Ba-lú ka Ta-ma

[Ah-bin]

Ba-lú and ta-ma (or is it taⁿ-ma)

I wonder if anyone could explain what the difference is between these two in Penang Hokkien? I thought both of them mean "just now", ta-pih ū hâ-míh bô-siâng ni?

I know ba-lu is kind of connected to the particle "ka" ("chiah" in other sorts of Hokkien) so might have more of the sense of "not until just now", which is the meaning of the word in Malay, I believe. I hear both of them in the PGHK podcast a lot, but I still don't understand the difference.

Thanks in advance

[aokh1979]

Ba-lu is very recently in the immediate past or only until now that something is happening:
Wa ba-lu ka (mostly tsia in Taiwan) kah i kong kue tian-ua ~ I just had a call with him.
Lu ba-lu ka (same as tsia as above) tso kong-kho ? ~ You just started doing your homework ?

Tam-a (not sure if it's ta-ma or tam-a but I'm more inclined to the latter) means "just now":
Wa tam-a ka kah i kong kue tian-ua ~ Just now, I had a call with him.
Lu tam-a ka tso kong-kho ? ~ You only did your homework just now ?

Ba-lu = right now, the action is still on or in the immediate past IF you try to emphasise
Tam-a = just now, and the action is in the past

[Andrew]

Balu = 剛剛
Tama = 剛才

[Ah-bin]

Thanks very much Aokh and Andrew

Balu = 剛剛
Tama = 剛才

I always thought these two were the same too, but only that the first one was used more in Taiwan, and the other in China!

[Andrew]

Similar, but not the same:

i ba-lú ka wá kóng / He only just told me / 他剛剛告訴我
i tam-á ka wá kóng / He told me just now / 他剛才告訴我

Would it be correct to write tam-á as 今仔, tam being presumably the same as Taiwanese tann? How about than-a (now)?

[SimL]

Similar, but not the same:
i ba-lú ka wá kóng / He only just told me / 他剛剛告訴我
i tam-á ka wá kóng / He told me just now / 他剛才告訴我

Exactly the distinction I make too (the Hokkien part, at any rate).

That's why I could say "i ba-lú ka wá kóng NIA3/7" (same meaning as what Andrew gives, but more emphasized), but not "i tam-á ka wá kóng NIA3/7". Or, (more accurately), one *could* say the latter too, but it would mean something like "he only SAID it to me, (very) recently (, he didn't give me any actual evidence that that was true)".

[Ah-bin]

Aha! I do see the difference when you've written it then, but I thought it would be the other way around for the Mandarin because "only just", but only because the 才 is the particle for "only just". These sentences are all great examples, and are all going into my little black book.

I think that the character for ta might actually be 當 rather than 今. The reason why I think it may have originally been ta-ma is because of the other Taiwanese word chit-ma meaning "now" - although I have no idea what the "ma" might originally have meant.

[aokh1979]

I am not sure if in Taiwan it's Tsim-a or Tsit-ma. It sounds more like Tsim-a to me. I spoke Hainanese when I was small, we said Jin-a or Jin-na for "now".

剛才 should be written as 剛纔. 才 means "talent" and the "just now" we often say, should be 纔 if you refer to some very old books published in Taiwan. I myself write 纔 when I mean 剛才.

Take a look at 說文解字 and 康熙字典, you will realise 纔 has another pronunciation as tsham or tsam. Correct me if I analyse it wrongly. And in Penang, tam-a is not the only way we say it. I say tsam-a more often.

纔，僅也。

Also, I actually learnt about 剛纔 during primary school. A Chinese teacher asked if any of us knew Traditional Chinese, I raised my hand because my father taught me a lot at home. And the teacher corrected my 才 to 纔.

[Ah-bin]

...and if that wasn't bad enough - the Japanese commonly write 才 for 歲 as well as for 纔!