Keys To Taiwanese

1
Keys To Taiwanese

• Learn Taiwanese Quickly
• from its
• Seven Characteristics

2
Foreword

• The mother tongue that you learn naturally lets
  you listen and speak, but not read or write.
• So we need to learn this Taiwanese Writing to be
  able to read and write.
• Otherwise you are still a blind cow
  (illiterate) when it comes to Taiwanese.

3
Taiwanese Alphabet

• Taiwanese Romanisation uses the universal Latin
  alphabetic system.
• The 17 English letters plus the unique o (o
  with a dot) and the nasalising n give us a
  total of 19 letters these combine to form the 24
  letters of the Taiwanese alphabet.

4
Vowels

• Taiwanese vowels are a, i, u, e, o, o .
• Nasal vowels are an, in, en, on, ain, ian,
  iun, ion, oan, oain, iaun.
• Special consonants that can act like vowels are
  m, ng.

5
Vowel Cluster

• ai, au,
• ia, io, iu,
• oa, oe,
• ui,
• iau
• oai

6
Nasal-like vowel cluster

• am, an, ang
• im, in, iam, ian, iang
• un,
• eng,
• ong, oan, oang, iong.

7
Consonants

• The non-aspirated consonants are p, t, k, ch.
• When these are followed by another h, they
  become aspirated ph, th, kh, chh.
• The voiced consonants are b, g, j.
• Other consonants are l, n, m, h, ng, s.

8
Eight tones

• Taiwanese is a fairly colourful tonal language.
  There are said to be 8 tones, though in fact the
  6th tone is the same as the 2nd. So actually
  there are only 7 tones.
• Example_1 san/?, té/?, khò?/?, khoah/?
• lâng/?, é/?,
  phin/?, ti?t/?
• Example_2a, á, à, ah, â, á, a, a?h
• Example_3an, án, àn, at, ân, án, an, a?t
• Example_4am, ám, àm, ap, âm, ám, am, a?p
• Example_5ang, áng, àng, ak, âng, áng, ang,
  a?k

9
Eight Tones Chart

• This table shows how to mark tone when typing
  Taiwanese on a computer.
• The numbers can be converted to Taiwanese
  diacritics.
• The Chinese characters are just for reference.
• The musical scale shows the pitch of the tones.

10
1st Tone,

• For example, for the 1st tone, you can type
  saN (the N represents nasalisation).
• After conversion it becomes san. On the right
  corner is a small raised n.
• The Chinese character ? (clothing) has this
  sound. The pitch on the musical scale is marked
  55, meaning the highest pitch.

11
2nd Tone,

• Now on to the 2nd tone té is typed like so
  (te2).
• The 2 represents tone 2. After converting to
  Taiwanese diacritic form, you see a symbol above
  the e that goes from the right upper to the
  left lower corner.
• A matching Chinese character is ? (short, as
  in length).
• The musical pitch goes from 5 to 3, meaning
  moving from the highest line (5) to the third
  line (3).

12
3rd Tone,

• Next is the 3rd tone, as in khou3(khò).
• The ou represents the letter o.
• After conversion we see a diacritic that looks
  like a short line going from the upper left to
  lower right.
• The example character is ? (pants, slacks,
  trousers).
• The pitch (21) is very low it dips from the
  2nd line (2) to the very first (1).

13
4th Tone,

• The 4th tone is exemplified by khoah.
• The h represents whats called a stop sound.
  
• The 4th tone actually does not have any
  diacritic, so after conversion it is still
  khoah.
• We use the character ? to help remember the
  tone.
• The pitch lies on the 2nd line of the scale. It
  does not go anywhere else, because it is a short
  sound.

14
5th Tone,

• In the example for the 5th tone, lang5, the 5
  represents the 5th tone.
• The computer converts it to lâng. Above the
  a is a hat-shaped diacritic.
• We use the character ? (meaning person) to
  remember.
• The pitch changes steadily from 1 to 3.

