Misc. random questions: pronunciation, final particles, etc.

[FutureSpy]

I don't understand àn-nāi.

Sorry, niuc. I was going to answer that, but I ended up forgetting it.

àn-nāi is written 案内 in Japanese. I'll try to give a few examples along with definitions from EDICT.

あんない [案内] (n, vs) information, guidance, leading
- If you ever come to Barcelona, I'll 案内 you through the city.

あんないじょ [案内所] (n) information desk
The place where you ask for help (in a bus station, for an instance?) is called 案内所 annaijo in Japanese.

あんないしょ [案内書] (n) guidebook, guide
案内書 annaisho also applies to exam guides, and perhaps guidelines books.

An 案内アナウンス annai ANAUSU is like those announcements at the airport or stations.

I'm not sure, tho, what definitions apply to TW Hokkien.

As for 料理 meaning "cuisine" in Mandarin, doesn't that have a more limited usage, such as expressions like 日本料理?

Very interesting! So, you address your brother nowadays by his personal name?

Yep. Unfortunately, but we don't talk that much

What about the northeast and north? Recife, Fortaleza, Sao Luis?

I'll try to locate an audio file a friend of mine from Recife sent me 9 years ago and send it to you. It's probably better than any description I could give you. As for the others... I had a friend from Fortal. and he spoke completely without the Northeastern accent stereotype, but I don't know if everyone there speak like that. As for São Luís, no idea, but my bet is that their accent is very pronounced.

There's no "Northeastern accent" as most people here think there's. Most of them do have a few common features, but if you listen closely they can be very different. I don't know to what extend they're closer to Iberian Portuguese, but they do share many words and expressions, but also have localisms whose usage isn't widespread outside the region. Phonetically, all I can think of now is the way they pronounce te and ti, which sound like real ti, unlike our /tʃi/. Of course that's also a generalization. Natives from the region I'm studying at now don't use tʃ but a simple t (not palatized), so even the so-called "paulista" (from state of São Paulo, except regions nearby São Paulo city) accent has many variations. They do have the typical "caipira" (lit. "hick", with all due respect) post-vowel retroflex R (not sure of how exact that description is since I'm not very familiar with linguistic terminology) tho. BTW, I think in Bahia they don't say "você e eu", but "você e mais eu". Galicians also say it like that: "ti/tu e máis eu".

Anyway, you'd better ask locals from these regions, as I haven't met many people from Northeast, so I'm unable to provide you with detailed and accurate information on that

[amhoanna]

Futurespy, kámsiā lí thêkiong chià'ê chuliāu.

The only meaning I know for ànnāi in TWese is TO HELP SOMEONE BY BRINGING THEM TO WHERE THEY NEED/WANT TO GO WITHIN AN ARRANGEMENT. It's not part of my active vocab., I'm still observing to see how other people use it. I've never heard anyone in or below my age group use it.

[niuc]

Niuc, I know many southern Chinese can't, but if you can distinguish

z- [ts] c- [tsh] s- [s],
zh- [tʂ], ch- [tʂh], sh- [ʂ], and
j- [tɕ], q- [tɕh], x- [ɕ] in Mandarin, and
ch- [tʃ] and sh- [ʃ] in English

then you have all of these already.

Thank you so much, Andrew!
Now I understand the differences between ts and tʂ etc (first & second lines). I still do not fully understand about tɕ though, as I assume pinyin "ji" is just another way to write "tsi"...

I'm not sure whether it's adequate to represent Hokkien, but apparently in Taiwan they distinguish between
ji [ʑi], chi [tɕi], chhi [tɕhi], si [ɕi], and
j- [dz], ts- [ts], tsh- [tsh], s- [s], for other finals

Do you have word samples for those?

Douglas also notices the distinction, using ch- only for e, i, and ts- for everything else.

Actually I have been wondering what's the real difference...

I do notice that in Taiwan, si is pronounced with a [ɕ] like Mandarin xi, whereas in Penang it is a clear [s]. Chi/Chhi in Penang are like Mandarin ji [tɕi] and qi [tɕhi].

Do you/Penang differentiate between tɕi and tsi? Any examples?

Both ji and joah in Penang seem to be the same [ʑ]. I have not yet bottomed out the rest, but will listen closely in the next few weeks.

Could you please give some examples of Penang words for chi, chhi, ji, choah, and joah?
Again, thank you!

[niuc]

niuc, thanks for the info on your variant

FutureSpy, you are welcome. Btw why the emoticon " "?

And many thanks for complete explanation of àn-nāi 案内!

And I have the same impression as you that 料理 in Mandarin is mainly used for 日本料理 and 韓國料理. For Chinese cuisines, it's called 閩菜, 粵菜, 台菜 etc.

