Sunday, October 11, 2015

Not feeling well - how do we say this in Teochew?

I came across this sentence on a website about Chinese dialects. It about saying one is not feeling well. 

It writes in Taiwanese MinNan hua, to say one is not well is as follows.

我家己人有淡薄無爽快。

And in Mandarin we would say,

我自己有一點不舒服。

or

我有一點不舒服。


Then how about in Teochew?  I have been thinking and I would say it as 

Ua2 ci3dioh8 dih4gian2 m6 ho2si3. [I am not feeling too well.]

我試著滴仔唔好勢。

The m6 唔 could be said as bho5 無 as in 我試著滴仔好勢。

A little could be said in many ways instead of dih4gian2 滴仔. Another is like the Taiwanese way as dam6boh8 淡薄 [see Zhang XiaoShan page 389].  It could also be said as su1gian2 仔 or as written in ZXS page 333 .

Regarding dih4gian2 滴仔 - do not get confuse and say dih8gian2 碟仔 for a little plate or saucer. We have changing tones and we actually say the opposite to what is written in our Teochew PêngIm. 

So the little plate becomes dih(4)gian2 碟仔 - changes from tone 8 to 4 and the reverse is true for a little 滴仔.

I am sure you have as many ways of saying you are not feeling well. Do comment if you have.

I have tried to avoid using su'hog 舒服 because it has been used in the Mandarin example in the website and people do say su1hog8 instead of ho2si3. However, in my family we have always said bho5ho2si3 好勢 for not feeling well.

I hope you find this post helpful in helping you to know more about your mother tongue. 


No comments: