A Beginner's Guide to Taiwanese

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"Hello" in Taiwanese, written Lie hør!

Lier! Taiwanese is a beautiful and musical language spoken in Taiwan and by Taiwanese people around the world. This Beginner's Guide to Taiwanese will provide you with a brief introduction to the spoken language as well as a writing system called Modern Taiwanese Language (MTL).

Most speakers of Taiwanese aren't aware that there are several writing systems for the language. Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ), also known as Church Romanization, might be the most popular romanization, though the government is now promoting a similar system called TRS. We're going to use MTL here because we found it very useful while studying Taiwanese at the Washington DC Taiwanese School, and we think it could help you too. True, most Taiwanese speakers won't be able to read any of these systems, but they will probably understand you better because you learned one.

How to make a syllable

The three important parts of a syllable we will look at first are: starting consonant, vowel, and ending consonant. We will talk about tones later.

Initial consonants

A syllable can start with one of 18 initial consonants. Some sounds have an approximation in English, while others may be more exotic. For now, you can just ignore the silent indicators (mainly f, r, x, v).

Consonants
Examples
MTL Approx. Example Meaning
p spin papaf father
ph pin phaq to hit
m Mimi mi noodle
b mumble baq meat
t stem tit straight
th Thomas theh to take
n neat nii year
l lima laang person
k ski kaf to add
kh key khix to go
h heap hii fish
g gaggle go five
c(i) gee ciaf here
ch(i) cheese chiaf car
s she / saw si is; yes
j vision / zeta jit sun; day
z yards zef this
zh Tsai (Ts'ai) zhaix vegetable

The p vs. b and k vs. g may be hard to differentiate at first. They are part of a three-way distinction, going from muddy to plain to aspirated.

  • b and g are voiced: the vocal cords vibrate along with the consonant
  • p, k, t are unvoiced, crisp but not aspirated
  • ph, th, kh, ch, and zh have a strong burst of breath

Vowels

A syllable in Taiwanese can't go without having a vowel. This chart, Seven Tones of Taiwanese, shows how to write any vowel in any tone. For now, just look at the basic tone, and the five categories: simple, compound, plus three categories ending in nasals.

Single vowels

These are the pure vowel sounds.

File:SimpleVowels.mp3

MTL Example Meaning
a ka to bite
i hvi ear
u u to have
e ke low
o lo road
ø r good
m m no
ng hng far

We saw m earlier as a consonant, but it can stand alone as a vowel. In fact, both m and ng are complete syllables and complete words. We will see them both again later as final consonants.

Compound vowels

These vowels are a combination of multiple pure vowel sounds.

File:CompoundVowels.mp3

MTL Example Meaning
ai lai sharp
au au back
ia ia to spread
iu chviu elephant
kiøo bridge
iau liau material/stuff
ui ui stomach
oa toa big
oe hoe meeting
oai koaix weird

Vowel plus nasal final consonant

Several vowels can be capped with either m, n, or ng.

File:RearNasal.mp3

Final Example Meaning
am lam to mix
im a'kim aunt
iam liam to nag
an ban slow
in kin near
un tun dull
ien lien to practice
oan goan wish
ang bang dream
eng teng hard
ong gong dumb
iang liang bright
iong iong to use

Notes: ien is often spoken without the i. Also, eng sounds similar to the first part of "English" (Engbuun).

A syllable can only have one of m, n, ng, or v at the same time. For example, man and mang are not valid syllables in Taiwanese. Exceptions: mng (to ask), mngg (door/hair), and various tones of nng.

Nasal vowels

These vowel sounds are made using your nose. Most vowels from the first two groups can be nasalized, indicated by a v, chosen because it looks like the Greek letter "nu" (ν).

File:FrontNasalV3.mp3

MTL Example Meaning
va va filling (for dumplings etc.)
vi hvi ear
ve gve stiff
vo gvo to comprehend
vai vai to carry on back
vau gvau lotus root
via thviaf to listen
viu sviu to think
viau gviaw itchy
voa voa to exchange
voai kvoaimngg to close a door

Tones

Taiwanese is a tonal language which means that pitch is used to convey meaning. Many words are differentiated solely by tone. Learning to speak and hear the tones of Taiwanese correctly is often difficult for an English speaker. With practice you will be able to hear and speak them. Again most speakers of Taiwanese are not aware of the different tones but they can all understand you when you pronounce them correctly.

Taiwanese has seven tones: five long tones and two short tones. Here are the tones in their classic order:

File:Seven Tones.mp3
1. af, 2. ar, 3. ax, 4. aq, 5. aa, 7. a, 8. ah

The letters f, r and x are silent tone indicators for long tones. Short tones always end with a stop (the ending letter tells both consonant and tone).

# Tones Description MTL Example
1 high level (55 or 44) f (silent) khaf (leg; foot)
2 shouting sharply downward (51) r (silent) ar (仔)
3 low falling somewhat downward (31) x (silent) pax (leopard)
4 short low (3ʔ) ends with q, b, d or g aq (a duck)
5 curving mid, downward, then upward (24) doubling of vowel gaau (extraordinary)
7 basic mid-level (33) default toa
8 short high (5ʔ) ends with h, p, t or k ah (a box)

Here are the tones in a different order. Can you tell the difference?

