By AUGUSTIN
Myanmar proverbs, with their beautiful and vivid imagery, enrich everyday conversations.
သိဒ္ဓိတင်
/thei di tin/
သိဒ္ဓိ = ဂုဏ်၊ တန်ခိုး၊ ကျက်သရေ။
သိဒ္ဓိ (thei di): This comes from Pali and essentially means “power”, “accomplishment”, “success”, or “spiritual power”. In a more casual sense, it can mean “good fortune” or “blessing”.
တင် (tin): This means “to place”, “to raise”, or “to establish”. In this context, it implies “to enhance” or “to empower”.
Therefore, “သိဒ္ဓိတင်” (thei di tin) means to empower something with spiritual power, or to enhance the good fortune of something with ritual recitations.
“သိ ဒ္ဓ ိတင် ”ဆိ ုကတော ့တန် ခိ ုးတွေ ၊ကောင်းကျိုးတွေရအောင ် မန္တရားတွေ ရွတ်ဖတ်ပြီး လုပ်တာကို ဆိုလိုပါတယ်။ ဥပမာ၊ ဆင်းတုတော်ကို သိဒ္ဓိတင်တယ်ဆိုရင်၊ အဲဒီဆင်းတုတော်မှာ ပိုပြီး တန် ခိ ုးတွေ ၊ကျက် သရေတွေ ရှ ိအောင ်လု ပ် တာမျိုးပေါ့ ။ဒါမှ မဟု တ် လက်ဖွဲ့ပစ္စည်းတွေကိုလည်း သိဒ္ဓိတင်ကြတယ်။ လက်ဖွဲ့ပစ္စည်း မှ ာကာကွယ် ပေးနိ ုင် တဲ ့၊ကောင် းကျိုးပေးနိ ုင် တဲ ့အစွမ် းတွေ ပိ ုပြီ းရှ ိအောင ် လု ပ် တာမျိုးပဲ ။
လက် ဖွဲ့တွေ ၊ဂါထာပစ္စ ည် းတွေ ကိုယုံကြည် တဲ ့သူ တွေ ကအဲ ဒီ ပစ္စ ည် းတွေ မှ ာတန် ခိ ုးတွေ ဝင် အောင ်အထူ းပြုလု ပ် တဲ့အစီ အရင် တွေ လုပ်ရတယ်။ အဲဒီအစီအရင်တွေထဲမှာ မန္တရားတွေရွတ်တာလည်း ပါတယ်။ ဒါကြောင့် ကိုယ့်ကိုယ်ကိုပဲဖြစ်ဖြစ်၊ ကိုယ်ချစ်တဲ့သူတွေ ကိ ုပဲ ဖြစ် ဖြစ ် ချီ းမွမ် းတဲ ့အခါမှ ာ‘သိ ဒ္ဓိ တင် တယ် ’လ ိ ု့ပြောလိ ု့ရတယ် ။
To Honor with Ritual Recitations
Those who believe in the power of talismans and amulets must perform a special ritual to imbue these objects with magical abilities. This ritual includes the recitation of specific verbal charms. Therefore, when a person praises their qualities or those of their loved ones, this act is referred to as “honouring with ritual recitations.”
The Myanmar idiom “To Honor with Ritual Recitations” refers to a cultural practice where individuals perform specific rituals to enhance the power of talismans and amulets. Believers in these objects view them as sources of protection or good fortune, and to activate their magical properties, a special ritual is necessary. This ritual involves reciting particular verbal charms or incantations that are believed to imbue the objects with their intended powers.
Additionally, the idiom extends to the act of praising oneself or loved ones, which is seen as a form of honouring. By verbally acknowledging and celebrating personal qualities or those of close relatives, individuals reinforce positive attributes and intentions. This practice not only reflects a deep-rooted belief in the power of words and rituals but also emphasizes the importance of self-affirmation and recognition within the community.
USAGES:
Raise the Bar
Definition: To increase standards or expectations, thereby enhancing performance or quality.
