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

အလွတ်ကျက် to learn by heart

Have a question about a Burmese word or phrase you heard here? Send us a message.