convey a conversational tone. Starting a sentence with a conjunction conveys an informal tone and style.
  • Use conjunctions that sound natural and match the spoken language.
  • en While -> my written ရနစဉ်, spoken ရနတုနေး်
  • en However -> my written သုဖဂ ြ့် စ်ရသာ်ဖငာေး/သရုဂ ့် ပမယလ့်် ည်ေး, spoken ဒါရပမယ့််
  • en And -> my written နငှ ့််, spoken န ့်

Gender

  • Pronouns reflect first, second and third person. For politeness end the sentence with “kha mya (ခငဗ် )” for male and “shint (ရှင)့်် ” for female.
  • en I -> my ငါ/ကျွနရတ် ာ်/ကျွနမ်
  • en You -> my နင/် ခငဗ် ာေး/ရငှ ်
  • en Him/Her -> my သ /သ မ

Localizing colloquialism, idioms, and metaphors

  • Do not replace a source colloquialism with a local colloquialism of the same meaning unless it is a perfect and natural fit for the context.
  • Translate the intended meaning of the colloquialism, not the literal words, but only when the meaning is an integral part of the text.
  • Omit the colloquialism when omission does not affect the meaning.
  • In Burmese, metaphors, idioms and colloquialism are used in spoken language only. They are not suitable in IT localization or modern Burmese. They sound awkward and mislead users.

Nouns

  • Pluralize nouns by suffixing the particle that indicates a group of persons or things.
  • Transliterate proper nouns into Burmese. Do not translate them. Translation can mislead end users.
  • Use မ ာေး, ရတွ, or တဂု့် after the noun to show the plural. Some cases take no word change.
  • en Cables -> my ကကဂိုေးမ ာေး
  • en Accounts -> my အရကာငမ့်် ာေး
  • en Devices -> my စက်မ ာေး

Prepositions

  • Use prepositions properly. Do not omit them or change the word order under the influence of English.
  • Prepositions help convey a casual or conversational tone. Starting or ending a sentence with a preposition is acceptable.
  • In Burmese the preposition goes after the noun and acts as a postposition.

Pronouns

  • Omit the subject in all imperative forms and in conversation.
  • Attach the particles က and သည် to pronouns. Spoken language leaves these particles out.
  • Object pronouns must take the object marker particle ကဂု or အာေး immediately after the pronoun.
  • en I -> my ကျွနရတ် ာ် (by male), ကျွနမ် (by female)
  • en You -> my ခငဗ် ာေး (by male), ရှင် (by female)

Punctuation

  • Follow the English punctuation. The main difference: Burmese uses no full stop or question mark after sentences. Use ။ at the end of the sentence, including questions. Use ၊ to pause sentences for speakers or readers.
  • en Network not available. -> my ကွနယက် ်မ နငဂု ပါ။်
  • Comma: Burmese uses a different comma symbol ၊. Use the en-US comma symbol when translating currency or other numerals.
  • en Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Health Statistics Reports, no. 41, 2011. -> my ရ ာဂါ ထနဂ ေး် သမဂ ်ေးရ ေးနငှ က့်် ာကွယ်ရ ေး ဌာနမ ာေး၊ နငဂု င် ရတာ် က နေး် မာရ ေး ကဂနေး် ဂဏနေး် အစီ ငခ စာ် မ ာေး၊ နပါတ် 41၊ 2011ကဂု အရဖခခ ထာေးပါသည်။
  • $ 1,526.75 -> $ 1,526.75
  • Colon: insert a space before the colon so the colon is not mistaken for a similar Burmese symbol. Example: Moderate: = အသငအ့်် တင့်် :
  • en To enable this file type, do the following: -> my ဤြဂုငအမ ဂို် ေးအစာေး ရှဂနငဂု ် န၊ ရ် အာက်ပါအတငဂု ေး် ဖပိုလုပ်ပါ :
  • en Scale bubble to: -> my ပ ရပါငေး် ဒုဂ စရ် ကေးမှ :
  • Period: use the period at the end of a phrase or sentence, and at the end of full sentences and sentence clauses, depending on context. Do not use a period with titles or headings. Use ။ in Burmese, not the source symbol.
  • Network not available. = ကွနယက် ်မ နငဂု ပ် ါ။
  • For units of measurement use the standard period symbol.
  • 6.5 mm -> 6.5 mm
  • 11 x 8.5 in -> 11 x 8.5 in
  • Question mark: use ? with caution. A translated question usually needs no question mark.
  • For formal questions use the period ။ instead of a question mark at the end of the sentence. Use a question mark when the context requires it.
  • Hyphen: the hyphen divides words between syllables, links parts of a compound word, and connects the parts of an inverted or imperative verb form. Translating hyphenated source compounds does not affect translation.
  • en Half-time -> my အခ ဂနတစ်ဝက် ်; Half is တစ်ဝက် and time is အခ ဂန. The hyphen is invisible when translating.
  • En dash: Burmese does not normally use the en dash. Do not overuse the symbol. When the source structure requires it, follow the source and use an en dash preceded and followed by a space. Use ALT+0150 for the en dash.
  • en Downloads – sorted by date -> my ရဒါငေး် လုတမ ာ် ေး – ရနအ့် လကဂု ် ရ ွေးထာေးသည်
  • Ellipses: follow the source. For a long pause or thinking use Unicode value U+002E. Place ellipses at the end of a sentence. They must not appear between words or act as a conjunction.
  • en Loading… -> my ရ ာင် ွက် …; use it at the end.
  • Quotation marks: use them for direct quotations in Burmese. Follow the source and surround software references with quotation marks.
  • en He said “Too much”. -> my “မ ာေးလွနေး် တယ”် လဂု သ့် က ရဖပာခ့်ပါတယ်။