Example: The new manager decided to raise the bar for customer service, expecting all employees to provide exceptional support.
Blessing in Disguise
Definition: A seemingly negative situation that results in something positive.
Example: Losing that job was a blessing in disguise; it pushed me to pursue my dream career.
Put a Spell On
Definition: To enchant or empower someone or something, often used in a magical or metaphorical context.
Example: The artist’s performance put a spell on the audience, leaving them mesmerized and wanting more.
Give a Leg Up
Definition: To provide assistance or support that enhances someone’s chances of success.
Example: The internship gave her a leg up in the competitive job market, helping her land a full-time position.
Light a Fire Under
Definition: To motivate or inspire someone to take action, thereby enhancing their performance or drive.
Example: The coach lit a fire under the team, encouraging them to give their best effort in the championship game.
Empower Someone
Definition: To give someone the authority or power to do something, enhancing their capabilities.
Example: The training program is designed to empower employees to take initiative and make decisions.
Sprinkle a Little Magic
သတ္တုချ
/thá tu. cha./
အပြစ်/တာဝန်ရှိကြောင်း ဆန်းစစ်သည်။
ပြဿနာတစ်ခုရဲ့ အကြောင်းအရင်းကို ရှာသည်။
သတ္တုချကြည့်လိုက်လျှင် ဘဘအပေါ်ပုံကျသည်…
“သတ္တုချ” ဆိုတာကတော့ သတ္တုရိုင်းတွေကို အမှုန့်ဖြစ် အောင် ကြိတ်ပြီး လိုချင်တဲ့သတ္တုကို ထုတ်ယူတဲ့ လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်ကို ပြောတာပါ။ ပြဿနာတစ် ခု ကိုအသေးစိ တ် စစ် ဆေးပြီ းအပိ ုင် းပိ ုင် းခွဲထုတ်တာကိုလည် း“သတ္တ ုချတယ်”လိ ု့သု ံးကြတယ်။ ဥပမာ၊ တစ် ယောက် ယောက် ကအလု ပ် တစ် ခု ကိုသေချာမလု ပ် လို့အပြစ် ရှ ိလားဆိုတာကို စစ်ဆေးတဲ့အခါမှာ “သူ့ကို သတ္တုချလိုက်တော့” လို့ ပြောလို့ရတယ်။ ဒါမှမဟုတ် ပြဿနာတစ်ခုရဲ့ အကြောင်းအရင်း ကို ရှာတဲ့အခါမှာလည်း “ဒီပြဿနာကို သတ္တုချပြီး ကြည့်ရမယ်” လို့ ပြောလို့ရတယ်။
Try to place responsibility.
To Pulverize the Metal Ore
In the typical process of metallurgy, the ore is crushed into a fine powder, and its components are separated through various methods to extract the desired metal. Consequently, when someone studies a problem in detail and breaks it down into its parts, this is referred to as “pulverizing the metal ore.”
The Myanmar idiom “To Pulverize the Metal Ore” metaphorically describes the analytical process of breaking down complex problems into manageable components. In metallurgy, the initial step involves crushing ore into a fine powder, allowing for the separation of its various elements to extract the desired metal. This meticulous process symbolizes the approach one takes when tackling intricate issues in life or work.
When someone “pulverizes the metal ore,” they engage in a detailed examination of a problem, dissecting it into its fundamental parts to better understand and address it. This idiom emphasizes the importance of thorough analysis and critical thinking, suggesting that by breaking down a challenge, one can identify solutions more effectively.
USAGES:
Break It Down
Definition: To analyze something by separating it into smaller, more manageable parts.
Example: Let’s break it down into smaller tasks so we can tackle the project more effectively.
Get to the Bottom of
Definition: To investigate and discover the true cause or nature of something.
Example: We need to get to the bottom of this issue before it escalates further.
Take a Closer Look
Definition: To examine something more carefully or in detail.
Example: I think we should take a closer look at the data to identify any discrepancies.
Analyze the Situation
Definition: To examine and evaluate the details of a situation to understand it better.
