with ENGLISH SUBTITLES NEW here and also subtitles in ABC lomaji for the Hokol text, new video made by Taiwanese professoer in Taiopeui
youtube.com/watch?v=A7SyASpX_nM
Depends. If you are really serious about doing business in Taiwan, yeah, I’d say Hoklo is important. If you live in a place like Chiayi, yup, sure. All the locals speak Taiwanese. If you live in San Chong in New Taipei City, lots of people speak it. Especially if you like to shop at the local markets. If you have family as I do that live in rural Tainan and in Chiayi city. My family all speak Hoklo. I don’t, so it makes it very difficult to communicate with my uncle and aunt. If you have lots of friends from southern Taiwan and hang out with their friends, then yeah, you’ll end up hearing a lot of Hoklo.
A great indicator of the number of people who still speak Taiwanese is the popularity of the Taiwanese language soap operas that run nightly on TV.
A great way to improve your Taiyu listening skills is to to watch them. It helps if you can read the Chinese subtitles, that way you can pick up the meaning of what they are saying faster. The shows are actually pretty funny without meaning to be.
All the Vietnamese brides I’ve met in San Chong and Hsin Chuang and Chiayi city speak Hoklo.
Depends on where you live, who you hang out with and what area you work in. Living in Taipei and associating mainly with people who speak standard Mandarin, I have little need to learn Taiwanese (though it might be interesting to study if only there were good materials available).
You’re not supposed to play with dead things, and that includes dying languages. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to read an ancient Chinese passage, and then the Baihua to tell me what the original was supposed to mean.
[quote=“Tempo Gain”][quote=“hansioux”]
If that’s the case, people really should pronounce my Chinese name better… it has 資(zi) in it…[/quote]
This is probably more of an issue with the vowel. I don’t think “za” “zang” or “zuo” would be as hard.
[/quote]
that vowel would be ɨ (Close central unrounded vowel)… not found in Holo.
Apparently when some people say “roses” they will use the ɨ sound for the ses part.
Whether Chinese or Taiwanese is easier for a Westerner seems like a silly argument because it depends on what linguistic background that Westerner has. Every German beginner in Chinese I’ve met has great pronunciation, and I attribute that to phonetic similarity. Not to mention some English dialects feature a rather pronounced difference in pronunciation, so what comes more naturally for a Brit may be less natural for an American. But really, I think that neither Chinese nor Taiwanese come naturally, and it’s practice – and in the case of this video, method of transcription – that makes perfect.
Tell that to the Catholic church. 
Anyway, languages only die if we let (force) them. If it weren’t for the government’s aggressive policies up through the 1980’s, Taiwanese would be flourishing today instead of threatened. They’re trying to make up for it now by teaching it in schools and what not, but I think it’s probably already too little too late. Time will tell.
Except in certain coastal dialects in central Taiwan, where “pig” is [tɨ]. Sounds very odd indeed.
Except in certain coastal dialects in central Taiwan, where “pig” is [tɨ]. Sounds very odd indeed.[/quote]
dad’s family from Tsiong-huà, old family business was selling pork, I haven’t heard [tɨ] before. [tɨ] is very hard to pronounce…
Where in Chiong-hoa?* You’ve presumably heard [tu] in Lok-kang before, right? The [tɨ] variant is a Quanzhou feature that’s largely been displaced by now-standard [ti], but can still be heard among some older speakers in coastal bits of Tai-tiong. I’ve read that it used to be heard in other Quanzhou-origin areas like the northeast coast of Taiwan, but I’ve never heard it there. Let me know if you want references, and I’ll dig them out when I get home.
*Apologies, I’m stuck in my POJ ways.
Where in Chiong-hoa?* You’ve presumably heard [tu] in Lok-kang before, right? The [tɨ] variant is a Quanzhou feature that’s largely been displaced by now-standard [ti], but can still be heard among some older speakers in coastal bits of Tai-tiong. I’ve read that it used to be heard in other Quanzhou-origin areas like the northeast coast of Taiwan, but I’ve never heard it there. Let me know if you want references, and I’ll dig them out when I get home.
*Apologies, I’m stuck in my POJ ways.
