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!
May 15, 2026
Did you know that I sometimes add flavor text to my translations? I just added some for the entry "only"!
May 13, 2026
I was re-listening to a converation that I had with my aunt a while ago, and from that, I've added these words:
- to stick into
- to sprout
- to jump
- dirt
We talked a little bit about her basil plant that she tried to grow. She also told me how easy it was to plant my own herbs, but I do not have the time and energy for that now.
I realized that I had a bunch of words under the "Outside" category and I've finally added a new category called "Weather" and moved a bunch of those outside words over to weather.
May 9, 2026
I've added just a few new words:
- cilantro
- My aunt pronounces this huang7 sui1, but on WhatTCSay and Wiktionary and on the discord, it seems like most people pronounce it uang7 sui1. However! There was one person that pronounces it with an h, and I also found this page on mogher that says that huang7 sui1 is a Gekion pronunciation of the word!
- I also asked my mom how she pronounces cilantro, and she said uann7 sui1 which was wild to me since I never hear that ending n sound from my family! It was honestly a little too weird to me, so I didn't add it :P
- bra
- As far as I know, my family pronounces this nia6 gian2. But I can't find any indication that anyone else pronounces it this way!
- ladder
- Which is lao7 tui1, the same as stairs! So this was kind of a lazy add, heh.
- My grandma (on my mom's side) actually said beh8 tui1, so like, stairs you climb. I didn't add that one yet because I got a little lazy.
I've been going through a set of flashcards almost every day! At some point I'd like to start really watching more Teochew videos again, but that's definitely going to take more time. Baby steps.
May 6, 2026
Somehow, in the WTCS discussion, we started talking about the word 褲橛 kou3(2) gueh8. It literally translates to something like "half pants" or "section of pants". Growing up, I always thought this word meant underwear. But apparently, some people use it to mean shorts.
I ended up asking my mom what it meant to her, and she told me it was shorts because kou3 is pants and gueh8 is half. I asked her if it could also be used for underwear, and she said "No, underwear is lai6(7) kou3". I was always used to saying do2(6) kou3 for shorts (literally "short pants"). And my mom told me that yeah, do(6) kou3 and kou(2) gueh8 are the same. This was all wild to me because it was just not my understanding at all.
I also asked my aunt how to say underwear and she told me kou(2) gueh8. So I must have picked that up from her! I asked her if you could also use kou(2) gueh8 to mean shorts and she told me "No, shorts is do(6) kou3". And then she also told me "You can also say lai(7) kou3 for underwear. lai(7) kou3 and kou(2) gueh8 are the same."
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