cian2bhuê7且未

I have done a posting somewhere, which I cannot find and I used the wrong character for ciaⁿ2 as in ciaⁿ2 bhuê7.  This is the correct character 且未.  

So sorry about this. 

When I find that blessed post, I will amend it accordingly.  

Tones

I want to write about tones today.  I think this is a very complicated subject because our parents have not taught us tones and we just speak the language naturally.  So few of us are truly versed with this topic.  I think when we begin with tones as natural speakers we have to keep it simple - KISS - keep it simple stupid

We have 8 tones and we also have changing tones depending where a character is placed in a word.  Some words are made up of several characters. 

I have observed how Chinese children, natural speakers of Mandarin, learn their tones in school and I have come to believe we too have to practice our tones until it is second nature to us.  So when we hear a spoken word, we know which tones have been used.

I will not talk about tones 4 and 8 today because they special cases and I will write about them another time.  

Tones 1 and 7 do not change regardless where the character is placed in the word.  This is important as we can therefore choose any characters to practice these two tones.

As for the rest, tones 2, 3, 5 and 6 - we can only choose characters which stand on their own to form words or when the character appear at the end of a word to practice our tones.

Another important point is do not allow other people to choose the characters for you.  This is because you will never master these blessed tones, unless you have already master our Diosua Ue.  Choose characters which you already know and can say it fluently.  This exercise is for you to master the tones and not to learn the tones from scratch.

I have chosen characters which I already know and I practice them every morning.

Tone 1 si1 絲｜丝 julienne ｜gao1 勾 as in hiⁿ6gao1 耳勾 earrings ｜gui1 規｜规 as in gui1gê2 規格｜规格 protocol [middle flat tone]

Tone 2 si2 死 die ｜gao2 狗 dog ｜gui2 鬼 ghost [short tone and higher than tone 1 and falling]

Tone 3 si3 四 four ｜gao3 到 to arrive ｜ gui3 貴｜贵 expensive [fall & rise]

Tone 5 si5 匙 spoon ｜gao5 猴 monkey ｜guiⁿ5 危 tall or high [high flat tone]

Tone 6 si6 是 yes, am, is ｜ gao6 厚 thick ｜guiⁿ6 跪 to kneel [rising tone]

Tone 7 si7 豉 as in si7iu5 豉油 soya sauce ｜ there is no gao7 ｜guiⁿ7 櫃｜柜 as in seng1guiⁿ7 霜櫃｜霜柜 [low flat tone]

Learn these tones and practice them everyday - choose your own characters, and when we have mastered them, we will discuss changing tones. 

cên1青

I want to talk about cêⁿ1 青  today.  Some of us are too gê2kiang5  假强 and tell others that cêⁿ1 is green.

Well, I am going to just tell you what my dictionaries say.  These are proper DioSua Uê dictionaries from China.  

First: cêⁿ1cai3 青菜

Are these green vegetables? Wrong!  They are fresh vegetables.  Just because most fresh vegetables are green does not make cêⁿ1 as in cêⁿ1cai3 green.  

Second: cêⁿ1tiⁿ1 青天

Does cêⁿ1tiⁿ1 mean green sky? Wrong!  It is blue sky or clear sky.

Third: cêⁿ1bou3 青布

Is cêⁿ1bou3 green cloth? Wrong!  It is black cloth.

Are you sufficiently confused yet?  I have not finished.

Then how about cêⁿ1cao2 青草 This is just grass.

So how do we say green?  We say lêg8sêg4 綠色

For example lêg8dao7 綠豆 well you must have heard of lêg8dao7 - which is mung bean

Then there is ang5lêg8dêng1 紅綠燈 for traffic light AND there is no nasal for ang5 either.  Just because we say this ang5 in the high pitch tone 5 does not mean we nasal it.

And those guê3 kiang5 people: there is not such thing as ang5cêⁿ1dêng1 - this word does not exist and if you were to go to DioSua and say ang5cêⁿ1dêng1, people will hear this until they are really gong5gong5 戇戇. 

Thank you for reading this post and I hope it is of some help for you in mastering your mother tongue.  

Do note that I am not saying cêⁿ1 is not green.  I am just presenting you with what the dictionaries have written to increase your understanding of the cêⁿ1 青 character. 

riang2 讓｜让

You must have "riang2" by your mother or father once or twice.  So what does this riang2 actually mean? 

Does it mean 大聲罵? To be scolded loudly - actually not.