[/quote]
In Tsiong-huà city, near 中山國小 (Tiong-san kok-sió). I have heard of [tu]. In my family same people pronounce 煮飯 (tsú-pn̄g) as tsí-pn̄g which I find pretty unique, but others would say it as tsú. So even within the same city, accents can be very mixed.
POJ is fine, that’s how I started too. I switched because I thought Tailo made sense. There aren’t that many differences between the two. Just the ch=ts, cch=tsh and some e->i and o->u stuff.
My wife’s family, in Oan-lim (員林), say odd things like ang set for “red” and i si chia? for “who is he?” And then there was grandmother, who was from Gi-lan (home of the uiⁿ final). There’s really quite a lot of regional variation within Taiwanese, though things are evening out as people move around more.
True, used to be able to tell where one was from by their taiwanese. Theres the major subset of
Taipei, Ilan, tainan/kaohsiung, taichung taiwanese.
Except in certain coastal dialects in central Taiwan, where “pig” is [tɨ]. Sounds very odd indeed.[/quote]
My mother in law is from Lukang originally, she speaks this way. Doesn’t make it any easier to understand her lol.
LO LAT…i heard an old man, 70 say that the other day, sounded like LOW LAHT…and when i asked what it means he told it is Thank You in Minnan You but from a long time ago. Has anyone ever heard it or used it with inlaws here? He told me in Yilan they say it as “Jinn lo Lat” with the Jinn meaning VERY…thank you…true?
this term is used by the older set i think. Jinn does mean “very” . Lo Lat translates roughly to “oh you are a hard worker”
I think the mando is Chin Lao (solly i no pinyin).
Its used as a compliment.
You can say it as an indirect Thank You.
For example:
Some one brings over a bento box for you from further then usual distance away. So you say
LO LAT twice to express your appreciation for going that one step further.
Ló͘-la̍t (Loo2-lat8), or Tsin-ló͘-la̍t, means to acknowledge what you’ve done for him is hard work as a form of thanks.
Some people transcribe it to 勞力 (labor) which is probably incorrect, as that would just be Lô-li̍k (Lo5-lik8).
It’s more likely to be related to 努力 (Ló͘-le̍k (Loo2-lik8)) , which means hard work.
[quote=“hansioux”]Ló͘-la̍t (Loo2-lat8), or Tsin-ló͘-la̍t, means to acknowledge what you’ve done for him is hard work as a form of thanks.
Some people transcribe it to 勞力 (labor) which is probably incorrect, as that would just be Lô-li̍k (Lo5-lik8).
It’s more likely to be related to 努力 (Ló͘-le̍k (Loo2-lik8)) , which means hard work.[/quote]
Holy Moly! I have not heard this for a long long time.
Amazing! Remembering childhood Taiwnese here of all places.
So… it’s basically like saying 辛苦你了?
exactly.
[quote=“jmcd”][quote=“hansioux”]Ló͘-la̍t (Loo2-lat8), or Tsin-ló͘-la̍t, means to acknowledge what you’ve done for him is hard work as a form of thanks.
Some people transcribe it to 勞力 (labor) which is probably incorrect, as that would just be Lô-li̍k (Lo5-lik8).
It’s more likely to be related to 努力 (Ló͘-le̍k (Loo2-lik8)) , which means hard work.[/quote]
Holy Moly! I have not heard this for a long long time.
Amazing! Remembering childhood Taiwnese here of all places.[/quote]
‘‘speaking of childhood’’… and thanks tommy above and hansioux for more details ,LO LAT to you all!
youtube.com/watch?v=OB2i7_f6vF4
PS - I also heard that LO LAT comes from the kanji of Japanese word GO KU RO which is part of the nihongo term gokurosamadeshita, thank you for making the meal for me, etc, still used today in Japan and that MAYBE, just maybe the kanji for gokuro is the same as for LAO LI or LO LAT here in Taiwan and that maybe the term is a loan word from japan coloial days and NOT Hoklo at all in origins but now so part of Hoklo culture as to be a Hoklo word, like toraku for trcuk and atam congree and atama shoto and nama kon, etc etc…so many words from 1895-1945 were borrowed here as loan words. LO LAT too?
Here is the kanji frm Japan. see the similarity to LAO LI and lo lat?
ご苦労様 (gokurou sama) vs 努力