Time VIII Common Mistake

 Some people are confused with ordinal numbers for example second and cardinal numbers like two.

ri6hian1 二兄	second brother	二哥
no6 gai5 a1hian1 二個阿兄｜二个阿兄	two elder brothers	兩個哥哥｜两个哥哥
ig4diam2  一點｜一点	1 o’clock	一點｜一点
zêg8 diam2 ri6 一點二｜一点二	1.2 [one point two]	一點二｜一点二
ri6diam2 二點｜二点	2 o’clock	兩點｜两点
no6 diam2zeng1 二點鐘二点钟	2 hours	兩個小時｜两个小时

 I have often thought why our people would make a mistake between no6 and ri6 and perhaps learning Mandarin and been told that Teochew is a dialect of Mandarin, have somewhat got their brains confused.

We, Teochew, have over a thousand year history and we follow Middle Chinese and 2 o’clock is the second hour and thus we say ri6diam2 and not no6 diam2.

Just to make things even more complicated, 二 can be said as ri7 and this ri7 has nothing to do with the number 2 or 2^nd (second).

ri7gê1 二家	together	yi1qi3 一起
ri7gê1 lai5二家來	came altogether	一起來
ri7gê1 mai3 二家勿	Do not want any.	都不要

 

ri7gê1 mai3 can be directly translated as “all do not want” but of course in English, it is said as “do not want any”!

Second Hand

re6ciu2 二手	second hand	er4shou3 二手
re6ciu2 cia1 二手車｜二手车	second hand car	er4shou3che1 二手車｜二手车

So why do we see Mogher writes this as ri7ciu2 for second hand. It is because tone 6 becomes tone 7 when it is tone sandhi. The native speakers who wrote the contents of Mogher, knew that they were saying ri(7)ciu2.

I appreciate that it is very difficult for people learning Teochew to worry about learning our characters, the pronunciation, tones, changing tones etc but it will come together at the end.