A Beginner's Guide to Taiwanese
Lie hør! 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 the Modern Literal Taiwanese writing system, which we call MTL for "Modern Taiwanese Language".
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).
| 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.
| MTL | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| a | ka | to bite |
| i | hvi | ear |
| u | u | to have |
| e | ke | low |
| o | lo | road |
| ø | hør | 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.
| MTL | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ai | lai | sharp |
| au | au | back |
| ia | ia | to spread |
| iu | chviu | elephant |
| iø | 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 a nasal final consonant, either m, n, or ng.
| 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 |
- ien (from ia + n = ian) is often spoken without the i
- eng sounds similar to the first part of "English" (Engbuun)
Nasal vowels
These vowel sounds are made using your nose. Most vowels from the first two groups can be nasalized, indicated by the letter v (read like "you" in English but nasal), chosen because it looks like the Greek letter "nu" (ν).
| 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 beginners. 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.
As you may have noticed from the Seven Tones chart, there are five long tones and two short tones.
- f, x and r are silent tone indicators for long tones
- short tones always end with a stop letter that tells both consonant and pitch
| # | Tones | Description | MTL | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | high | level (55 or 44) | f (silent) | khaf (leg; foot) |
| 7 | basic | mid-level (33) | default | toa |
| 3 | low falling | somewhat downward (31) | x (silent) | pax (leopard) |
| 2 | shouting | sharply downward (51) | r (silent) | ar (仔) |
| 5 | curving | mid, downward, then upward (214) | doubling of vowel | gaau (extraordinary) |
| 8 | short high | (5ʔ) | ends with h, p, t or k | ah (a box) |
| 4 | short low | (3ʔ) | ends with q, b, d or g | aq (a duck) |
Short tones
Let's look at the short tones first:
| 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) |
- 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
- low short tones end with q, b, d, and g, which are the same stops as above, but signal the vowel is low pitch
Long tones
Here are some common examples of the long tones:
| Tone | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1. high | hiaf | there |
| 7. basic | si | is |
| 3. low-falling | zhaix | vegetable |
| 2. shouting | zar | early |
| 5. curving | hii | fish |
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.
Special vowels
For certain vowels in certain tones, the following ornamental substitutions/shortcuts are used:
- shouting tone: ie, uo, ea, ae, ao, when they end the syllable
- high tone: y, w, (and ym, yn, wn)
- curving-tone: øø -> øo (and iøø -> iøo)
| 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. nine |
| i1 | if | y | y, yn, kym | he; she; it. they. gold |
| u1 | uf | w | titw, zhwn | spider. spring season |
| ø5 | øø | øo | kiøo | bridge; eggplant |
As the shouting substitutions happen only when they end the syllable, you still have irm, irn, and urn, not iem, etc.
Syllable structure
A syllable in Taiwanese is either:
- [consonant] + [nasal] vowel
- [consonant] + vowel + [rear nasal ending]
where the brackets mean the consonant, nasal or rear nasal ending can be left out. Therefore:
- a vowel is required
- there is no "double nasal" (more than one m, n, ng, or v) in the final part after the initial consonant
Finally, syllables usually don't have both a nasal initial consonant and nasal final, except for various tones of mng and nng. For example, man and mang are not valid.
Tone sandhi
The basic unit of speech is the syllable, which can change tone depending on its environment. This process of tone sandhi, from the Sanskrit word for "joining", 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, sometimes one letter might appear to be connected to the right syllable when it shouldn't be. The apostrophe is used to remove the ambiguity. For example:
In MTL, we group the letters starting from the right into the longest syllable. So reading okix, the second syllable is kix. Then the first syllable is o. There's no need to write o'kix.
If you drop the apostrophe from ok'ix, it would be okix, so the apostrophe needs to stay.
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.