Tones
There are 8 tones in Teochew. In many resources, you will see a number after each syllable, indicating which tone it is.
| Tone | Description | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle | shirt | san1 | 衫 | |
| 2 | Falling | hand | chiu2 | 手 | |
| 3 | Low Falling, Rising | vegetables | chai3 | 菜 | |
| 4 | Middle Short | meat | bhah4 | 肉 | |
| 5 | High | head | tao5 | 头 | |
| 6 | Rising | old | lao6 | 老 | |
| 7 | Low | big | dua7 | 大 | |
| 8 | High Short | white | beh8 | 白 | |
Many words undergo tone change when placed in front of another word. This is called sandhi. The table below shows the same words as above, but placed in front of another word to demonstrate how their tones change.
| Original Tone | Changed Tone | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | clothes | san1 kou3 | 衫裤 | |
| 2 | 6 | finger | chiu(6) jain2 | 手指 | |
| 3 | 2 (or 5) | radish | chai(2) tao5 | 菜头 | |
| 4 | 8 | dried, shredded pork | bhah(8) yong5 | 肉绒 | |
| 5 | 7 | hair (on your head) | tao(7) mo5 | 头毛 | |
| 6 | 7 | great grandmother | lao(7) ma2 | 老妈 | |
| 7 | 7 | aunt (dad's oldest sister) | dua7 gou1 | 大姑 | |
| 8 | 4 | napa cabbage | beh(4) chai3 | 白菜 |
In the translations on this site, if a word has undergone tone change, the spoken tone will be displayed in parentheses. If a word originally has tone 3 and undergoes tone change, I will always display tone 2 for it, but my audio clips will vary between actually saying it with tone 2 or tone 5. I'm not consistent 😅