According to LLL [page 33] - he explains riang2 as to be scolded, to be told off, to be corrected, to be reprimanded.  AND if your parents so happened to have told you off in a loud voice - the loud voice is not part of the dziang2 - hence we often hear it said as

riang2 dua7 dua7 siaⁿ1 讓大大聲 - to be scolded loudly

Another point which I want to make is to compare how our language, Diosua Uê with Mandarin.

Let us see how this topic of riang2 is explained and used in Mandarin by LLL.

這小孩太不聽話, 得訓他幾句。

This child is not listening to instructions, he has to be taught by being told off.

That is the rough translation of the above sentence in Mandarin.

Now let us see how LLL writes this in Diosua Uê.

奴囝過孬,著伊讓幾句。

nou5giaⁿ2 guê3mo2, dioh8 gai7 i1 riang2 gui2 gu3


First of all - there is no "this" like zi2gai5 只個 - is omitted at the beginning of the sentence. zi2gai5 只個 - is equivalent to 這

guê3mo2 過孬 - means naughty - and it does not explain how the child is naughty - it is just taken for granted the child is not listening to instructions.

The dioh8 著 is the same as 得

and the riang2 讓 is the same 訓 which means to teach

Then the placement of the "him" as in the child - Mandarin = 他

and our language is i1 伊

Have you noticed that this him "i1" is transposed and placed in front of the verb in our Diosua Uê and in Mandarin is placed after the verb?

So - what is the moral of this posting?  We cannot just do a direct Mandarin to DioSua Uê translation or else people listening to us will have a good laugh at our expense.  

哭哭作一堆

I have just found out what 哭哭作一堆 means from 說文解字, as 大家哭成一團

It means to cry together in unison.  The previous entry misses out one kao character.  It suppose to be kao kao zag zêg du. 

hao1 tin1 gio3 dzig8 號天叫日

hao1 tiⁿ1 gio3 dzig8 號天叫日

I found this in the dictionary today.  What do you think it means?

We know hao1 means to cry already.  I did not realise it uses the bhê2 號 character.  That is the problem with speaking and listening to the language without reading and writing.  

Now I think even you can imagine what it means:  it means to cry bitterly - calling upon heaven.

So let us see how to use this hao1 tiⁿ1 gio3 dzig8

伊阿老父死去, 撮仔號天叫日,哭作一堆。

It means their father passed away and the children cried bitterly.

hao1 tiⁿ1 gio3 dzig8 號天叫日

Now the PêngIm

i1 a1lao6bê si2 ke3, coh4giaⁿ2 hao1tiⁿ1gio3dzig8, kao3 zag4 zeg8du2 

bu4ji2 不及

Our people say bhoi6hu1 for bu4ji2 不及

However, which hu character should we use.  I read all the hu1 characters and perhaps we could consider this hu1 敷 character.  It explains that hu1 敷 means 足夠. Which means enough or sufficient.

LLL gives two examples of use.  Hu1êng7 敷用 and this means sufficient for use. 

The second example, LLL gives is 入不敷出. Dzib8bug4 hu1cug8 which means income does not cover expenditure.      

Could we use this hu1 敷 for bhoi6hu1? 

Lai5 bhoi6hu1 can be explained by 來不及 which means there is not enough time to do something or it is too late to do something.

The word dictionary says 不及 as m6gib8  唔及. 

And thus 來不及 could be written as lai5 m6gib8 來唔及.  

What is wrong with our lai5bhoi6hu1?

Another hu1 character which could be considered is 孚. This hu1 孚 means trustworthy and reliable.  LLL does not give an examples of use. 

I do not really think there is a character for hu1 as in bhoi6hu1 and I am just trying to choose a character between the devil and the deep blue sea.  

That blessed word dictionary is just full of Mandarin words.  I can read Chinese characters in Diosua Uê and why would one want someone to write a dictionary which just reads off Mandarin words?  What is wrong with our own words? 

Do you have another alternative?  Please reply and let us know. 

來不及說我愛你  it is too late to say I love you

來不及了  it is already too late

薟椒仔

My Sri Lankan friends cooked for me a meal and one of the ladies mistook a scotch bonnet chilli for a bell pepper and I was reminded of a song I heard sung sometime ago.  I changed one of the words.  They used the word "ah mak" for mother which is a borrowed Malay word to a Chinese word bho2cing1. 

Some Diosua nang puritans will say I am just as bad to borrow a Mandarin word - but Diosua language is also Chinese.

