The character 一 for one or first

The character 一 which stands for one or first is the easiest to write and the hardest to learn, if you are learning Teochew. 

Why do I say this? This character 一 can be said as zêg8, ig4, iao1, be omitted or substituted with another character.

If we are saying cardinal numbers, like 1, 2, 3 etc, then we say zêg8, no6 etc.

In Zhang XiaoShan's dictionary, he gave an example "Lai5 guê3 zêg8 zua7." 來過一帀 as an example of using the measure word zua7 帀, which means came before once.

However, normal Teochew people would omit to say zêg8 一  normally, and they would say  Iⁿ2zoiⁿ5  lai5 guê3 以前來過 - which means "came before".

So in front of a measure word or sometimes known as classifier, one could say zêg8 for 一 as in one. 

You can hear this again in a song which a Thai Teochew nang sung, whose title of the song is 

tiⁿ1dêng2 zêg8 ziah4 gho5 - 天頂一隻鵝

And for correct Teochew grammar, it should have been "tiⁿ1dêng2 u6 ziah4 gho5 天頂有隻鵝" where the zêg8 一 is substituted by u6 有 - Heaven has a goose, rather than tiⁿ1dêng2 zêg8 ziah4 gho5 - 天頂一隻鵝 which means one goose in heaven.

Let us see more substitution examples.

In a short play, this lad was selling two eggs for a dollar, and he said

"gai5-ngeng5 no6 liab8 個銀二粒" and here we can hear him substituting zêg8 一 for gai5 個.   

Another example is for the first building in a place - the first building is not said as doiⁿ6ig4 goiⁿ1 第一間 but said as tao5goiⁿ1 頭間 .

I have noticed many more substitution and omission examples in my study notes, but I now like to move on to the use of ig4.

So for ordinal numbers, we say ig4.  For example, as doiⁿ6ig4 第一 for first and ciu1ig4 初一 for first day of the lunar month.

We also say ig4 for 11 and 1 o'clock - zab8ig4 diam2 十一點 for 11 o'clock and ig4 diam2 一點 for one o'clock. 

And how about iao1 一 and we say this for giving off telephone numbers, especially over the phone, like 110 is said as iao1 iao1 kang3 一一空.

The above are only some examples of how to say one in Teochew. I imagine you must be sufficiently confused by now if you have heard this for the first time. 

The key here is to forget Mandarin when you are speaking Teochew and do not do direct Mandarin Teochew translations. Otherwise you will be laughed at like the way my sister laughed at me when I first spoke Teochew to her after many years, translating directly from Mandarin to Teochew.