Hokkien Dialect Radio

[Ehlam Chua]

A channel, which provides 18 hours a day, running programmes,
live from China

rtsp://www.am873.net:552/encoder/mnh

homepage:
http://www.am666.net/enroot/

[%sig%]

[Andrew Yong]

I tried that link but got Mandarin.

However, http://www.cbs.org.tw/big5/index.htm is quite good. There is news as well as three recorded programmes in Hokkien.


andrew

[Ehlam Chua]

What time did U get link ??
Maybe U should try another time, cause in afternoon, there're lots of programmes originally broacasting by MinNan.

P.S.
In there website also placed a timetable, U could check it out !

[%sig%]

[Andrew Yong]

In any case, I find the Hokkien very difficult to understand and make out about 20% max.


andrew

[Ehlam Chua]

Oh, U Rn't Hokkien ??
I assume that U should understand Hokkien very well !!

[Andrew Yong]

I grew up in Penang so I understand Penang Hokkien, though I am very rusty. But Taiwanese Hokkien is quite different, and is difficult to understand when it is spoken quickly. Also, a lot of the phrases used in the news are not everyday phrases.


andrew

[Ehlam Chua]

o i c...
It's sure that Hokkien spread out into some certain areas, where now their language is different from the original one !!
So you speak other dialects, as well ?? Except Hokkien ??

[Sim]

Hi there Ehlam,

Yes, Penang Hokkien is quite different from Hokkien as spoken in Taiwan.

1. The vowels, and some of the end-consonants, (and some of the tone-sandhi rules) are (slightly) different. See:

http://www.chineselanguage.org/forum/re ... =140&t=140

for some discussion on this.

2. Some very common words are different. We say "ang mo'" (red hair) for "Westerner" vs. "tng lang" (Tang person) for "Chinese", whereas I was told that Taiwanese say: "a-tok-a" for the former . I wrote down a small list of different common words while I was travelling around Taiwan. The only one I can remember off the top of my head is that we say "am-mE" wheareas I was told Taiwanese say "eng-am" for "night-time". [ I'll post my little list as a separate topic some other time, when I've found it again. ]

3. Penang Hokkien has lots of borrowed Malay words. Not just nouns (the commonest type of word to be borrowed from one language to another) but verbs, and even conjunctions. For example, we say "sayang" for "to love", and "tapi" for "but". [ I'll post a topic on this too, in the future. ]

Furthermore, I think Andrew and I are in a pretty similar situation: we grew up only hearing (and I certainly, speaking) *informal* Hokkien on the streets, so, the subjects we can talk about in Hokkien are limited. For example, I don't know the words for "election", "university-degree", "mathematics", "ecology", "evolution", "philosophy" etc.

So, when I hear spoken Taiwanese on a radio or TV broadcast, about 1/3 of the words (maybe more!) don't make any sense to me, even if I take into account the different "accent" / pronunciation. Which basically means that I can communicate with a Taiwanese in Hokkien if we have some simple, concrete topic (like "where's the railway station", "what my family background is", etc), but not about more sophisticated topics.

Sim.

[%sig%]

[Ehlam Chua]

Well, thx a lot, for your precious info !!

[Andrew Yong]

For example, from the most basic vocabulary:

goa: I

Penang pronounces wa (like teochew) more often.

li: you (singular)

We say lu, but that's again just pronunciation

i: he/she

goan (un): we
(non-inclusive)

Unknown

lan: we (inclusive)

lin: you (plural)

Also unknown

in: they

Also unknown

chit-ma: now

Unknown. We say than2-a1 for now; kin-jit or kin-a-jit for today

miachai:
tomorrow

chang: yesterday

We say tsa-hui* or tsa-jit



andrew