May 30, 2026
In my May 5, 2026 update, I mentioned that I had added ka1 huang5, and that it was a WHOLE PROCESS. Well, here it is, as much as I can remember of it.
So I've got an old recording of a phone call I had with my aunt a few months ago, and I've been meaning to listen to it all to see what Teochew words it has in it. Most of the words are already in my database, but we were talking about different pieces of jewelry and a word came up that I didn't recognize
ka1 huang5...the bracelet that you put on the ankle
Well, ka1 is obviously "foot". But what is huang5?
huang5 means "round"
Hmmm, I'm aware of the word in5 for "round", but I wasn't familiar with huang5. I did a few searches in WhatTCSay. I searched "anklet", but nothing came up. I search "round" and, yup, I just see in5. I searched "huang" and there are SO many results that it's hard to search through them all.
I also searched "anklet" in the Gaginang discord and nothing came up there. But I knew that if I tried my other search terms that I would find too many results.
I decided to check mogher next, to look at all of the characters under "huang5" in their Teochew Pinyin Index. And there were...26 of them 😱 But mogher has some English definitions under almost every entry so I click into every single one of them to see if any seem like a potential match. And none of them seem right.
So next I try the approach of using Google translate. When I translate "anklet" into Traditional Chinese, I get 腳鍊. Looking that up on Wiktionary, it says it's a variant of 腳鏈. And looking at that page, I think I'm looking at the wrong type of anklet because I also see the terms "leg iron" and "shackles". I want an ankle bracelet. So I go back to Google Translate and look at other options.
One of the other translations is 腳鐲, and Wiktionary's page for that word has the definition "anklet; ankle bangle" which sounds more correct! One of the cool things about Wiktionary is that it shows synonyms in other dialects. The page for this word is pretty bare, and there is no mention of Teochew, but I do see a synonym in Hokkien: 跤環. I recognize that first character as ka1 ("foot"), so I go to the page for 環, and what do you know! It's pronounced huang5 in Teochew and the definitions are all about rings and round things. I found it!! 🎉
Uh, so I realized I could have found this faster:
- I went back to mogher, and I search the character 環, and I realize that huang5 is listed as the pronunciation for the Gekion dialect (as well as others), but it's not the pronunciation in the "Teochew" dialect, which is the default in mogher. I gotta remember to search other dialects!
- I also went back to WhatTCSay, and I searched the same character, and I realized that there's an entry for "bracelet": 手環. This is just like anklet, but the first character is the word for "hand". If I had just searched "bracelet" initially, I would have found the character I was looking for immediately! Or I even could have looked through all 10 pages of results for "huang5"
Or! I could have asked someone, and I'm sure someone could have told me the answer. But I always like to do my own digging first.
May 29, 2026
So I keep notes of all the Teochew words I hear about in both a text document on my laptop, a note in my phone, and various handwritten notebooks. And each day I've been trying to add at least one of these words into this site!
Today I added choh4, which is not a word I really ever hear my family use, but I see it enough on the Gaginang discord and in Facebook. It generally means "some", and is used in front of other words. Like choh(8) nang5 is "some people", but it can also be used to say "those people", "these people", and even "everybody"? I still don't feel comfortable enough to use it myself, but I seem to get the idea when I hear others use it.
I'm more used to hearing lang(7) lo2. There was a recent discussion in the discord where people were comparing the two words, and it sounds like people use them differently, but I still don't really understand the nuances.
May 28, 2026
When my dad was visiting me, we would have giam(7) chai3 during every single meal. My aunt packed two jars of it so I wanted to get through a little bit each day. Sometimes I would put the giam chai in small bowls, but other times I would use a little saucer. I referred to it as a dih8, but my dad would tell me, actually it's a dih(4) gian2.
Wait you can't just say dih8?
Maybe, but people will understand you better if you use dih(4) gian2
dih gian? Like little?
Little is dih(8) gian2. Saucer is dih(4) gian2
Ahhh, I see.
May 26, 2026
Family visits always throw me off, but I'm trying to get back into regularly practicing my teochew! I've added a few more translations:
- meal
- snack
- to pick up the phone
May 25, 2026
My dad and cousin visited me last week, and as part of that, my aunt gave them a whole bunch of food, so I didn't have to cook for them at all! One of the dishes that my aunt made was cheng1 bou(6) liang5 清補涼, a Chinese herbal soup that has pork and a lot of ingredients that I don't know the name of! My dad told me that it takes a long time to make, and you typically wouldn't find it at a restaurant. I asked him to break down the name of the soup, and this is how he described each syllable:
- cheng1 - "clear"
- bou2 - "vitamin"
- liang5 - "cold"
He also told me that bou2 means to mend clothes, and he seemed to think that was a different word than the bou2 in the name of this soup, but after searching around a bit, I think they are the same bou2!
So with this context, I was able to find 清補涼. I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole searching this term, and I learned that this either refers to a warm, savory soup OR a sweet, cold drink! But they're like, two variations on the same dish I guess. Also the internet tells me it's a Cantonese dish: "Ching po leung". I even found the Woks of Life recipe for it!
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