More words...about 300 I can't track down.

[AndrewAndrew]

6) Condensed milk

This is easy enough that I don't need to check - gu-leng-ko1

For me, heng is to pay money or to give what is due (a borrowed book, etc.). Often followed by to-tuiN.

[niuc]

Hi Ah-bin, Sim, Andrew & all!

From what I know, 總鋪 is tsóngpho˙ (chóng-pho˙) instead of tsóngphō˙(chóng-phō˙).

Interestingly, my variant has 碗盤 uáⁿpuâⁿ (oaN-puaN) for bowls & plates, the reverse of Penang's "puaN-oaN" (plates and bowls). We also have the terms 碗櫥, 碗箸 and 洗碗箸.

My most common word for "cheap" is also 俗 siòk, then 偏 phiⁿ, and never 便宜. I ever heard someone said 便宜 while speaking Hokkien in KL. May be he was from Penang, or KL Hokkien also uses this term?

I found this very useful online dictionary http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html . According to this, phiⁿ is 偏 and not 平.

My variant also say 捋 luàh for combing hair, and only use 梳 'sue' for old style of combing hair, as per images described by Sim.

[SimL]

I found this very useful online dictionary http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html . According to this, phiⁿ is 偏 and not 平.

Thanks, niuc. I got the 平 from the Wikipedia article. Do you think I should edit that and change 平 -> 偏...?

My variant also say 捋 luàh for combing hair, and only use 梳 'sue' for old style of combing hair, as per images described by Sim.

Hehe! Now that you say this (again), it triggered my memory that it was indeed you who told me this originally .

Niuc (and everyone else responding at the moment): Am I the only one with the 'problem' that when I go into "reply"- or "edit"-mode, the page seems to lose a lot of it's graphical presentation, and becomes very "character-cell"?

[niuc]

Hi Sim

Thanks, niuc. I got the 平 from the Wikipedia article. Do you think I should edit that and change 平 -> 偏...?

Yes, I did visit the wikipedia article which link you provided in your previous posting. It is great to have such articles in Wikipedia. Rather than replacing 平 -> 偏, may be you can put 偏 as alternative, with link to the dictionary?

Hehe! Now that you say this (again), it triggered my memory that it was indeed you who told me this originally .

Ah, I also forgot that I ever told you about this.

Niuc (and everyone else responding at the moment): Am I the only one with the 'problem' that when I go into "reply"- or "edit"-mode, the page seems to lose a lot of it's graphical presentation, and becomes very "character-cell"?

I don't face this problem. What browser do you use? I use Google Chrome.

[Ah-bin]

Hello again everyone. I have ten more now. I am guessing some ways that it would be possible to say these things.

1) To correct (mistakes) I'm guessing this is ké• 改

2) Courier or delivery person maybe sàng + something + ê-lâng 送....个儂

3) Cover for chairs (i-chok) I think the i will be î for chair 椅

4) Curtain (either one for windows or one for a stage)

5) Debt khiàm ê lui 欠个鐳 ?

6) Development, to develop this one probably does not have an equivalent that is not the same as Mandarin, if the word is used at all. I think piàn 變 is probably more commonly used.

7) Disaster I'm guessing that even though people have a word for earthquakes

8 ) Divided by (pun?) 分 I know to divide into halves is pun cho no• poaN, but how about "divided by five". I'm guessing mathematics hasn't been taught in Hokkien for a long time anywhere, so perhaps it is pun cho go• te "divided into five pieces" or something like that.

9) To display (goods etc.) maybe hē• hō• lâng-khe•h khoàN 下與儂客看?

10) Distilled water something to do with hiâⁿ-chúi 烆水 boiled water perhaps?

I might recommend last week's Penang Hokkien podcast about Chinese doctors while I remember. There was an awful lot of interesting vocabulary and information there.

[SimL]

1) To correct (mistakes) I'm guessing this is ké• 改

Strictly, "kE2" is "to alter". Now, generally, one only alters what is wrong/incorrect, so by extension, I suppose it does sort of mean "to correct". Still, it's less directly equatable to "to correct", and more to "to alter".

I only used it in the context of tailor-made clothes, btw. When I was young, people (especially women) still bought cloth from a cloth shop and took it to a tailor (along with a design from a fashion magazine) and got the tailor to make that specific dress for them. Then they went back to "fit" it. And wherever it didn't fit, they would ask for alterations. Similarly for men's waist-size or length, for trousers.

So, it's not so much that the (say) length is *wrong* per se, and needs "correction". It's just wrong *for you*, so it needs "alteration". Perhaps that is the difference in emphasis.

4) Curtain (either one for windows or one for a stage)

Easy one: thang1-a2-pO7 窗仔布. But only for the ones in a window, obviously.

I wonder whether a Chinese-speaker would even consider the two (window curtains and stage curtains) to be two aspects of the "same thing".

5) Debt khiàm ê lui 欠个鐳 ?

Don't know this personally, but to me "khiàm lâng ê lui" seems slightly better. Mark?

7) Disaster

My circumlocution would be "tua7-cham2" (= "big terribleness").

8 ) Divided by (pun?) 分 I know to divide into halves is pun cho no• poaN, but how about "divided by five". I'm guessing mathematics hasn't been taught in Hokkien for a long time anywhere, so perhaps it is pun cho go• te "divided into five pieces" or something like that.

Seems ok to me, but is more a circumlocution than the technical term for division, IMHO.

9) To display (goods etc.) maybe hē• hō• lâng-khe•h khoàN 下與儂客看?

