Estonian to Burmese: mida and millega ask about different roles in an action
The object being used is different from the means used with it
Mida sa sööd? asks what somebody is eating. Millega sa sööd? asks what they are eating with, whose precise interpretation depends on the meal conversation. Estonian expresses that difference through the question word’s form. A Burmese translation should not reduce both questions to an undifferentiated what followed by an eating verb.
The Estonian Language Institute lists mis with forms mille and mida and describes its function in questions about things, situations and other matters. The form and surrounding construction therefore contribute information beyond the bare dictionary gloss what. A target version must preserve the role being queried rather than simply recognize that the sentence is a question.
Burmese places a with expression before the verb
Northern Illinois University’s Beginning Burmese lesson 6 describes နဲ့ as a postposition following a noun. Its question pattern places the questioned noun and this with marker before the verb. The attested example သူ ဘာအသားနဲ့ စားမလဲ asks about the meat with which somebody will eat. The construction makes the accompaniment relationship explicit.
That example should not be confused with asking which meat will itself be eaten as the main object. Nor should it automatically be used for a question about cutlery: the noun in the lesson identifies meat. For an Estonian millega question, decide whether the surrounding account concerns accompaniment, an implement or another with relationship before selecting the appropriate Burmese noun phrase.
If somebody asks which sauce goes with a dish, the answer concerns accompaniment. If they ask what the dish is, the answer identifies the food itself. Estonian can package these questions through related forms of mis, but Burmese needs the corresponding whole structure. A missed relationship can produce a plausible food answer to the wrong question.
Future reference and information questions need the right ending
The NIU lesson distinguishes an information-question ending from positive future statements. Its food-choice examples use a future question pattern, while affirmative future statements use a different ending. Therefore an Estonian plan question about what someone will eat should not become a declarative Burmese announcement merely because a future-related element has been recognized.
Estonian Mida sa homme sööd? supplies tomorrow through homme without an English-style will. The target needs the planned meal question, not an observation about the current meal. The same source question word can occur in present and future contexts; its case form identifies the queried role, while the time expression establishes when the eating is relevant.
Finally, a question beginning with mis can occur inside a statement, as the Estonian dictionary illustrates with not knowing what something means. That is not automatically a direct request to the recipient. For this pair, preserve both the case-based role contrast and whether the utterance actually asks a question. Burmese postpositions and endings express relationships that Estonian may distribute among an inflected question word, a time adverb and the wider clause.
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