Taiwanese Hokkien greetings and compliments.

mavericker · Post by **mavericker** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 9:11 pm

Hello. I'd like to know, What are common Taiwanese greetings and compliments? Please let me know.

jilang · Post by **jilang** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:21 am

Hi Mavricker,

I'm not sure whether these are specifically Taiwanese but they are Hokkien.

Greetings:
"Chia ber?" is a popular one meaning "Have you eaten yet?"
"Ly ho bo?" it means "Are you well?" or "How are you?"
"Ly ho" meaning "Hello"
Chia pa ber?" is like the first but it just translates to "Are you full (eating)?"

Compliments:
"Ia ho" meaning "very good"
"be phai" which means "not bad"

I hope these help and I'm sure others would know more.

SimL · Post by **SimL** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:39 pm

Hi Jilang,

Great that you're providing so many answers to mavericker's questions.

I just wanted to make one comment. I notice that you sometimes don't mark nasalization in your transcription of Hokkien. For example, in your last reply, you gave "be phai" for "not bad". I think it's important to transcribe this as ""be phainn" or "be phai~" (or "be phai*)", the "-nn", "-~" or "-*" being different ways of indicating the nasalization.

Nasalization is a very important aspect of Hokkien, and distinguishes many words, for example: i5 (="mother's sister") and inn5 (="round"), etc.

Regards,
Sim.

jilang · Post by **jilang** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:48 am

Hi SimL and thanks.

Actually I wasn't aware that there was a nasalization on "phai" which is interesting but thanks for alerting me to this.

SimL · Post by **SimL** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:01 am

Jilang:

You're welcome! I hope I didn't come across as too "schoolteacher-ish" - I don't mean to be bossy or anything! Perhaps your variant indeed doesn't have nasalization for the word "phai". There are in fact a number of words in Hokkien where some variants of Hokkien have nasalization and others don't. I think "phi(nn)7" (="nose") is one of them. My variant has nasalization, but many others don't.

Sim.

jilang · Post by **jilang** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:09 am

You're welcome! I hope I didn't come across as too "schoolteacher-ish" - I don't mean to be bossy or anything!

No, you didn't sound bossy at all.

I think it probably is the case that it is just a difference in variants because I don't have a nasailzation on "phi" meaning "nose". By the way, I was wondering what variant of Hokkien you speak.

mavericker · Post by **mavericker** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:48 am

jilang wrote:Hi Mavricker,

I'm not sure whether these are specifically Taiwanese but they are Hokkien.

Greetings:
"Chia ber?" is a popular one meaning "Have you eaten yet?"
"Ly ho bo?" it means "Are you well?" or "How are you?"
"Ly ho" meaning "Hello"
Chia pa ber?" is like the first but it just translates to "Are you full (eating)?"

Compliments:
"Ia ho" meaning "very good"
"be phai" which means "not bad"

I hope these help and I'm sure others would know more.

Thank you.

SimL · Post by **SimL** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:44 am

jilang wrote:...I was wondering what variant of Hokkien you speak.

Penang Hokkien. What about you?

jilang · Post by **jilang** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:11 pm

I speak EngChun and Huinn Oann.

niuc · Post by **niuc** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:31 pm

My variant [Tang5-ua*1-ue7 同安話] also doesn't have nasalization on phi7 鼻 (nose) and phai2 壞 (bad).