A Beginner's Guide to Taiwanese

Li hø!

File:Lie hør.ogg

"Hello" in Taiwanese, written "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 a writing system called Modern Taiwanese Language (MTL).

Most speakers of Taiwanese are not aware that there are established ways to phonetically write down the language. While there is not a single widely adopted system for the written form of the language (not even in Harnji), MTL is a very useful tool for learning Taiwanese. There are several other systems in use in Taiwan, such as Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ), Daighi tongiong pingim, and Taiwanese Romanization System. Unfortunately most Taiwanese speakers will not be able to read any of these phonetic systems but they will understand it when you read it.

Introduction to Taiwanese Phonetics

We will first introduce all of the phonetic sounds that you will encounter in Taiwanese. Some sounds have an approximation in English, while others may be less familiar.

Consonants

MTL	Approx.	Example	Meaning
p	B / crispy	papaf	father
ph	P (crisp)	phaq	to hit
m	me	mi	noodle
b	mumble	baq	meat
t	D (crisp)	tit	straight
th	Thomas	theh	to take
n	neat	nii	year
l	Lima	laang	person
k	gear	kaf (ka'iuu)	to add
kh	key	khix	go
h	heap	hii	fish
g	gaggle	go	five
c(i)	G	ciaf	here
ch(i)	cheese	chiaf	car
s(i)	she/sea	si	yes
j(i)	Z	jit	day
z	yards	zef	this
zh	cats	zhaix	vegetable
s	Saul	svaf	three
j	zoo	joah	hot

The 'k' vs. 'g' as well as the 'p' vs. 'b' may be hard to differentiate at first. The 'g' and the 'b' are voiced, meaning the vocal cords vibrate along with the consonant. The 'k' and 'p' are unvoiced, not as aspirated as in English but do have a distinct click or pop.

Note that "j" and "s" appear twice: these are slightly different when followed by an "i" vs other vowels.

Vowels

Single Vowels

MTL	example	meaning
a	ka	bite
i	hvi	ear
u	u	have
e	ke	low
o	lo	road
ø	hør	good
m	m	no
ng	hng	far

The 'm' can be both vowel and consonant.

Compound Vowels

These vowels are a combination of two vowel sounds.

MTL	example	meaning
ai	lai	sharp
au	au	back
ia	ia	spread
iu	chviu	elephant
iø	kiøo	bridge
iau	liau	material/stuff
ui	ui	stomach
oa	toa	big
oe	hoe	meeting
øe	øe	able
oai	koaix	weird

Nasal Vowel

These vowel sounds are made using your nose. Most vowels have a nasal form. A 'v' is placed in front of the vowel to designate it.

MTL	example	English
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	gviaugviaw	itchy
voa	voa	to exchange
voai	kvoaimngg	to close a door

Ending vowel

Taiwanese has ending nasal vowel sounds using 'm', 'n' and 'ng'.

MTL	example	English
-am	lam	mix
-im	a'kim	aunt
-iam	liam	nagging
-an	ban	slow
-in	kin	near
-un	tun	dull
-ien	lien	practice
-oan	goan	wish
-ang	bang	dream
-eng	teng	hard
-ong	gong	dumb
-iang	liang	bright
-iong	iong	use

A syllable in Taiwanese follows one of these two patterns:

• [consonant] + [nasal] vowel
• [consonant] + vowel + [rear nasal ending]

A valid syllable only needs to have a vowel. The brackets ([]) mean the consonant, nasal or rear nasal ending are optional.

A word can be formed with one or more syllables, but two syllables is most typical.

Tones

Taiwanese is a tonal language which means that the vowels are pronounced with a distinctive tone that relate a distinctive meaning. A vowel spoken with a different tones has different meanings. Learning to speak and listen for the tones correctly is often difficult for an English speaker since there are no tones in English. With practice you will be able to hear and speak it. Taiwanese has 7 tones (Mandarin has 4). Again most speakers of Taiwanese are not aware of the different tones but they can all understand it when you pronounce it.

#	Tones	Description	MTL	Example
1	High	high level tone	f	af
2	Shouting	start high, then sharp downward	r	ar
3	Low Falling	start mid then downward tone	x	ax
5	Curving	start mid level then down and up	doubling of vowel	aa
7	Basic	mid level tone	default	a
8	Short high	short high tone	ends with h, p, t or k	ah, ap, at, ak
4	Short low	short low tone	ends with q, b, d or g	aq, ab, ad, ag

The tone indicators (f, x, r, etc) are placed after the vowel.

Examples of the seven tones:

Tone	MTL	Meaning
Basic	si	is
High	hiaf	there
Low Falling	zhaix	vegetable
Shouting	zar	early
Curving	hii	fish
Short high	ciah	eat
Short low	phaq	hit
Short high	hap	close
Short low	ciab	catch
Short high	kut	slippery
Short low	kud	bone
Short high	lok	deer
Short low	kog	country

There are a few special vowels for certain tones. There are five special vowels in the shouting-out tone, plus two special vowels in the high tone. There is also a shortcut for the curving tone of 'ø'.

vowel +	tone =	special vowel	example
ai	r	ae	hae
i	r	ie	lie
u	r	uo	kuo
e	r	ea	bea
au	r	ao	kao
i	f	y
u	f	w
øø		øo

Taiwanese tones in isolation, and the changes they undergo when they precede another tone.

The basic unit of speech is the syllable, which can change tone depending on where it is spoken in a sentence. If a syllable is spoken in the middle of a word, phrase or sentence, it changes tone according to the Tone Circle diagram below. If a syllable is spoken at the end of a phrase or sentence, it does not change tones. Most nouns do not change tone.

The different tones and the tone changes (sandhi) in Taiwanese are by far the hardest part of learning Taiwanese.

Three Special Symbols

Apostrophe (')

When two syllables are put together, it may be necessary to indicate a syllable boundary with an apostrophe, given the rule that letters must be grouped into a syllable starting from the right.

Example: of + kix vs og + ix

Suppose we want to combine of, meaning “black”, with kix, meaning “mole”. We simply take the modified tone of the first syllable and follow it by the second syllable. The result is okix(meaning “black mole”). Following the rules of MTL reading, kix is the longest possible syllable starting from the right. Thus the first syllable is the simple vowel o and the second syllable is kix, and no apostrophe is needed.

If we combine og (“evil”) and ix (“intention”) without an apostrophe, we also get okix. By the rules of reading MTL, the final syllable appears to be kix. Therefore, we must insert an apostrophe (ok'ix) to indicate that the last syllable is ix. Now we know the first syllable is ok, which is the modified tone of og. The word ok'ix means “evil intention”.

Hyphen (-)

A hyphen is used to join two, or more isolated words to make a new compound word with its own meaning.

Examples: Taioaan-laang (Taiwanese person); Bykog-kongbiin (American citizen).

When reading these hyphenated words, the syllable directly before the hyphen must undergo tone change.

Back-quote (`)

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

• Introduction to Taiwanese Vocabulary