kiăm-siăp (stingy) and khiām-iŏng (thrifty)

[amhoanna]

皇 is always hông in TW too. I bet if and when the Hoklo Republic is born, schoolteachers will try to get kids to say Cînsíhông.

The inauspicious "sí" here is great.

Have U heard of the Goldlist, Sim? It's a technique someone invented for learning vocab, but maybe it works for hanji too. I plan to start using it for Anlâm'oē and Siamlô'oē.

[SimL]

I found it easier to remember 漢字 by knowing the history, or even using "pseudo-history", e.g. 溫 is also written as 温, so 水, 日 and 皿, sun warming water in the plate. It is not historically true, but this kind of "story" makes sense and easier to remember.

Oh, I agree totally! One of the most famous examples is of course 來, which is popularly explained (perhaps only to children...?) as being "people emerging from the trees/forest", hence "come". Whereas we all know that it's a character which originally was used to write "wheat", and borrowed for the sound alone, to write "come" - as can still be seen in 麥"mai" => "lai", IIRC.

I've wondered about this 皇 / 王 thing before. I always thought 皇 as "hong5" and 王 was "ong5", but a few months ago, one of my parents told me that 皇帝 is pronounced "ong5-te3" in Hokkien. What's the story here? Is "ong-te" perhaps a Penang (Baba) Hokkien "mispronunciation"?

皇帝 is hông-tè in my variant. Not sure why we say Cîn-sí-ông instead of Cîn-sí-hông; whether it is 皇 pronounced as ông in this instance or it's actually 王.

and

泰始皇 = Cînsíhông... My (non-native) instincts would have me say Cînsí'ông 泰始王 instead. Not sure if I heard that somewhere.

Bingo! In Bâ-gán-uē we say Cîn-sí-ông 泰始王.

As 泰始皇 was the archetypical emperor, I'm beginning to wonder whether it might really be a case of 王 being pronounced "ong" in some contexts, in some variants (based on the fact that both you confirm - and amhoanna feels - this). While I originally thought it was my Dad's Penang Hokkien variant which said "ong te" for 皇帝 (and was hence willing to attribute it to "Baba 'corruption' or lack of knowledge of proper usage"), I realise now that it was my mother's Amoyish variety that had it, but then, in this particular expression: 皇帝交椅輪流坐 "ong-te kau-i lun-liu ce" (= "every dog has his day").

As her side of the family speak Hokkien natively, and (especially in the older generation of 1900-1950's) learnt Mandarin (well) and English (only to a limited extent) as a second language, it seems unlikely that "ong" in this context was a "mistake".

[SimL]

Have U heard of the Goldlist, Sim? It's a technique someone invented for learning vocab, but maybe it works for hanji too. I plan to start using it for Anlâm'oē and Siamlô'oē.

I hadn't heard of it until you mentioned it, but googling and looking on youtube produced lots of information.

The written information here is good, but perhaps a bit hard to digest, first off:

- http://huliganov.tv/2010/04/25/repost-o ... -extended/

Below is a clip where half of the time, the maker explains the goldlist method, and the other half of the time he explains something he calls "double captioning".

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru4AL0WEQqM

My only difficulty with it is that the camera both wobbles (when aimed at one spot) and moves around a lot. I'm very sensitive to motion sickness, so I feel a bit dizzy after watching it (I can't watch any "dogma" films, because of wobbling of the handheld camera). So, both the wobble and the fact that the camera moves around the page of the book, and from the book to other things a lot gave me some discomfort. But other than that, a good clip, and I learnt something useful from both halves. In any case, I love Scottish accents, so that's one aspect which compensates for the shaky camera.

Finally, here's where the inventor himself explains his method in 2 youtube clips. I haven't really got the patience to watch 40 minutes of explanation, so I've only skimmed through most of it. I found that the scottish guy's exposition - complemented by the written article - was enough for me to understand what to do.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6FERpM5fQ&NR=1
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTyJiGVJ0LM


I'm quite intrigued by his idea, and am willing to give it a go.

Thanks very much for passing on the tip, amhoanna!