Chineselanguage forum

Mm33si33 wah4 cit3 lang2 tai33et1-eh2 nia33. If you want to talk about being "tāi-iát", you should go look in the mirror before applying it on others. The problem is there's now an Eliza Doolittle who insists on saying lovely as loVERly, and is telling the stuck-up Professor Higgins to take his uppe...

Of course it's a typo. It's called being human. And I'm one too.

Before you call people names and pass judgement on their writing system, make sure you can spell properly in your own.

Wah, Pope of Penang Hokkien! Thank you, thank you for the undeserving honor, but I won't reciprocate. I am not in the habit of calling people names, even if they call me plenty. I do acknowledge that there were (and still are) typos in some of the spellings and I am working to fix them, refine them,...

My TJ System of Penang Hokkien romanisation has attracted the attention of a Dutch programmer, who wrote to me, asking if he could use it to develop an app for mobile devices. This is still very much in the preliminary stage, but it things go well, I hope to be able to see the app capable of transla...

Idioms newly added Bart3ciu1 tak1 stamp4. Literally: Eyes pasted with stamps. Meaning: Oblivious to something totally obvious. Boh3 tua3 boh3 seh3 Literally: not big, not small Meaning: disrespectful Example: Kong1 wa3 ka1 paeh3bo3 be3sai1 boh3 tua3 boh3 seh3. (Talking to parents one must not be di...

Thank you AndrewAndrew for your point of view. I fully understand and appreciate your effort in explaining to me. Will the system of romanisation that I created stand the test of time. I suppose only time will tell. But in the meantime, do give it a chance to survive. How should we pronounce Law Cho...

Any romanization worth its salt should be able to handle the Ciangciu / Penang /ɛ/. As Andrew's shown, Douglas used "ɛ" Yes. I saw that. So what? You expect learners to cart around the Douglas dictionary. Whenever they meet a Penang Hokkien person, they have to flip open the dictionary, check up th...

When I was council member of the Penang Heritage Trust, I lamented to my fellow council members that we spent a lot of time trying to save our tangible heritage, but not enough to save our intangible heritage. And an intangible heritage that was dying before our eyes is our own language, Penang Hokk...

http://www.penang-traveltips.com/pics/guide-to-writing-penang-hokkien-2.jpg I realise that in the past, I have created lessons for beginners, for visitors to Penang, for expatriates, for EVERYBODY except for the people who already speak Penang Hokkien. So, finally, a lesson specially for people who...

http://www.penang-traveltips.com/pics/sun-qiang-temple-chinese-junk-replica.jpg Thanks for sharing this information. I did a research on the subject of why people in different parts of the Malay peninsula speak different Chinese dialect, i.e. Penang Hokkien, southern Hokkien, Cantonese, Baba Malay,...

TUA3 PHAU3 (BIG FIRE-CRACKER) Penang Hokkien Rhyme Tua3 Phau3 is a Penang Hokkien rhyme often recited by scouts in Penang. It literally means big fire cracker, but is also slang to mean a person who talks big or boasts. The rhyme below can be taken at face value, to mean that various fire crackers ...

I have started a page to compile the various idioms I have known or come across in Penang Hokkien: http://www.penang-traveltips.com/hokkien/idioms.htm To these I have just added two more: Bong3 thni1 leng1-leng4 Literally: Touch the sky and feel that it is cool Meaning: Having an unrealistic expecta...

There is nothing "suka-suka" about the system, even if there are those who cannot understand it. Unfortunately it is difficult to explain on the linear plane of a forum, so I will leave things as they are. I know my priorities when creating the system. If I want to, I could have written Penang Hokki...

Hi there,

I am a Hokkien-speaking Penang lang. Happy to get to know you. I am doing my part to keep the language alive with my own free online Hokkien lessons.