Since I learned Chinese in Taiwan, there are several Taiwanese phrases that I got used to using (even though I don’t speak Taiwanese)…
pai sei (sorry)
wa m zai (wo bu zhidao)
“a ma! li ho” (hi grandma)
ba zang (rou zong)
a nei (zhen de)
Extra “huh” in my sentences
…
Sometimes I forget when I’m talking to someone from China and one of those words slips out…
What are some of the ones you picked up?
Song (su) ie “jioa bin lang hen song” would have to be the number one I’d never even think of using Mandarin for.
Pai Say of course, and I’ve started saying ‘shummy isu’ (shenme yisi) to my kids jokingly.
When I get angry at taxi drivers who almost kill me I usually shout “…” OK, I shouldn’t print that here, but you really can’t swear effectively in mandarin people tell me - you have to use taiyu.
Bri
Oh yeah and Obisan, Ojisan of course - via Japanese.
Bri
quote:
Originally posted by Geng: Sometimes I forget when I'm talking to someone from China and one of those words slips out...
That shouldn’t be a problem if you’re speaking to someone from Fujian. All the examples you mentioned are Hokkienisms, not Taiwanisms. A lot of the real Taiwan-only words seem to be derived from Japanese, many of them in turn derived from English, e.g.
baku=back up (a car)
shiodo=crazy (from shoto sakito - short circuit)
otobai=motorbike (from “autobike”)
ladio=radio)
banana, tomato (obvious)
Anyway, my habitual Hokkienisms are ane ho (OK) and bo bunde (no problem.) Sorry about the spellings, folks, I’ve only learned these by ear.
What about these?
Mo ya keen!
Bon law gwam sei ko!
Bo Hee Hei Ma Ho!
Sho ga taio lao!
Lun kei (backwards for customer: ker lun in Mandarin)
Hon tai (backwards for tyhpoon in Mandarin: tai feng)
Gam sha li! (thank you)
Ho jya ga bei shi! (something so delicious, it’s to die for!)
Toraku for TRUCK from Japanese…
Doraiba…for screwdriver from Japanese…
Nakashi… nakashi music from “natsukashi melodie” from the Japanese for nostalgic music…
tai tai = wife
I think mo ya keen is most useful here. It means something like “excuse me, sumimasen, don’t mention it, no problem…”
of so my GF tells me. We live in Keelung, but she’s from Kaohsiung.
damn, i speak taiwanese and i can’t figure out what some of those phrases mentioned are. not an easy language to romanize.
anyway, bmuh yao geen(don’t you love my romanization?) is the taiwanese equivalent of
it’s Greek to me: a very useful expression in Taiwan. Whenever you don’t understand soemthing just say: BU SA SA. It means "a mystery, smoke and mirrors, a foggy thing, or as we say in Greece, It’s Greek to me!
Which reminds me: that expression in Japanese for Greek to me is something like “CHim poon kam poon” (ask your Japanese friends, they will nod in understanding…) acutally is NOT Japanese but comes from CHinese: it means “ting bu kan bu” hear not see not, not hear, not see, whatever, and means "IT’s Greek to me’ over there in Japanland. Even the Japanese don’t know this expression comes from CHina! THey they THEY invented it, but noooooooooooooooooooooo… as 99% of things in Japan, it comes from Chinese culture long ago.
And if you ride your bike into the back of a car you will discover the Taiwanese for shock absorbers is “shocksu”.
shocksu? That’s great.
I guess we can add more Japaneseisms in Taiwan:
For example:
bed = beddo
cup = cuppa
car = mai car (my car)
truck = toraku
boyfriend = boy frendo
girlfriend = gyalfrendo
coffee = kohi (sometimes reversed to hiko)
lifeline = lifulaino
atm = ay-tee-emmo
dollar = dollaru
drugs = druggzu
Ecstasy = ekku-sta-see
AIDS = Aidzu
CD = shee-dee
Japanese is easy, piece of sushi!
any more???
Lord, you guys are a bunch of great people out there; I was laughing so hard that I had to restraint myself in case my boss noticed me. I’ve not seen (up till now) people writing Taiwanese in English letters or in any way for that matter, but I thoroughly enjoy it. Here are a few more:
loukoko (LKK, elder people who are not up-to-date with what’s happening in the real world)
Hon-do-ni (is that for real?)
ben-don (lunch box)
ho-li-si (to kill you - literary translation)
a-na-da (dear, honey or spouse)
Ciao,
crunchnumber, cool thanks for the list more.
But do you know that Hon-do-ni (is that for real?)
ben-don (lunch box)
and
a-na-da (dear, honey or spouse) are all japanese words not taiwanese words? Honto ni, REALLY? - BENTO lunch box - and ANATA (you, or what J-men call their wives instead of dear or honey…)
I guess you knew this, but just in case. LKK was funny, but what about SPP, siang piao piao. What does that mean? I heard it on TV yesterday
Song pia pia, or SPP, means tacky or kitsch.
so is James Soong SPP?
He’s PFP. If it’s tacky you’re looking for, look no further than Mr. country-hick-turned-prex hisself, A-Bian. That guy is tackier than a black velvet paining of Elvis hung above a waterbed with red satin sheets inside a customized GMC van with teardrop windows in the back and fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. Now that’s tacky! 8)
He’s PFP. If it’s tacky you’re looking for, look no further than Mr. country-hick-turned-prex hisself, A-Bian. That guy is tackier than a black velvet paining of Elvis hung above a waterbed with red satin sheets inside a customized GMC van with teardrop windows in the back and fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. Now that’s tacky! 8)[/quote]
Not as bad as his daughter and her husband. Taiwan’s tackiest couple. Their wedding was the height of tacky Taiwan-ness. I thought I was going to hurl every time the news reported on it.
Does anyone feel that “a-do-ah” is more rude than “lao wai”?" Now that Taiwanese is becoming more and more common, more and more kids are pointing their fingers at me and saying “a-do-ah!”
Just point back and say “Bei-chi!”
Well, screw you, Maoman! I thought you said you LIKED my teardrop windows! And let’s not forget it was YOU who gave me Elvis pic in the first place. Last time YOU get a ride off me.
[quote]Just point back and say “Bei-chi!”[/quote]? Or should that be “bai chi”?
Well, since they are speaking Taiwanese, I thought it would be nice to reply in kind rather than in Mandarin.
You brought up a good point. Wonder if any longtermers know the answer. I have asked over 100 people here in Taiwan if ADOAH is a good word, bad word, negative word, positive word, neutral word or what and I have received 100 answers, all different.
The kids just think it means “foreigner” and have no idea it really means “prominent nose hairy barbarian foreigner from a stinky slimy cesspool of a country.”
So they just point and say the word thinking they are just saying “Look, Mum, there’s a foreigner.” No harm meant at all.
Others, adults, understand that it is a bit of a negative word and always say SORRY when i ask them why they called me that.
A policeman once pulled me over for a routine scooter check in Taibei and he called his pals on his cellphone and said, smiling “Hey, I got an ADOAH here!” He meant no harm either.
And many newspapers use this term as a form of humor.
So here’s my question: is ADOAH a good word a bad word or a neutral word.
And it is better than being called a SHI ADOAH, right, a dead fucking big noser!
I heard that Japanese sometimes get called SHI NIPPOONA by taiwanese here, meaning “Goddamned effing japs!”
But back to the question: is the A word worth correcting or is it just a slang term that has entered the local vocabulary for good or for worse?
And can the term be “rescued” by referring to ourselves as ADOAH in a humorus jokey way!
ANd Paogao, what does BEI CHI mean? pls xplain! in plane engluish…