Sentence fragments

  • Sentence fragments help convey a conversational tone. Use them wherever possible. They are short and to the point.
  • Omit words to make sentences shorter when the meaning does not change.
  • en Please wait for a while. -> my long form ရက ေးဇေးဖပို၍ ရခတတ ခဏ ရစာင့်် ုငဂ ေး် ရပေးပါ။, fragment ခဏရစာငပ့်် ါ။
  • en This file could not be downloaded. -> my long form ဤြဂုငကဂု ် ရဒါငေး် လုပ်ဖပိုလုပ်၍ မ နငဂု ပါ။်, fragment ြဂုငက် ဂု ရဒါငေး် လပု ်လဂုမ့် ပါ။
  • en Following file is already opened. -> my long form ရြာ်ဖပပါြဂုငသ် ည် ြွငထ့်် ာေးနငှ ပ့်် ပီေးသာေး ဖြစ်သည်။, fragment ြဂုငမ် ှာ ြွငထ့်် ာေးပပီေးပါပပီ။
  • Translate strings as short and exact as possible. Burmese strings expand compared to the English source. Take special care with buttons, headings, and tabs visible in the UI or web, and account for the context.

Symbols and non-breaking spaces

  • Burmese has its own symbols for units and currency. Put a space between the unit and the value. Put no space with currency signs.
  • en 25mm -> my ၂၅မီလီမီတာ
  • en Kyats 1500 -> my ၁၅၀ို၀ိုက ပ်
  • Use a non-breaking space between a number and its measure: 15&nbsp; GB (15 GB).
  • Strictly follow the source text convention of non-breaking space.

Verbs

  • Use simple tenses. The simple present is the easiest to understand. Avoid future tense unless the event happens only in the future and the simple present does not apply. Use simple past for events that already happened.
  • In Burmese verbs usually appear at the end of the sentence. Suffix verb roots with at least one particle that conveys tense, intention, politeness, or mood. Different styles apply to spoken and written language.
  • en Smart phone is kind of mobile with advance features. -> my writing စမတ်ြုနေး် သည် ရခတ်မီ ဝဂရသသမ ာေးဖြင့်် မဘဂု ုငဂ ေး် တစ်မ ဂိုေးဖြစ်သည်။, speaking စမတ်ြုနေး် ုတာဂ ရခတ်မီ ဝဂရသသရတွန ့်မဂုဘငုဂ ေး် တစ်မ ဂိုေး ဖြစ်တယ်။
  • en Go to settings. -> my writing သတ်မှတ်ခ က်မ ာေးသုဂ သွာေး့် သည်။, speaking သတ်မှတ်ခ က်မ ာေးကဂု သွာေးပါ။
  • en Copy contacts you want to move and save it in storage. -> my သငရ် ရွေ့လဂုသည့်် အ က်အသွယ်မ ာေးကဂု ကေးယပပီေး ၎ငေး် တဂုက့် ဂု သုရလဂ ှာငခန် ေး် တွင် သမ်ဂ ေး ညေး် ပါ။

Localization considerations

  • Adapt the translated text to the local language, customs, and standards.
  • Give the language the look and feel of a product originally written in Burmese, with idiomatic syntax and terminology, and high terminological consistency.
  • Omit personal pronouns to make sentences shorter. There is very little difference between active and passive voice in Burmese. Active voice is preferred.
  • Avoid overlocalizing IT terms.

