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.