Try to figure out the tones, then press MENU to check your answer

Long tones

Here are some common examples of the long tones:

Tone Example Meaning
1. high hiaf there
2. shouting zar early
3. low-falling zhaix vegetable
5. curving hii fish
7. basic si is

The tone indicators always come to the right of the vowel, with one exception. To indicate the curving tone of a compound vowel, normally its last letter is repeated. But when there is an a, it is the one repeated, even when it doesn't sit at the very end of the vowel. For example: gaau, jidthaau, na'aau.

Short tones

Here are some examples of the short tones:

Pitch -h -p -t -k
8. high ciah (to eat) ap (a box) lat (strength) bak (ink)
4. low phaq (to hit) ciab (juice) kad (knot) kag (horn)

The ending letter tells both consonant and pitch. The high short tones end with h (glottal stop), p, t and k, which are stops sounding similar to how they're used as an initial consonant. The low short tones end with q, b, d, and g, which are the same stops, respectively.

Review all the tones

Go back again to the Seven Tones chart and see how much you can now read. After you know this chart, any syllable you see will just boil down to a final either with or without a consonant in front.

Another term for the syllable ending is the "final", which is what happens when you put a vowel and tone together. For more detailed information, see table of all finals in MTL.

You may have noticed some finals that are spelled a little differently from what we taught so far. Let's look at those next.

Special vowels

For certain vowels in certain tones, there are a few substitutions/shortcuts:

File:Ie, uo, ea, ae, ao.mp3
ie, uo, ea, ae, ao
File:Y w ym yn wn.mp3
y, w, ym, yn, wn
Vowel# Before After Example Meaning
i2 ir ie lie you
u2 ur uo kuo (of time) long
e2 er ea bea horse
ai2 air ae hae sea
au2 aur ao kao dog
i1 if y y, yn, kym he / she / it, they, gold
u1 uf w titw, zhwn spider, spring season
ø5 øø øo kiøo bridge
File:Lie, kuo, bea, hae, kao.mp3
lie, kuo, bea, hae, kao
File:Y yn kym titw zhwn.mp3
y, yn, kym, titw, zhwn

All five shouting substitutions happen only when they end the syllable, so you still have irm, irn, and urn, not iem, etc.

Tone sandhi

The seven tones, and how they change due to tone sandhi.

The basic unit of speech is the syllable, which can change tone depending on its environment. This is referred to as tone sandhi, which is extensive in Taiwanese.

Generally, a syllable inside of a word changes tone according to the Tone Circles. For example, the single-syllable word for "duck" (bird): aq. Its original tone is low-short. After adding the suffix ar, the tone becomes high-short: ah'ar.

More examples:

  • jit (sun) + thaau (head) = jidthaau (the sun)
  • cit (one) + sud (a bit) + ar = cidsut'ar (a little amount of something)

Inside a sentence, the last syllable of most nouns don't change tone. But if that noun is actually used as an adjective, it will. For example, in cidsut'ar png (a bit of rice), the ar changes to high tone when spoken. Furthermore, in ciah cidsut'ar png, the verb ciah (to eat) changes to low-short tone when spoken.

You may have realized by now that tone change is connected to grammar. These tone changes are probably by far the hardest part of learning Taiwanese.

Special punctuation marks

Apostrophe (')

When two syllables are put together, an apostrophe may be used to indicate a syllable boundary if there's any ambiguity. The rule in MTL is that letters are grouped into a syllable starting from the right. Here's one case where a consonant could be part of the first or second syllable.

Okix, meaning "black mole", comes from of (烏; "black") plus kix (痣; "mole"). We simply take the sandhi-modified first syllable (of -> o) and follow it by the second syllable, to get okix. Reading this word, we know the longest syllable starting from the right is kix.

But, there are two other syllables we could combine to get the same result. If we combine og (惡; "evil") and ix (意; "intention") without using an apostrophe, we would also get okix. Clearly, we don't want this. It looks like the k belongs with the second vowel i instead of o.

That's where the apostrophe comes in to save the day. By writing ok'ix with an apostrophe, we keep "evil intention", or "malice", distinct from the harmless okix.

Hyphen (-)

A hyphen is used to join two, or more isolated words to make a new compound word with its own meaning. When reading a hyphenated word, the syllable just before the hyphen should change tone. For example: Taioaan + laang = Taioaan-laang (Taiwanese person) The last syllable of Taioaan changes tone when spoken, so the compound word sounds like Taioanlaang.

Backquote (`)

When a word contains a backquote, all the syllables after it are accented in a weaker, lower tone -- either a low-falling tone or a low stop. The tone of the syllable before the backquote remains unchanged.

Example:

  • kviaf`sie ((v.) to freak someone out) - kviaf keeps its high tone but sie is pronounced with a weakened low tone.
  • kviasie ((adj.) scared of death) – kviaf is pronounced with normal tone change from high to basic while sie is pronounced as a shouting tone. Kiasi is Hokkien phrase that describes the attitude of being overly afraid or timid.

Further study

External links