I wouldn't use just "lâng" instead of "lâng-khe•h", because things are displayed not just to guests, but to passing strangers as well. Also, I definitely say "pâi" (= "set out") rather than than the more general / vaguer "hē•" (= "put"). I wonder if it should be "pâi chút" rather than just "pâi", to emphasize the "set out" aspect, but this doesn't sound right either. "hō• lâng khoàN" sounds fine though.

[Ah-bin]

Thanks very much Sim, here are a few comments before I get on to the next round:

I have heard ké• also used in reference to altering one's behaviour for the better. This is a very old meaning of the word (used in Lûn-gú 論語) which I think Bhante Dhammavudho may have got from reading Buddhist Sutras.

I had another word for a kind of curtain or screen which was nî 簾 as in mûi-nî 門簾 a curtain over a door. I think this is a kind of bamboo curtain or screen though. That is what the character 簾 refers to in Japanese, at least.

As for putting the lâng in some circumlocutions, this is very useful for saying all sorts of things.

I am guessing there is no technical term for division generally used in Penang Hokkien any more. Even fluent Taiwanese speakers had trouble doing maths in Hokkien because they had only ever learnt to do it in Mandarin or Japanese (for the older ones).

[Mark Yong]

Ah-bin wrote:
To display (goods etc.) maybe hē• hō• lâng-khe•h khoàN 下與儂客看?

SimL wrote:
...I definitely say "pâi" (= "set out") rather than than the more general / vaguer "hē•" (= "put"). I wonder if it should be "pâi chút" rather than just "pâi", to emphasize the "set out" aspect, but this doesn't sound right either. "hō• lâng khoàN" sounds fine though.

Hi, guys,

Sorry for the long absence. As you probably know, I try not to write unless I really have something inspiring or useful, and that has been severely lacking for months!

Regarding ‘display’: There is a word that my wife uses (she spent most of her growing up years in Kedah), which is 展 tien2. She often uses it in a mildly negative context, i.e. 『展予人看』 tien2 hO7 lang7 khuaⁿ1 (“to display (oneself) for all to see, i.e. to show off”). Another (unrelated) usage of the word is in the compound 發展 huat4 tien2 “development”.

Ah-bin wrote:
Debt khiàm ê lui 欠个鐳 ?

SimL wrote:
Don't know this personally, but to me "khiàm lâng ê lui" seems slightly better. Mark?

This is me pretending to be pedantic! If I had to say ‘debt’ as a noun, I would say 欠（个）數 khiam3 (e) siau3. My reasoning is that the 數 siau3 specifically emphasises the quantity/sum being owed, rather than the monetary nature of the debt, which is already self-explanatory from 欠 khiam3 and therefore rendering the addition of 鐳 lui1 somewhat redundant (unless we are referring to a debt of a non-material nature, in which case I would not even use 數 siau3 to begin with!).

**UPDATE** After posting the above, I Googled 『欠數』 to see if such usage was really commonplace. Turns out, it’s listed in the Taiwan MOE’s online dictionary. (http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/r ... ount=13244)

Ah-bin wrote:
Bedding (phoe-toaN is sheet, does it have the extended meaning of bedding?) Blanket is missing from dG.

SimL wrote:
In my usage, "phue-tuaN" can only mean "blanket". A "bedsheet" is a "j(i)ok-a-ta", as "j(i)ok-a" is a "mattress".

Oops, looks like I have been misguided for years! For the longest time, I had the impression (or so the Penang Hokkien speakers I had been in contact me led me to believe) that phue7 tuaⁿ1 is ‘bed-sheet’. The funny thing is, if you input 『被單』 into Google Translate, the English translations come out as ‘sheet’ and ‘bed sheet’. By extension, I never figured out how to say ‘blanket’ (assuming, of course, that it is not 被單 phue7 tuaⁿ1!).

Ah-bin wrote:
Backwards (walk backwards)

SimL wrote:
This one is "to-the3/7". The "to" is probably "to2" (to collapse, topple over, lie down") - Mandarin "dao3/4" - also used in "upside down" = Hokkien "to-peng2". No idea what the "the3/7" is though.

Hi, Sim - Just hazarding a guess: 倒退? the3/7 as in 退步 the3-pO7 (“to retreat”).

[SimL]

Sorry for the long absence.

Always good to see you back here, Mark! You're a major source of knowledge about Penang Hokkien.

Oops, looks like I have been misguided for years! For the longest time, I had the impression (or so the Penang Hokkien speakers I had been in contact me led me to believe) that phue7 tuaⁿ1 is ‘bed-sheet’.

Hmm... Well, it's only my usage, which might be "incorrect" (or usage may have changed since the time that I was living there). Could you check with your wife?

Thanks for the "倒退". Seems very plausible to me.

[Ah-bin]

Thanks again both of you. Actually I found the characters for some of the words like 倒退 . I shall post them all up some time.

Here is the new batch. Some of these are very vague, and I am just putting down some ideas and guesses, and a few sentences, since it is sometimes easier to think of how to say a sentence than it is a single word.

1) Drawer/Drawers (as in a chest of drawers)

2) The tip of something - a pen or something like that

3) Extension (phone)

4) Extra - I suppose one could use leng-oa 另外 or something with koh to express this. An extra cost; they gave me five extra books perhaps "I lang leng-oa sang wa go• pun chhe•h"?

5) To decorate

6) Decoration

7) To defeat someone, beat someone at something. He beat me at chess. is it phah-pài perhaps (for war I suppose it might be)

8 ) Degree, level. I know kip 級 for levels of school or learning. Actually maybe this is the only one commonly used, as "not to the same degree as A" can be expressed by means of "bo A an-ne adj"

9) To delay. Hō• lâng bē-hù "Make someone late" perhaps

10) To fast. I'm sure there is one for this that is well-known. I know kìm-chhùi for not eating certain kinds of foods, but what about not eating anything at all?