Tan Choon Hoe's new book
Tan Choon Hoe's new book
In the KL airport I happened to come across Tan Choon Hoe's new book "Penang Hokkien Conversations" Thicker than the earlier two books by 50 pages it is also a bit better organised into thematic conversations. The best part of it is it gives hundreds of sentences (rather than words) in Hokkien and gives many good ways to express English ideas in Penang Hokkien. The worst part is the spelling system, which means one needs a certain base knowledge of Hokkien before one can use the book effectively.
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AndrewAndrew
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- Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2010 10:26 am
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
Surely it can't be too difficult for one of us to get in contact with him to introduce him to some form of romanisation? Whether it's Pehoeji, Bodman or Tailo, doesn't matter. All of his books could easily be republished.
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
I tried last year. Maybe I was not convincing...... 
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AndrewAndrew
- Posts: 174
- Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2010 10:26 am
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
No reply? Maybe a few bad reviews in Amazon will attract his attention ...
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
I met him this morning, and had a great conversation with him over kopi beng. He was also kind enough to give me a copy of the Malay version of the first book, in which the spelling system is slightly different and more consistant. I pointed him towards my introduction to POJ in the Penang Hokkien, and introduced the tonal system and how to use superscript n to avoid writing "enee" for "iN".
I asked about some of the things I had noticed as misspellings, like "ta-lee-knia" for "coin" and "kha-lie-chheah" for "bicycle" but it turns out these are actually the way that he pronounces the words, so not really misspellings after all, but perhaps local variations from his kampong.
Someone even told me kha-chhia was the "correct" Penang word for bicycle yesterday, and there seem to be two words for "tap" Mr. Tan also told me there are two commonly-used words for "candle" chek-a and liet-chek (? I think this was how he said it)
He also told me about another book:
"Peng Sneah Hock Kien Wua 檳城福建話" by Cheah Cheng Seang 謝清祥
This is for sale at the entrance to the Khoo Kongsi, and very kindly took me all the way there on the back of his bike to buy it.
It is a 129-page Hokkien to English word list in vaguely alphabetical order, has characters (but some rather odd choices for these), some kind of romanization that is inconsistant (final h and aspirations with no rhyme or reason, sampai kasi gua naik angin!!!!) and Mandarin translations and definitions. Much of the vocabulary is like that in the deGijzel dictionary - sometimes more reflective of Chinese usage than Penang usage - but there is a nice appndix of malay words. The author makes it clear that the book is written in the Sam Toh 三都 accent.
Now I think I must have every Penang Hokkien book ever published:
Three books by Tan Choon Hoe (four if you count the Malay version)
Four books by Raymond Kwok
"A Tapestry of Baba Poetry"
The Penang Hokkien Pocket Dictionary by Luc deGijzel
This new book I describe above
They are all spelt differently, so to use them you have to have some base in Hokkien to start with. But eleven books is quite a few!
I asked about some of the things I had noticed as misspellings, like "ta-lee-knia" for "coin" and "kha-lie-chheah" for "bicycle" but it turns out these are actually the way that he pronounces the words, so not really misspellings after all, but perhaps local variations from his kampong.
Someone even told me kha-chhia was the "correct" Penang word for bicycle yesterday, and there seem to be two words for "tap" Mr. Tan also told me there are two commonly-used words for "candle" chek-a and liet-chek (? I think this was how he said it)
He also told me about another book:
"Peng Sneah Hock Kien Wua 檳城福建話" by Cheah Cheng Seang 謝清祥
This is for sale at the entrance to the Khoo Kongsi, and very kindly took me all the way there on the back of his bike to buy it.
It is a 129-page Hokkien to English word list in vaguely alphabetical order, has characters (but some rather odd choices for these), some kind of romanization that is inconsistant (final h and aspirations with no rhyme or reason, sampai kasi gua naik angin!!!!) and Mandarin translations and definitions. Much of the vocabulary is like that in the deGijzel dictionary - sometimes more reflective of Chinese usage than Penang usage - but there is a nice appndix of malay words. The author makes it clear that the book is written in the Sam Toh 三都 accent.
Now I think I must have every Penang Hokkien book ever published:
Three books by Tan Choon Hoe (four if you count the Malay version)
Four books by Raymond Kwok
"A Tapestry of Baba Poetry"
The Penang Hokkien Pocket Dictionary by Luc deGijzel
This new book I describe above
They are all spelt differently, so to use them you have to have some base in Hokkien to start with. But eleven books is quite a few!
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
Hi Ah-bin,
So you're in Penang! Hope it has lived up to your expectations: "the Hokkien-speaking city". I'm on holiday in Germany, where the y- and z- key are swapped on the keyboard - very awkward for me to use.
Can't write much as the money is running out in this internet cafe.
So you're in Penang! Hope it has lived up to your expectations: "the Hokkien-speaking city". I'm on holiday in Germany, where the y- and z- key are swapped on the keyboard - very awkward for me to use.
Can't write much as the money is running out in this internet cafe.
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
Hi, Ah-bin,
Interesting that you should mention 謝清祥 Cheah Cheng Seang's "檳城福建話 Peng Sneah Hock Kien Wua". aokh1979 was kind enough to pick up a copy for me not so long ago.
aokh1979 and I discussed the contents, and if I may speak on behalf of him, we agree on the following 2 points:
1. Yes, it is a good source of Penang Hokkien vocabulary, containing quite a few words not regularly used by the younger man-in-the street.
2. His decision to use Simplified Characters inevitably leads to the high-handed (the adjective is my own) adoption of quite a few Mandarin equivalents for words that are quite clearly not the 本字 benzi. This is not consistent throughout the book, however - one finds quite a few 'intrusions' of Traditional Characters here-and-there.