[AndrewAndrew]

Niuc, I know many southern Chinese can't, but if you can distinguish

z- [ts] c- [tsh] s- [s],
zh- [tʂ], ch- [tʂh], sh- [ʂ], and
j- [tɕ], q- [tɕh], x- [ɕ] in Mandarin, and
ch- [tʃ] and sh- [ʃ] in English

then you have all of these already.

Thank you so much, Andrew!
Now I understand the differences between ts and tʂ etc (first & second lines). I still do not fully understand about tɕ though, as I assume pinyin "ji" is just another way to write "tsi"...

[ɕ] is the Hanyu pinyin x-, what in Wade-Giles would have been written as hs-. Just add a t- to the front and deaspirate/aspirate to get j-/q-.

I'm not sure whether it's adequate to represent Hokkien, but apparently in Taiwan they distinguish between
ji [ʑi], chi [tɕi], chhi [tɕhi], si [ɕi], and
j- [dz], ts- [ts], tsh- [tsh], s- [s], for other finals

Do you have word samples for those?

So apparently ji is pronounced [dʑi] (sorry for the error above) but joah is pronounced [dzua?]. In Penang we use the same [dʑ] for both.

[FutureSpy]

Góa siuⁿ-b(o)eh khì chhī-lāi khòaⁿ khòaⁿ (l)eh.
我想欲去市內看看咧。
I'd like to go take a look downtown.

Hó. Góa kah sió-bē/mōe/moāi kā lí àn-nāi.
好。我佮小妹共你案内。
I see. We and my (younger) sister will guide you.

Sorry for the rough translations

amhoanna, any words you would use to replace it in Taiwanese?

niuc, what would you use in this sentence in 峇眼話?

What about Penang?

[amhoanna]

This all seems like TWese usage to me.

I hesitate to use 市內 for DOWNTOWN in any sense of the word DOWNTOWN. I think 市內 means WITHIN THE CITY PROPER, not including the suburbs, but inc. all districts w/i the city proper. 市中心 can be used to mean CITY CENTER but it's not a common usage. People just refer to parts of town by name. It'll be interesting to see what the M'sians have to say on this.

Another story. I took a day-trip to Melaka a few yrs ago with two others, inc. a TWese girl in her early 20s. She was from the Tailam County countryside, where people tend to be proud of the Hoklo language no matter their age or sex, but she was kind of an exception, I think b/c she was a top student and had spent four yrs attending the Univ. of Taiwan in Taipak, plus 1 or 2 yrs of grad school. She spoke Hoklo like crap, totally Mandarized, yet made fun of my non-native Hoklo and tried to switch me to Mandarin. Yet when we got to Melaka, somehow -- and partly under my influence -- she got the idea that she was supposed to talk to the local orang Tionghoa in Hoklo instead of Mandarin. So at one pt a random stranger and his family were giving us a ride back to the bus terminal, and she asks them a question like "Mâlakkah ê Hoâjîn lóng toà tī kaugoā ahsī chhīkhu?" With a heavy Mandophone accent. And to my slight surprise the Malaccans had no trouble understanding her.

I think one of her "stimuli" was earlier when someone was telling us in Mandarin that the bus fares had "qi3 jia4" (起價) considerably, and she didn't understand it till I said "khíkè" in Hoklo. It's interesting that M'sian Mandarin is more Hoklicized than TWese Mandarin even though TW is more heavily Hokkien, or that there's more Hoklo on TV in M'sia than in TW.

[Ah-bin]

People just refer to parts of town by name. It'll be interesting to see what the M'sians have to say on this.

What I have heard in Penang for "downtown" (meaning Georgetown) was pho-té 坡底, and "go downtown" was lóh-pho 落坡. I think something like this is used all over Malaysia, in other languages as well.

[FutureSpy]

I hesitate to use 市內 for DOWNTOWN in any sense of the word DOWNTOWN.

Whoops, my bad for the mistranslation My textbook had 市内 in Japanese too, and for some reason I always associated 市内 it to "downtown". But according to the dictionary, it's actually "inside the town" or "in the neighborhood". So maybe the sentence translates better into "take a look around" instead of "downtown", right?

"dz-" speakers may use "dj-" instead. Ditto. TWese speakers tend to palatalize their affricates before -i-...

You said that about j/l in another thread. Does any changes occur with ch too? I said I heard /ts/, but now I hear /tz/ in all cases except when followed by -i, but when there's a preceding -i like in jī-cha̍p, it sounds more like /dʑ/ (not sure it it's really that, sorry for the inaccurate transcription)... I was going to check that with the Tâi-lâm speaker, but it was raining and the darn rain stopped right after I lost the bus, and it's even sunny outside now. Hopefully I'll meet my Tâi-tiong old lady friend this weekend, so I'll try to hear to her pronunciation...

FutureSpy, you are welcome. Btw why the emoticon " "?

No idea, it was supposed to be " "