Accessibility

  • Accessibility options and programs make the computer usable by people with cognitive, hearing, physical, or visual disabilities.
  • Hardware and software components engage a flexible, customizable user interface, alternative input and output methods, and greater exposure of screen elements. Some accessible products and services may not be available in Burmese-speaking markets. Double-check with the appropriate resources.

Applications, products, and features

  • Application and product names are rarely translated because they are often trademarked.
  • Transliteration is quite common in Burmese. It is the standard approach for technical terms such as keyboard, monitor, memo, Samsung, Bluetooth, where the Burmese dictionary has no translation.
  • Version numbers always contain a period, for example Version 4.2.
  • en Version 1.1 -> my ဗာေးရှငေး် ၁.၁
  • Version numbers are usually part of version strings, but technically they are not the same.
  • Product, feature and component names are often in version strings as they appear in the software. Always translate version strings that contain copyright information.

Error messages

  • Error messages inform the user of an error that must be corrected for the program to keep running. They can prompt the user to take action or inform the user that the computer needs rebooting.
  • Apply the voice principles so the target translation is natural, empathetic, and not robot-like.
  • en Oops, that can't be blank... -> my အု၊ဂ ့် ဒါကဂုအလတွ ်ထာေးလဂုမ့် ဘေးရလ…
  • en Not enough memory to process this command. -> my ဒအီ မဂနရ် ့် ပေးတာကဂု ရ ာင် ွက်ြဂု ့် ပဂုက် မလ ုရလာက်ပါ။
  • Use consistent terminology and language style in localized error messages. Do not just translate them as they appear in the source.
  • Keep error messages polite and gentle in Burmese.
  • Use the target phrases below for the standard phrases. Use another way to express the source meaning when it works better in the context.
  • en Cannot …, Could not … -> my မ … နငဂု ်; example en This program could not be installed. -> my ဤပရုဂ ဂ မ်ကဂု မသွငေး် နငဂု ပါ။်
  • en Failed to …, Failure of … -> my …မရအာငဖမ် ငပါ်; example en Failed to initialize the program. -> my ပရုဂဂ မ်ကဂု စတငဖခင် ေး် မရအာငဖမ် ငပါ။်
  • en Cannot find …, Could not find …, Unable to find …, Unable to locate … -> my … ရှာလဂုမ့် ပါ, … ရှာမရတွွေ့ပါ; example en Cannot find file. -> my ြဂုငကဂုရှာမရတ် ွွေ့ပါ။
  • en Not enough memory, Insufficient memory, There is not enough memory, There is not enough memory available -> my လ ုရလာက်ရသာ မှတ်ဉာဏ် မရှဂပါ
  • en ... is not available, ... is unavailable -> my မရှဂပါ; example en Video card is unavailable. -> my ဗီဒယဂုကီ ဒ မရှဂပါ။်
  • For error messages with placeholders, find out what replaces the placeholder so the sentence stays grammatical.
  • Placeholder letters carry a specific meaning: %d, %ld, %u, %lu mean <number>; %c means <letter>; %s means <string>.
  • "Checking Web %1!d! of %2!d!" means "Checking Web <number> of <number>."
  • INI file "%1!-.200s!" section means INI file "<string>" section.
  • Never localize the placeholders into Burmese. Because of declension, allow for multiple variants of placeholder elements.
  • en %d lessons and all data related to them will be deleted. -> my ၎ငေး် တဂုန့် ငှ ပ့်် တ်သက်ရသာ သငခ် နေး် စာ %d ခုနငှ ့်် ရဒတာအာေးလေးု ြ က်ပစ်လဂမမ့်် ည်။
  • en %d files could not be recovered. -> my ြဂုင် %dခုကဂု ဖပနရြ် ာ်ထတ်၍ု မ နငဂု ပါ။်
  • en Downloading %d -> my %d ာခဂုငန် နှု ေး် ရဒါငေး် လုပ်လုပ်ရနသည်။
  • en Error in copying %d file -> my %d ြဂုငက ေး် ယ ာတငွ ဖပဿ် နာရှဂရနသည်။

Keys

  • References to key names such as arrow keys, function keys and numeric keys appear in normal text, not in small caps. Keep them the same as English. Most keys are familiar to Burmese users.

