October 14, 2026
Lately it feels like I have been drowning in TODO items and I need to just check off all my boxes before I draw more boxes. So I haven't done too much stuff for this site lately, but I am still trying to make sure I do a little bit of daily practice! And as part of that, I have added one new word every day for the past five days:
- to keep
- diamond
- radio
- trumpet
- kilogram
I mentioned in my last update that I needed to fix some tests, and I've done that! I've also thought of many more things I should have automated tests for, but at least for right now I have a passing test suite!
October 9, 2026
I did break something in my last update! It caused duplicate words to show up in the flashcards sometimes. This is why I should be writing more tests! So I have fixed that, and I have given myself a TODO item to write more tests 🤪
I also added the translation for the word "sticky" since it's another word that came up during my visit home.
October 8, 2026
Continuing a bit with my gong5 research, I asked my mom what it meant when I visited her. She told me it meant a little silly and crazy, which was different than what I was hearing from other people! I don't know, maybe there isn't really one English word that perfectly describes it.
I've written a few other words down because I remember hearing it during my trip home. One of them was chia1 bang5, which was what my grandpa told me when I asked him where his fan was. I admit that my mind immediately thought "car room? what is that?". Right, garage.
My little cousin also slipped and fell (he's okay though!) and my mom said that he buah8, so I made a note to add that as well! I already had ga1 laoh8, which is what you use when you drop something, so I wanted to make sure I clearly differentiated the two words. That involved a code change, so that's enough for one day! Hopefully I didn't break anything else in the process!
October 1, 2026
Today I've added the word 戇 gong5, which is a word that I remember hearing a lot as a child (well, I remember hearing gong(7) gong5). It's been in my backlog of words to add, but I've held off on it because I wasn't completely sure on the meaning. I always thought it meant "stupid", but maybe stupid and crazy? (Because nga3 is probably a better word for stupid.) What Teochew Say says that it means "confused" or "dazed". My cousin told me he thinks of it as "senile". Maybe there's not a single English word that perfectly encapsulates it. Anyway, I've added it under the English word "confused", but I've also included "stupid" and "crazy" on the same page.
September 27, 2026
Back in my September 2 update, I mentioned that I added a word for clam, but there are actually two types of clam words in Teochew (that I know of). I didn't know the second one then, but I do today! hain2 is the word for a "basket clam". I had never heard of that term before, and I'm thinking that maybe being able to show an image would be a nice idea, but that's something for the future.
The other word for clam, ham1 is a blood clam. Or a blood cockle, or an ark clam. I'm not a clam specialist, and I don't really know which of those terms is the most commonly understood, but I did include all three terms. I think that most people just know the word "clam" and not the types of clams, so I figured it would be best for there to be a single clam entry page and to display both.
But! I had an issue, in that it was displaying "blood cockle" and "ark clam" at the top of the page, and not specific to the ham1 translation. And that started a whole rabbit hole dig on how I handle and display synonyms. The long story short is that some things got simpler and other things got more complicated 🫠But hopefully, I'm still presenting content in a reasonable and understandable way. If you see any weirdness, please let me know!
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