Here goes one stanza of the song

食叻沙
咬著薟椒仔
我父薟猴
薟到母親[不/會] 認仔

English translation

Ate laksa [there is a link to explain what is laksa]
bitten into a chilli padi
Ua2bê6 hiam1gao5 - there is no English direct translation for this - the literal translation is: my father, hot monkey [hot as in chilli hot]
hot until (a) mother cannot recognise her children

薟椒仔

Now in PêngIm

ziah8 lag8sa1
ga6dioh8 hiam1zio1giaⁿ2
ua2bê6 hiam1gao5
hiam1 gao3 bho2cing1 bhoi6 dzing7 giaⁿ2


You might have heard this song too.  They use the word bhoi6hu1 - which in Mandarin is 不及.  I am trying to find the hu1 character in my dictionaries but to no avail.

Do you know of this hu?

WangSa YeFong 王沙野峰

When I was young, my parents encouraged me to listen to WangSa YeFong so I could improve my DioSua Ue.  At that time, we just called it Teochew [an English word - which is in the Oxford English dictionary].  

ZiHong wrote to me today and he discussed about the use of lo6 giving lots of examples.  And then I saw the character long1 鈴 yesterday in one of my dictionaries.  I went shopping today and while at the supermarket car park, my mind just opened up to what WangSa said so many years ago when I was a child.

Saⁿ1diam2 long1, si3 diam2 ia7 long1. Gah4 i1 daⁿ3 mai3 long1, i1 lo6 ngêⁿ6ngêⁿ6 aiⁿ3 long1.

三點鈴, 四點也鈴. 合伊呾[免/勿] 鈴, 伊在硬硬愛鈴。

七點鈴

OK the clock shows 七點鈴. 哈哈

There are two points of interest here. 

In the dictionary, 在  is written to be said as zai6 or do6.  However, for us DioSua nang, we never say do6 - but lo6 - in the above context.

Another point is LLL and the word dictionary use 愛 for aiⁿ3 to mean want 要.  I have read up LLL comments on 慾 and it does not say we should use this character to represent 要.

I hope you find this posting helpful.  

bho5nai6ho5

When I was very young, I heard my father saying hiao5 gao3 bho5 nai6ho5 and I never really understood its meaning.  I sort of knew roughly what was said.  Then I read LLL and I reckoned these could be the characters for bho5 nai6ho5.

無奈何

So let us break this phrase up 嬲到無奈何 - 

First nai6ho5 奈何 - this means to cope with or to deal with

therefore bho5nai6ho6 無奈何 - unable to cope with it or unable to deal with it

Therefore, hiao5 gao3 bho5 nai6ho5 嬲到無奈何

means hiao5 until cannot cope with it or deal with it anymore

Then what is this hiao5 which my father was referring to?

I have already made a post on hiao5 and you can read all about it in that posting. 

Sorry no pictures today.  AND There is no Mandarin equivalent to 嬲到無奈何  and this is Diosua Ue. 

sleep, siesta, afternoon nap

I have found a rather interesting word in the dictionaries.  It is written as 午覺 and said as ngou5gag4 and explained in Mandarin as  睡眠. AND wu3jiao4 午覺 in Mandarin is siesta - having an afternoon sleep.

So the question is how do we say "siesta" in Diosua Ue?  Do we actually say like what LLL say - ngou5gag4?  

I know I do not say afternoon sleep as ngou5gag4.  哈哈

Did you know we are the only Chinese people who have siestas in the afternoons in China, while the other Chinese are so busy making money?  Between gongfu cha and wuziao - I wonder what else we do or not do. 

除了

I have been watching a historical drama Zhen Huan biography [of course without English subtitles] and HuanHuan said to her lady in waiting ": 除了你便再也沒有人會對我說這樣的話了。"

I was interested in finding out how we say chule in Diosua Ue.  As you know de5nang5 除人 means to disturb or bother other people.  So how can I use this de5 除 character in another way?

The dictionary says chule in Diosua Ue is de5liao5 除了 and has the same meaning as Mandarin.  For those of you who do not know Mandarin, de5liao5 means besides, apart from, with the exception of etc.  

Then how would you translate what Huanhuan said to her lady in waiting: "除了你便再也沒有人會對我說這樣的話了。"?  The sentence means besides you who else would say this kind of things to me.  

I look forward to seeing how you would translate the above Mandarin sentence into Diosua Ue. 

BTW this is in episode 55 about 11 minutes into the video.

I think the only way we can improve our Diosua Ue is to be good in Mandarin and then think of what is said in Mandarin and then say the same thing in DioSua Ue.  This kind of exercise will help us have a deeper sense of our language.