A Beginner's Guide to Taiwanese

"Hello" in Taiwanese, written Lie hør!

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 exist several ways to write it down. MTL and Taiwanese Romanization System both derive from Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ), which had over 100,000 users in the mid-20th century. While no single system has been widely adopted (whether romanized or in Han characters), MTL is a very useful tool for learning Taiwanese. Most Taiwanese speakers may not be able to read any of these systems but will understand you better because you used it.

Phonology

We will first introduce all of the phonetic sounds of Taiwanese, using the MTL alphabet. Some sounds have an approximation in English, while others may be less familiar. In the examples, we have underlined indicators (mainly f, r, x, v) that are silent, which we will explain later.

Initial consonants

Here are the 18 initial consonants in MTL, which come at the beginning of the syllable.

Consonants

File:ConExp.mp3

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.

• The muddy b and g are voiced, meaning the vocal cords vibrate along with the consonant.
• The plain p and k (and t) are unvoiced, not as aspirated as in English, but do have a distinct click or pop.
• The aspirated consonants are composed of the plain symbol followed by h.

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

Vowels

Single vowels

These are the pure vowel sounds (monophthongs).

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 two (or three) 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

Nasal vowels

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	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	gviaugviaw	itchy
voa	voa	to exchange
voai	kvoaimngg	to close a door

Vowel plus nasal final consonant

The following finals are composed of vowels capped with m, n, or ng serving as a nasal final consonant (NFC).

MTL	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).

Syllabic structure

A syllable in Taiwanese follows one of these two patterns:

• [consonant] + [nasal] vowel
• [consonant] + vowel + [nasal final consonant]

As a bare minimum, only a vowel is required. The items in the brackets are optional. We will explain below how every syllable has a distinct tone.

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 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.

File:Tones1235784.mp3

af, ar, ax, aa, a, ah, aq

Taiwanese has seven tones: five long tones and two short tones.

#	Tones	Description	MTL	Example
1	High	level	f (silent)	khaf (leg; foot)
2	Shouting	sharply downward	r (silent)	ar (仔)
3	Low Falling	somewhat downward	x (silent)	extaxng (to be able to)
5	Curving	mid, downward, then upward	doubling of vowel	gaau (extraordinary)
7	Basic	mid-level	default	toa
8	Short high		ends with h, p, t or k	ah (a box)
4	Short low		ends with q, b, d or g	aq (a duck)

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).

Long tones

Here are some common examples of the long tones:

Tone	Example	Meaning
High	hiaf	there
Shouting	zar	early
Low Falling	zhaix	vegetable
Curving	hii	fish
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
high	ciah (to eat)	hap (to close)	kut (slippery)	lok (deer)
low	phaq (to hit)	ciab (to catch)	kud (bone)	kog (country)

The ending letter of a short tone tells both final consonant and tone. Looking at the high short tones first: the h is a glottal stop, then the p, t and k are stops sounding similar to how they're used as an initial consonant. The low short tones are then the same as the corresponding high tone version but in lower pitch.

Special vowels

For certain vowels in certain tones, there are a few substitutions/shortcuts: five for the shouting-out tone, plus two in the high tone. There is also a shortcut for the curving tone of ø.

Basic Vowel	Tonal Vowel	Special vowel (shortcut)	Example	Meaning
ai	air	ae	hae	sea
i	ir	ie	lie	you
u	ur	uo	kuo	(of time) long
e	er	ea	bea	horse
au	aur	ao	kao	dog
i	if	y	y	he / she / it
u	uf	w	wtiu	universe
ø	øø	øo	kiøo	bridge

Tone sandhi

File:Tone Circle.gif

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. This is referred to as tone sandhi, which is extensive in Taiwanese.

If a syllable is spoken in the middle of a word, phrase or sentence, it changes tone according to the Tone Circle diagram. If a syllable is spoken at the end of a phrase or sentence, it does not change tone. Most nouns do not change tone.

These tone changes are probably 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.

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

• Practical Taiwanese Conversation
• Taiwanese-English Dictionaries
• Frequently-Used Syllables in Frequently-Used Words of Taiwanese Hokkien
  • List of all initial consonants in Taiwanese Hokkien
  • List of all finals in Taiwanese Hokkien

External links

• HTML version