Example: Before making a decision, it’s important to analyze the situation thoroughly.
Dig Deeper
Definition: To investigate more thoroughly or to look beyond the surface.
Example: If we want to understand the root cause of the problem, we need to dig deeper into the data.
Sift Through
Definition:To examine and sort through information or materials to find what is relevant or important.
Example: She had to sift through a mountain of paperwork to find the necessary documents.
Dissect the Issue
Definition: To break down a problem into its parts for detailed analysis.
Example: The team will dissect the issue during the meeting to find a viable solution.
‘သေတ္တာမှောက်’
/thei ta hmaok/
ရုပ်သေးပွဲမှ ာသေတ္တ ာတစ်လု ံးထဲမှ ာအရုပ်မျိုးစု ံထည့်ထား တယ်။ သေတ္တ ာကိ ု မှောက်ချလိ ုက်ပြီ းဘယ်အရုပ်ကိ ုမဆိ ု ဆွဲယူ ကာ အဲဒီအရုပ်နဲ့ဆိုင်တဲ့ ဇာတ်သီချင်းဆို ကပြနိုင်တဲ့ ပညာရှင်ကို ‘သေတ္တာမှောက်’ လို့ခေါ်တယ်။ အခြားကိစ္စတွေ မှာလည်း ထူးချွန် သူကို ‘သေတ္တာမှောက်’ လို့ လိုက်သုံးကြတာ ဖြစ်တယ်။
ရု ပ် သေးပညာမှ ာတင ်မဟု တ် ဘူ း၊ ဘာမဆ ိုကျွမ်းကျင် တဲ ့လူ ကိ ု“သေတ္တာမှောက်” လို့ သုံးကြတယ်။ ဥပမာ၊ အလုပ်တစ်ခုမှာ ဘယ် အလု ပ် ကို မဆ ိုလုပ် နို င် တဲ့ သူ ၊ဒါမှ မဟု တ် ပြဿနာတစ် ခု ကိုဘယ် လိ ုပဲခက်ခက် ချက်ချင်းဖြေရှင်းနိုင်တဲ့သူကို “သူက သေတ္တာမှောက် ပဲ” လို့ ပြောကြတယ်။ တော်ရုံတန်ရုံ မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ ဘက်စုံတော်တဲ့ သူကို ပြောတာပါ။
One Who Upturns the Box
In a Myanmar marionette show, different puppets are stored in large boxes, from which they are taken out and hung backstage for the performance. Therefore, a puppeteer who can skillfully handle all types of puppets is called a “box-turner.” As a result, any person who is capable of performing a variety of tasks is referred to as “one who upturns the box.”
The Myanmar idiom “One Who Upturns the Box” metaphorically describes a versatile individual who can adeptly handle a variety of tasks or roles. In the context of a traditional marionette show, puppets are stored in large boxes, and the puppeteer, known as a “box-turner,” skillfully selects and manages different puppets for the performance. This ability to manipulate various puppets reflects the puppeteer’s expertise and adaptability.
Similarly, when someone is referred to as “one who upturns the box,” it signifies their capability to navigate multiple responsibilities or challenges with ease. This idiom highlights the value of versatility and resourcefulness in both personal and professional settings.
USAGES:
Jack of All Trades
Definition: A person who is competent in many areas but may not be an expert in any one field.
Example: He’s a jack of all trades; he can fix cars, cook, and even do basic plumbing.
Renaissance Man
Definition: A person with a wide range of interests and abilities, excelling in multiple fields.
Example: Leonardo da Vinci was a true Renaissance man, excelling in art, science, and engineering.
Versatile
Definition: Able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities.
Example: Her versatile skills make her an asset to the team, as she can handle marketing, design, and customer service.
Multi-talented
Definition: Having many different talents or skills.
Example: The multi-talented artist not only paints but also sings and dances.
All-rounder
Definition: A person who is competent in many areas or activities.
Example: As an all-rounder, she can play multiple sports and excel in academics.
