How -NOT- write in Hokkien

[Abun]

yeah, accidental repost again... and still not able to find a way to delete my own posts...

[amhoanna]

aBun, I haven't listened to the song, b/c of bandwidth concerns. But let me answer U as well as I can otherwise.

1. I don't quite understand the meaning of 十九歲青春的夢，現實就叫我愛看破. "When the dream I had had with 19 in my youth came real, I had to... accept it?"

"My youthful dreams, the dreams of a 19-year-old... Reality forces me to see through them and quit dreaming."

3. especially the jīm lâng (任人) part. Is this a pronoun (an abbreviation of jīm-hô-lâng (任何人), "anybody, no matter who" maybe?) or is 任 a verb, like "assign the task of 踏ing to 人"?

This word is commonly used in Mandarin, but not in Hoklo, at least not outside the PRC. It acts like a verb -- not sure if it really is one. It's hard to translate into English. 任人踏 = ABLE TO OR AVAILABLE TO BE STEPPED ON BY ANYBODY.

A younger singer should hire an agent, 不然豈不任人宰割 (this is Mandarin) = OTHERWISE WOULDN'T S/HE JUST BE LEAVING HIM-/HERSELF OPEN TO EXPLOITATION?

任誰都解釋不清 ＝ ANYONE, NO MATTER WHO, WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN IT CLEARLY. (This is OK for Mandarin, but it's more like the Modern Literary Chinese of Cantopop lyrics.)

Again, jīmlâng is not really vernacular Hoklo.

4. 按怎閃辟，按怎驚惶 is another part I'm not sure about.

This is a structural borrowing from Mandarin 怎麼 X，怎麼 Y, e.g. 怎麼躲，怎麼怕 -- NO MATTER HOW I DODGE/EVADE, I AM STILL AFRAID.

I believe this usage is ungrammatical in Hoklo proper, but the youngest generations probably have no way of recognizing this. There's a native usage using the word "sian" (no settled kanji), e.g. "(Góa) sian siámphiah tomǎ kiaⁿhiâⁿ."

5. The song seems to use the pronouns góa(我), gún(阮), lán(咱) pretty much interchangeably. I heard about gún/goán sometimes denoting "I", rather than "we", but always had the feeling that usually only occurs when you refer to something from your in-group to an out-group (like "gún tau", "gún kong-si", "gún lāu-pē"). But I thought that gún and lán were pretty strictly distinguished, so you couldn't use lán interchangeably with gún, let alone góa...

The interchanging should mostly be btw goá and gún, yes. Lán is distinct, although I have heard "lílán" in a song lyric, meaning YOU AND ME, effectively replacing vernacular "lán nňg ê" or "lí hâm góa".

"gún lāu-pē"

What I learned was that this expression impllies that U have one or more siblings. If you said "góa lǎupěe", that would mean you were an only child. The two expressions aren't interchangeable. Note that if U only had one sibling, a brother, U would still say "gún hiaⁿtī".

Insert non-native speaker disclaimer here.

Songs are one of my favorite media for learning a language. Unfortunately, for learning some languages, like Cantonese, they are pretty much useless; and for other languages, such as Southern Vietnamese or Hoklo, their usefulness is limited. I especially advise against using post-2000 Hoklo-pop for educational purposes. The 20th century enka, which some so love to hate, is not really good either for learning Hoklo, although I do kind of like it in itself.

[Abun]

Hey amhoanna,

thanks for the detailed and informative answers.

This word is commonly used in Mandarin, but not in Hoklo, at least not outside the PRC. It acts like a verb -- not sure if it really is one. It's hard to translate into English. 任人踏 = ABLE TO OR AVAILABLE TO BE STEPPED ON BY ANYBODY.

Actually I have never come across that expression in Mandarin either (at least I didn't notice it, maybe it hid somewhere of the didn't-understand-each-word-but-got-the-overall-meaning-and-the-topic-is-more-important-than-asking-for-the-word-so-what-the-hell part of conversations once or twice ). According to what you say, I feel it's probably grammatically (and, in the way that it indicates a kind of passive voice to a certain extent even semantically) similar to 讓 in sentences like 他讓車裝傷了, which would make it part of the word group that are often called prepositions but are originally verbs and in a way still behave like them.

任誰都解釋不清 ＝ ANYONE, NO MATTER WHO, WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN IT CLEARLY.

And with this sentence I finally understood how the connection between the verb 任 and "anybody, no matter who" in 任何 came about

4. 按怎閃辟，按怎驚惶 is another part I'm not sure about.

