Or as John Okell would romanicize it, “beh-lauq-lèh”. Which is to say “how much?”, which is what I said when I started on my first all-Burmese language interaction. It went a little bit like this (translated for the English speakers amongst us):
Me, pointing at a bowl: “How much?”
Stall holder: “600”
Me: “600?”
Stall holder nods, I hand him 500 Kyat (not in any ham-fisted attempt at bargaining, I heard him say 600 and I know the word for 600, I just had a minor brain explosion).
Stall holder, in a slightly exasperated voice: “600”
Me, handing him an extra 100 Kyat note: “sorry”
Stall holder hands me the bowl and I thank him. His friend starts laughing uproariously, no doubt partly at my apparent inability to count to six, but I think mostly because I massively overpaid for the bowl. But 600 Kyat is about 60c, so I did ok.
Since then I have unsuccessfully tried to barter with taxi drivers (mainly saying “it’s expensive” then “much lower price x”), misunderstood the lady I was trying to buy limes from (three limes for 20c!), and said a lot of “sorry” and “thank you”. My language study is very much a work in progress.
