tamoe's needs help for hokkien translation thread

[tamoe]

Hi,

I want to ask translation for this words or sentences into hokkien, I prefer to get penang hokkien translation as I'm chinese indonesian where the hokkien here (sumatran hokkien) is more related to penang hokkien which is based on zhangzhou dialect too. But for other hokkien dialect translation like taiwanese or amoy is welcomed too as I like to learn other hokkien dialects too.

Please translate this:

1. If you don't go, then please stay at home helping me.

2. Before I go to sleep, I want to submit this CV.

3. (in restaurant) "Hello, I want to order fried rice two plates"


Regards,
tamoe

[Abun]

Hello tamoe,

in Taiwanese, I would say it like this (I used the POJ transcription. For the characters, keep in mind that there is no standardized set of characters for Hokkien, so people might used different characters than I do):

1. Lí nā m̄ khì, ē-tàng lâu tī chhù-lāi kā goá tàu-sio-kāng--bô? (你若毋去，會當留佇厝內共我鬥相共無？)

2. Goá khì khùn chìn-chêng iá siūⁿ-boeh thoân--tshut chit-tiuⁿ lí-le̍k-pió. (我去睏進前猶想欲傳出這張履歷表。)

3. Lí hó, goá boeh bé nn̄g pôaⁿ tshá-pn̄g. (你好，我欲買兩盤炒飯。)

[tamoe]

Hi abun,

Do you know the chinese character for "leh"? (general classifier for countable item)

Example sentence:
No-leh tok teng (two tables)

[Abun]

Hey Tamoe,

if there is a more definite etymological answer to that question, I would be interested to hear it, too, because this may be the question Hokkien writers were (and are) most devided about.
In Taiwan this word is usually pronounced ê and the Ministery of Education system uses two different characters for that: 的 for the attribute particle and 个 for the classifier. However this distinction seems very artificial to me because it is made on the basis of Mandarin grammar (的 vs. 個). Therefore, I have also seen a lot of people just use one character (mostly 个) for both. As far as I know, Cantonese also uses the same word for the attribute particle and the general classifier, which sounds like ge in some tone (I don't know Cantonese ) and may or may not be etymologically related to the Hokkien word. This word is written 嘅, simply by adding a 口 to the character 既 which I guess is pronounced in a similar way in Cantonese. This way of writing unknown Cantonese words by adding 口 to an existing character seems pretty common in Cantonese writing, but if you want more information on that, maybe you should ask someone who actually knows Cantonese ). In any case, I believe 嘅 would be more suited to spell Hokkien ê/leh with because the Cantonese word spelt with it is a much closer cognate to the Hokkien ê/leh than with either 的 or 個. On the other hand, the character it is derived from, 既, doesn't seem to have much of a phonological connection with ê/leh (but then again neither do 的 and 個).

[tamoe]

Hi Abun,

Thanks for your detailed answer. How about "kai"?

Example sentences:
tse kai lang bo lui (this man doesn't have money)
no kai chu (two houses)

I often heard it in medan hokkien, it's also used as general classifier. Is there mandarin word for it?

[Abun]

Hello tamoe,

I'm sorry, I don't know about this word. I can only guess that maybe this one is in fact the same one as Cantonese 嘅, but that theory is based purely on phonological resemblance (kai and ge) and apparently similar functions, not on research or anything. In Taiwanese I would say "chit ê lâng bô chîⁿ" and "nn̄g keng chhù." Do you happen to know the tone of "kai"? And does it feel different from "leh" to you?

[tamoe]

Abun,

I often hear "kai" used for people, for example:

tse kai lang ane gong (this man is very stupid)
tshu lai u go kai lang (there are five people inside house)

I think the tone is same as "leh" which is 5 (2 in penang) and 7 (3 in penang) when tone shandi-ed.

Btw, what is the mandarin character for house (tshu) in hokkien?

[Abun]

I think the tone is same as "leh" which is 5 (2 in penang) and 7 (3 in penang) when tone shandi-ed.

I'm guessing the numbers outside the parentheses are the tone number, so it would be iûⁿ-pêⁿ 陽平 (the one which POJ uses the circumflex ^ for) and iûⁿ-khì 陽去 (the one with the caron ˉ)? According to my dicts Cantonese 嘅 is either tone 3 or tone 2, which according to a quick research (only wiki, nothing reliable ) should correspond to the same tones in Hokkien (i.e. im-chiūⁿ 陰上 and im-khì 陰去, which are in POJ marked with acute ´and gravis `accents respectively). So supposing I didn't make a mistake there (quite possible), this would not fit your 5 or 7. Considering you also described it as in the same tone as "leh," I guess it might also be possible that it is simply in khin-siaⁿ 輕聲 (i.e. without a proper tone)? In this case it may have originally been tone 2 or 3... but considering all this is based purely on the wiki research of somebody with zero knowledge of Cantonese, this theory is anything but well-founded.

Btw, what is the mandarin character for house (tshu) in hokkien?

This is another question people have been arguing over for ages. Most people (including myself because I use the TW Ministry of Education characters as a standard) write 厝. Others however doubt that that is correct because this character is listed with the meaning "tombstone" in dictionaries for Classical Chinese (bûn-giân-bûn/wényánwén 文言文) and that doesn't quite seem to fit. Some propose 茨 which can mean "thatched hut." However it has been argued that its phonology doesn't fit. For more detailed information see this thread on the topic: http://www.chineselanguage.org/forums/v ... f=6&t=7644

[tamoe]

Abun,

Yes, I follow POJ tone numbering.

http://postimg.org/image/gyqyaw1f3/

Actually I guessed the tone based on trial-and-error, I feel the tone 5 (7 in sandhi) is the one which sounds good if used in sentence.

Thanks for the information about 厝.

[Abun]

The picture represents the tone sandhi in your variant? It is exactly the same pattern I use, but the sandhi is not completely universal across variants; even within Taiwan there are people who sandhi tone 5 to tone 3 instead of 7, and I seem to recall the differences to Penang Hokkien are a little more extensive than that.
If that is the pattern you use, though, I'm guessing your numbers referred to tone 5 being sandhied to tone 7? That wouldn't match the tone on Cantonese "ge" if my analysis is correct, but again, I'm anything but qualified.