Keyboard shortcuts

  • Keyboard shortcuts are the underlined or highlighted letters in menu options, commands, or dialog boxes. They help the user perform tasks faster.
  • Slim characters such as I, l, t, r, f can be used as keyboard shortcuts: yes.
  • Characters with down strokes such as g, j, y, p, q can be used as keyboard shortcuts: yes.
  • Extended characters can be used as keyboard shortcuts: no.
  • An additional letter between brackets after the item name can be used as a keyboard shortcut: yes.
  • A number between brackets after the item name can be used as a keyboard shortcut: yes.
  • A punctuation sign between brackets after the item name can be used as a keyboard shortcut: no.
  • Duplicate keyboard shortcuts are allowed when no other character is available: yes.
  • No keyboard shortcut is assigned when no more characters are available, minor options only: n/a.
  • Preferred Burmese characters as access keys: က, ခ, ဂ, ဃ, င, စ, , ဇ, စ , ည, ဋ, ဌ, ဍ, ဎ, ဏ, တ, ထ, ဒ, ဓ, န, ပ, ြ, ဗ, ဘ, မ, ယ, , လ, ဝ, သ, ဟ, ဠ, အ
  • access key: a subtype of keyboard shortcut. A letter or number the user types to access UI controls that have text labels. Access keys are assigned to top-level controls so the user can move through the UI quickly with the keyboard. Example: F in Alt+F. Example in UI localization: H&ome. Most access keys are used with the Alt key.
  • key tip: the letter or number that appears in the ribbon when the Alt key is pressed. In UI localization the key tip is the last character present in the strings after the ` character. Example: Home`H
  • shortcut key: a subtype of keyboard shortcut. A key the user types to perform a common action without going through the UI. Shortcut keys are not available for every command. Example: Ctrl+N, Ctrl+V. Most shortcut keys are used with the Ctrl key. Ctrl+letter combinations and function keys F1 through F12 are usually the best choices.

Arrow key names

  • Burmese is the same as English for arrow keys.

Tone

  • Match the tone to the target audience: more informal, playful and inspiring for most products and games; formal, informative, and factual in technical texts.
  • Avoid word-for-word translations. They are risky in IT translations.
  • Avoid passive voice wherever possible. Split the text into different sentences when necessary, and simplify it, but keep the meaning.
  • Keep the tone formal enough. When speaking to the end user do not make the language too personal. That is rather impolite in Burmese.

English pronunciation

  • Pronounce English terms and product names left unlocalized the English way. When the language has an established pronunciation for a common term such as server, use the local pronunciation. Adapt pronunciation to the Burmese phonetic system when the original sounds very awkward.
  • Almost the whole phonetics of English can be pronounced by Burmese.
  • SecurID -> [sı’kjuər aı di:]
  • .NET -> [dot net]
  • Pronounce acronyms like real words, adapted to the local pronunciation.
  • RADIUS -> [rā dē əs]
  • RAS -> [rā a s]
  • ISA -> [‘i s a]
  • LAN -> [læn]
  • WAN -> [dəbəlju e ɛn]
  • WAP -> [dəbəlju e pi]
  • MAPI -> [ɛm e pi aj]
  • POP -> [pap]
  • URL -> [ju ar ɛl]
  • Pronounce other abbreviations letter by letter.
  • ICMP -> [aj si ɛm pi]
  • IP -> [aj pi]
  • TCP/IP -> [ti si pi/aj pi]
  • XML -> [ɛks ɛm ɛl]
  • HTML -> [etʃ ti ɛm ɛl]
  • OWA -> [o dəbəlju e]
  • SQL -> [ɛs kiu ɛl]
  • XP -> [ɛks pi]
  • URLs: leave out http://. Read the rest of the URL entirely.
  • Pronounce www as ဒဘလ ျူ ဒဘလ ျူ ဒဘလ ျူ.
  • Omit the dot, or read it out. When you read it out, pronounce it the Burmese way as ရဒါ.့်
  • http://www.microsoft.com/ -> dəbəlju dəbəlju dəbəlju dot mikrosoft dot koɛm ဒဘလ ျူ ဒဘလ ျူ ရဒါ ့်မဂုက်ခရုဂရ ာ့် ရဒါ ့်ရကာ်မ်
  • Burmese punctuation marks are not the same as English. Avoid them in the voice system.
  • Pronounce special characters such as / \ ˘ < > +- using the approved Burmese translations.

Local usage

The source largely retains questions and examples from a style-guide template. Use its review topics to check audience, tone, grammar, and terminology; do not treat its unfilled questions as settled Burmese conventions.