15
6th Tone,

• The 6th tone is same as 2nd tone.

16
7th Tone,

• The 7th tone is represented by phiN7 (the 7
  represents the tone).
• After conversion by the computer, the N becomes
  the standard nasalising symbol n, and the
  diacritic ends up above the i. It looks like a
  horizontal bar and represents the 7th tone.
• The character we choose is ? (nose).
• On the pitch scale it is a flat 33. The two
  numbers means it is a long tone.

17
8th Tone,

• For the last tone, the 8th, we use the syllable
  tit8 to illustrate.
• The 8, of course, represents the 8th tone.
• The computer helps us covert the number to
  diacritic, and we get ti?t. Above the i is a
  vertical bar representing the 8th tone.
• The character ? (straight) has this sound.
• On the pitch scale we write 5, meaning its on
  the highest line. There is only one number,
  which tells us its a short tone that goes with a
  stop sound.

18
Tone Diacritics

• We put the tone diacritics right above the most
  sonorous vowel.
• Here are the vowels arranged from the most
  sonorous to the least a gt o gt e gt o gt i gt u.

19
Final Stop

• Another characteristic of Taiwanese is whats
  called final stop. Syllables ending in h, p,
  t, or k are pronounced with a final stop sound.
• There are two types a low final stop that goes
  with the 4th tone and a high stop sound that goes
  with the 8th tone.
• To give an example of a stop sound that ends with
  an h ah (duck), ah-bú (female duck),
  ta?h (to step on). Syllables that end with
  p ap (as in ap-chè, to oppress/repress),
  kha?p (as in kha?p-thâu, to kow-tow.
  Syllables that end with t at (as in
  at-tng, to break in two), ta?t (as in
  kè-ta?t, value). Syllables that end with k
  ak (as in ak-chúi, to water something),
  ga?k (as in soan-ga?k, high mountain).

20
Tone sandhi,

• The most interesting characteristic of Taiwanese
  is tone sandhi, or tone change. Few languages
  change tone as beautifully as Taiwanese. Except
  for the ending syllable, all syllables of an
  utterance change their tone. Although tone
  sandhi is complex, it does have rules.

21
Tone sandhi chart,

• For example, in this table, we can see that
• tone 1 changes to tone 7
• tone 7 changes to tone 3
• tone 3 changes to tone 2
• and tone 2 changes to tone 1.
• As for tone 5, in Taiwanese of the South it
  changes to tone 7, but in the North it changes to
  tone 3.
• As for the stop sound -h, it changes from tone
  4 to tone 2 and from tone 8 to tone 3.
• For stop sounds -p, -t, or -k, tones 4 and 8
  flip.
• So the rules do exist. The result is that spoken
  Taiwanese has a lovely sing-song quality to it.
  Tone sandhi is the most unique feature of
  Taiwanese.

22
Six plus one major features of Taiwanese

• The six major features of Taiwanese are the
  following
• (1) distinction between aspirated and
  non-aspirated
• consonants.
• (2) between voiceless and voiced consonants.
• (3) nasal vowels.
• (4) stop sounds.
• (5) seven tones.
• (6) tone sandhi (the last two make the language
  song-like).
• (7) Yet another feature (found in Taiwanese and
  Hakka) is the distinction between lán (we/us)
  and goán (we/us) lán includes the person(s)
  youre talking to goán does not.

23
Self-learning

• Taiwanese is easy to learn if we are able to
  grasp the above characteristics and focus on them
  as we learn the language.
• If you have the time, please go on-line and visit
  the Taiwanese Faith, Hope, Love website
  http//taigi.fhl.net. You will find over there a
  section called Basic Taiwanese.
• It has audiovisual materials based on former
  Harvard professor Dr. Lí Khîn-hoans book Harvard
  Taiwanese 101. Editions in English, Japanese,
  and Chinese are available. Please keep up with
  the learning, and may your Taiwanese improve in
  leaps and bounds. Thank you.