This is a structural borrowing from Mandarin 怎麼 X，怎麼 Y, e.g. 怎麼躲，怎麼怕 -- NO MATTER HOW I DODGE/EVADE, I AM STILL AFRAID.

Don't know if it's a good sign I didn't think about this construction (because it means I'm not making the Mandarin connection as quickly anymore) or a bad one (because my Mandarin is getting worse). Anyway, even now I have the feeling that it's a rather "emotional" construction, in Mandarin at least, expressing a certain degree of frustration, right? Maybe that's why my first feeling usually leads me to using 不管...還 if I want to say "no matter how...", and hardly ever 怎麼...怎麼

The interchanging should mostly be btw goá and gún, yes. Lán is distinct, although I have heard "lílán" in a song lyric, meaning YOU AND ME, effectively replacing vernacular "lán nňg ê" or "lí hâm góa".

"lí-lán" indeed is an interesting word... is that maybe a Hokkien pendant of Mandarin 你我 (which I have also only ever heard in songtexts, four-character slogans or otherwise “poetic” environments, hardly ever in conversation)? My speculation about the usage of lán there would be that "you and me" includes "you", and that notion took prominence over the fact that it should grammatically be a coordination "you and we" (and thereby exclusive “we”), but that’s only speculation…

As for the difference between gún/guán (meaning singular) and guá, do you feel confident enough to take a chance and try to roughly define the difference? My above-mentioned feeling that gún/guán is used for mentioning your in-group to your out-group seems at least not entirely true after all (I have to admit, part of that feeling probably originates from Korean, where it does exactly that, cf. 우리집(uri jip, "our" home), 우리 회사(uri hoesa, "our" company), 우리 아빠(uri appa, "our" dad (no matter if you have siblings or not)) ect.)
And does it make a semantic difference whether you say gún or guán? The MoE dict says that the plural meaning is pronounced guán and the singular meaning gún (and that it also tends to indicate a female speaker). However what I heard so far indicates that this is not true (anymore?). At least I did hear gún used for plural and by males, too. Does that mean that these two are in fact mere pronunciation differences then?

Songs are one of my favorite media for learning a language. Unfortunately, for learning some languages, like Cantonese, they are pretty much useless; and for other languages, such as Southern Vietnamese or Hoklo, their usefulness is limited.

Yes, I'm well aware of that. Even in languages that don't face the "dialect" vs. "standard language" problem, the language used in poetry (including music) is often very different from what people use on the street. The first example that comes to my mind is Korean again, imagine if I had tried to learn that from songs, I'd probably go around calling people 그대(kŭdae), the second person singular pronoun which is most prominently used in poetry, but unfortunately only there In the case of Hokkien, there also may be the problem that quite a few of the singers only have a limited knowledge of the language themselves.
But I guess as long as I keep reminding yourself of this, the damage should be limited, I guess

[FutureSpy]

日頭一出來猶原敢是好天氣

Are you sure it's kám? To me it sound's like koh (the one the MoE writes 閣)

And btw, I do hear a tsi̍t there, albeit somewhat indistinct.

Not sure. Perhaps káⁿ? I'm not sure, since I still can't distinguish tones (shame on me)
If it's not káⁿ, it could be possibly korh, but my question is: can /o/ in words with tone 4 and 8 be pronounced as or?

[EDIT] I've just listened the pronunciation for 'koh' on MoE's dictionary, and yes, it's clearly korh. My question was because the speakers I know who pronounce O as OR always do it, except in -k -t -p -h sequences... Does káⁿ make any sense there? Perhaps, it's a koh then...

[Abun]

I'm not sure, since I still can't distinguish tones (shame on me)

hm, while I do have my problems with some tone combinations (for example, everytime I try to say chhiáⁿ-lâng-kheh (請人客), my ears tell me that the tone on the middle syllable is rising, no matter how much I try to keep it level), I'm pretty confident that I could distinguish the running forms of 2nd and 4th tone (i.e. high level and high falling)... But in songs I am not that confident, also because I'm not used to tones being taken into consideration in songs at all. When listening to the song, I do have the feeling that it is falling, but that might just as well be my imagination because I always interpreted the syllable as koh

the speakers I know who pronounce O as OR always do it, except in -k -t -p -h sequences... Does káⁿ make any sense there? Perhaps, it's a koh then...

Really? I did notice that with -k of course, but I always heard the vowel before -h as a real o (the one without a dot in POJ)... in fact, the MoE-dict lists a few words (admittedly only three, but among them is the commonly heard sentence final --ooh(喔)), so -oh and -ooh would be minimal pairs.
As for the finals -t and -p, I have never heard a word with either o or oo in front of them in actual conversation, so I can't say... The MoE dict doesn't list any words with -ot and only one word with -op (lop(橐), "don something hat-like"), there it indeed seems to be oo, though.

