Saturday, 8 August 2015

二 no6 or ri7

In our Chaoshan hua 潮汕話 or Teochew 潮洲話, we can say 二 as no6 or ri7. So when do we say no6 and when to say ri7 for 二?

For ordinal numbers, such as second - then we say ri7, like ri7 hian1 二兄 for second brother.

When referring to time, like two o'clock or 12 o'clock, we say ri7 diam2 二點 or zab8ri7 diam2 十二點, respectively.

BUT for two hours, we say no6 diam2 zêng1 二點鐘 and it is not correct to say no6 zhong1 tao5 鐘頭 for two hours and this is half Mandarin and half Teochew. 

For two minutes, we say no6 hung1 zêng1 二分鐘 or for two seconds we say no6 miao2 

However when we are referring to the number of people or things - like two people - we say no6 nang5 二人 or say two hundred people no6 bêh8 nang5 二百人.

So, I think I have covered all the common mistakes I have heard people say and perhaps together we can improve our proficiency in our bhoghe 母語



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