I am not sure if I can fully agree with his historical account of the pattern of development of Penang Hokkien as a sub-dialect from the original 漳州三都 Chiang Chiu Sam Toh sub-dialect. But I will give him this much - the gentleman does write with admirable passion about the need to preserve the dialect.
Interesting that you should mention 謝清祥 Cheah Cheng Seang's "檳城福建話 Peng Sneah Hock Kien Wua". aokh1979 was kind enough to pick up a copy for me not so long ago.
aokh1979 and I discussed the contents, and if I may speak on behalf of him, we agree on the following 2 points:
1. Yes, it is a good source of Penang Hokkien vocabulary, containing quite a few words not regularly used by the younger man-in-the street.
2. His decision to use Simplified Characters inevitably leads to the high-handed (the adjective is my own) adoption of quite a few Mandarin equivalents for words that are quite clearly not the 本字 benzi. This is not consistent throughout the book, however - one finds quite a few 'intrusions' of Traditional Characters here-and-there.
I am not sure if I can fully agree with his historical account of the pattern of development of Penang Hokkien as a sub-dialect from the original 漳州三都 Chiang Chiu Sam Toh sub-dialect. But I will give him this much - the gentleman does write with admirable passion about the need to preserve the dialect.
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
Ah yes, I would have picked up more copies too, but it seems only one was left when I got there.
I should have added, that I think it is a great resource for learning (or re-learning) the "deeper" vocabulary, but like all of the materials I listed above, you really have to have some base in Hokkien (and in this case, Mandarin) to use them properly.
It was interesting too to have met people in Penang who speak NO English whatsoever! So the statistics someone wrote here before of Penang Hokkien vocabulary being 10% Hokkien, 20% Malay, and 60% English are just rubbish. Even people younger than me were speaking great Hokkien. From listening to conversations, I think the problem groups are young women and people under 15 though.
I should have added, that I think it is a great resource for learning (or re-learning) the "deeper" vocabulary, but like all of the materials I listed above, you really have to have some base in Hokkien (and in this case, Mandarin) to use them properly.
It was interesting too to have met people in Penang who speak NO English whatsoever! So the statistics someone wrote here before of Penang Hokkien vocabulary being 10% Hokkien, 20% Malay, and 60% English are just rubbish. Even people younger than me were speaking great Hokkien. From listening to conversations, I think the problem groups are young women and people under 15 though.
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
Ah-bin,
Perhaps this could be an opportune time for you to start a new thread on your experiences with the Penang Hokkien dialect in its motherland Penang - from the perspective of a visitor who also happens to speak the dialect and read decent Chinese.
Cheers,
Mark
Perhaps this could be an opportune time for you to start a new thread on your experiences with the Penang Hokkien dialect in its motherland Penang - from the perspective of a visitor who also happens to speak the dialect and read decent Chinese.
Cheers,
Mark
Re: Tan Choon Hoe's new book
I'd like to write a bit about it too. I think I really need to go again and stay for a bit longer. It was good to start understanding a lot of ordinary phrases that one cannot learn from a book.
I have a few questions about vocab in this book now, though.
Alamak! Translated as "Oh my goodness"?
Is this Malay? Is it commonly used?
I've heard kái-sek 解釋 for "explain", but this book has kóe-soeh 解說 instead. What do Penangites use more often? Do the two words have the same meaning?
One of the people in the book is called 躼骹蠓 lò-kha-báng - meaning a tall person, lit. "tall mosquito". I know the 躼 lò from Taiwanese, meaning "tall" but is it ever used in PGHK separately, or only in compound words?
This isn't from the book but I'll ask it anyway. It seems like PGHK has lost the verb chiāuⁿ 上 "to rise, to get up on, to go up" and only has khí 起 instead. Is that really the case, is chiāuⁿ ever used separately? What is the difference between them? I am quite sure Penang people don't say chiāuⁿ-chhia 上車 for "get in the car", but use khí-chhia 起車 instead, the same goes for khí-lâu 起樓 "go upstairs" I think. But the chiāuⁿ exists in other places like chiāuⁿ-thâu 上頭 the hair-combing ritual the night before a wedding. Does it exist anywhere else? Thanks for your answers.
Just remembered one more: som for "warm". This is an unusual ending in Hokkien, in China it exists only in Chiang-chiu Hokkien. Anybody have an idea of the tone or a character? I can only find "ginseng" in Douglas
I have a few questions about vocab in this book now, though.
Alamak! Translated as "Oh my goodness"?
Is this Malay? Is it commonly used?
I've heard kái-sek 解釋 for "explain", but this book has kóe-soeh 解說 instead. What do Penangites use more often? Do the two words have the same meaning?
One of the people in the book is called 躼骹蠓 lò-kha-báng - meaning a tall person, lit. "tall mosquito". I know the 躼 lò from Taiwanese, meaning "tall" but is it ever used in PGHK separately, or only in compound words?
This isn't from the book but I'll ask it anyway. It seems like PGHK has lost the verb chiāuⁿ 上 "to rise, to get up on, to go up" and only has khí 起 instead. Is that really the case, is chiāuⁿ ever used separately? What is the difference between them? I am quite sure Penang people don't say chiāuⁿ-chhia 上車 for "get in the car", but use khí-chhia 起車 instead, the same goes for khí-lâu 起樓 "go upstairs" I think. But the chiāuⁿ exists in other places like chiāuⁿ-thâu 上頭 the hair-combing ritual the night before a wedding. Does it exist anywhere else? Thanks for your answers.
Just remembered one more: som for "warm". This is an unusual ending in Hokkien, in China it exists only in Chiang-chiu Hokkien. Anybody have an idea of the tone or a character? I can only find "ginseng" in Douglas