As for your question if káⁿ makes any sense there... I would say not, at least definitely not if there really is a chi̍t, because that requires a following koh if you ask me. However, I always thought that Mandarin 一...就 was parallelled in Hokkien by chi̍t-ē...koh(一下...閣), don't know if the ē can be omitted in actual Hokkien or whether this is a Mandarinism. Or if there in fact is no chi̍t xD In this case and with káⁿ (ji̍t-thâu chhut--lâi káⁿ sī hó thiⁿ-khì) however, it would translate to sth like "is it good wheather if the some comes out?", wouldn't it? And that would be kind of a weird question to ask, if you ask me

[FutureSpy]

I did notice that with -k of course, but I always heard the vowel before -h as a real o (the one without a dot in POJ)...

Actually, when I mean "or", I mean the "o" as they pronounce it in Tâi-lâm... (not sure if it's everywhere in Tâi-lâm tho xD) I guess that's similar to /ə/?

Listen to the audio for the entry for 'bô': http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/r ... wcount=236
To me, that's "bor".

And then for 'koh': http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/r ... owcount=26
That's "korh". But my speakers pronounce it as "koh"...

[Abun]

Actually, when I mean "or", I mean the "o" as they pronounce it in Tâi-lâm... (not sure if it's everywhere in Tâi-lâm tho xD) I guess that's similar to /ə/?

Yes, that's the sound that I mean. I mean I only ever heard this or even sth going more into the direction of closed o (IPA [o]). But my experience is very limited I'm curious though, where do your speakers come from?

[FutureSpy]

I'm curious though, where do your speakers come from?

Somewhere in Tâi-lâm. I can't remember the name of the district. If only I had seen it written...
I'll ask again next time I see them. I've only met them once this year...

[amhoanna]

Anyway, even now I have the feeling that it's a rather "emotional" construction, in Mandarin at least, expressing a certain degree of frustration, right? Maybe that's why my first feeling usually leads me to using 不管...還 if I want to say "no matter how...", and hardly ever 怎麼...怎麼

Just thought of another native construction in Hoklo:

"khah X mã sĩ Y"

e.g. "Khah siám mã sĩ kiaⁿ."

And does it make a semantic difference whether you say gún or guán?

Yes and no. The word "goán" doesn't exist in Coanciu Hoklo and Coanciu-type dialects, such as the Taipak-based dialect of 20th century TWese pop music. In those dialects, it's ALL gún.

In Mainstream TWese, goán is WE (excl.); gún is OUR. Gún can also mean "I" in either dialect. Outside of song lyrics, I'm pretty sure this last usage is reserved for womankind -- not so kosher for masculine usage.

The Coanciu-type usage "gún" meaning WE (excl.), coming out of a man's mouth, actually sounds effeminate to people from districts down-island where everybody says "goán" for WE (excl.). Someone wrote a blog article last yr explaining how this is a misconception.

But I guess as long as I keep reminding yourself of this, the damage should be limited, I guess

As learners, we still all need to get good input from somewhere. Unfortunately, that somewhere is not pop music. And that is really a shame.

But in songs I am not that confident, also because I'm not used to tones being taken into consideration in songs at all.

Tone levels are taken into consideration in Cantonese, Siamese, and Vietnamese song writing and, traditionally, in Hoklo song writing as well. But not in Mandarin.

A lot of people were so sick of the 20th century enka style of Hoklopop that they've really embraced the "Mandopop in Hoklo" wave of the last 10 yrs... But failure to look at tone levels is one of the "sins" of the "Mandopop in Hoklo" wave, right behind "lack of originality".

¡Go, go, go Hokkien!

[Abun]

The word "goán" doesn't exist in Coanciu Hoklo and Coanciu-type dialects, such as the Taipak-based dialect of 20th century TWese pop music. In those dialects, it's ALL gún.

In Mainstream TWese, goán is WE (excl.); gún is OUR. Gún can also mean "I" in either dialect. Outside of song lyrics, I'm pretty sure this last usage is reserved for womankind -- not so kosher for masculine usage.

Thanks a lot for the explanation, so the MoE dict wasn't wrong after all, just not explicit enough^^

Tone levels are taken into consideration in Cantonese, Siamese, and Vietnamese song writing and, traditionally, in Hoklo song writing as well. But not in Mandarin.

Yes. Unfortunately of these languages I only knew Mandarin before, so this is the first time I'm getting in touch with the phenomenon