Listen to Podcast | Hokkien: Common Words and Useful Phrases

Psst… You can find our How Do You Say Podcasts on Spotify too! Head to Spotify – LearnDialect.sg or search for LearnDialect.sg on Spotify.

Podcast Transcript | Hokkien: Common Words and Useful Phrases

Hello everybody! This is Eugene from LearnDialect.sg. We are coming towards the end of March, and personally, I feel that the first quarter of 2019 has just flown by! If you had followed our podcast diligently, you would have learnt around 100 Hokkien common words and useful phrases by now! How’s that for committing less than 5 minutes a week to listen to our podcast?

For today’s Hokkien – How Do You Say Podcast, we are going to do a recap, so that it’s easier for you to revise what you have learnt so far. Here’s how I am going to do it. I’m going to say a phrase in English, followed by the Hokkien translation. Well, I’ll suggest for you to make use of this chance to test yourself by pausing the audio after you hear each English phrase. Ask yourself, how do you say it in Hokkien? Remember, you can always refer back to our previous podcasts if you need to understand the context or learn more about the words or phrases. I’ve picked 20 phrases that I think you are most likely to use over and over again in a Hokkien conversation. Are you ready? Let’s go!

• Have you eaten? 食饱未?
• How are you? 你好无?
• Hello, my name is Eugene. What is your name? 你好, 我的名是 Eugene. 你叫什么名?
• My Hokkien is not good. Can you teach me? 我的福建话不好, 你可以教我吗?
• Please, may I ask how do you say “eat” in Hokkien? 请问你, Eat用福建话怎么讲?
• Thank you. 感谢.
• You are welcome. 免客气.
• Long time no see, how have you been recently? 真久无看着, 你最近好吗?
• Nice to meet you, stay in touch! 真欢喜见着你, 保持联络!
• I’ll make a move first, goodbye. 我先走了, 再见.
• What is your job? How many years have you been working? 你做什么工的? 做几年了?
• Happy New Year, may all things go smoothly! 新年快乐, 万事如意!
• Happy Birthday. 生日快乐.
• Wish you good luck. 希望你兴兴.
• I love you. 我舒合你.
• What is your phone number? 你的电话号码是什么?
• Do you have Facebook? 你有Facebook无?
• What are you talking about? I’ve never heard of this before, can you tell me more? 你人在讲什么? 我无听过, 你可以讲给我听无?
• I’m very tired. 我真倦.
• Please wait a moment, I’ll ask him to pick up the phone call. 请等一下, 我叫伊来听电话.

There you go. Here’s my list of common words and useful phrases based on what we have learnt in the Hokkien – How Do You Say Podcasts thus far. Are you ready to move on to the next level? I’ll see you next week then!

Love what you are reading? We’ve got lots more to share during our Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese express workshops. Join us to pick up words and phrases for everyday use in Singapore. More importantly, you can help to keep these languages alive!

Our Philosophy for Learning Hokkien in Singapore

The pronunciation of Hokkien words varies from one region to another. For example, Penang Hokkien sounds different from Taiwanese Hokkien. At LearnDialect.sg, we want to make learning Hokkien fun, easy and practical for daily conversations in Singapore. As such, we think it is important to listen to how Singaporeans speak Hokkien. To do that, we have an ongoing process of collecting audio recordings from at least 100 Hokkien-speaking seniors in Singapore and thereafter based our audio pronunciation on the most commonly-heard version.

In similar nature, rather than trying to figure out which Hokkien romanization system to use (e.g. Pe̍h-ōe-jī or Taiwan Romanization System), we encourage you to form your own phonics, so that you make an association with these Hokkien words in the quickest way possible. To illustrate, the formal romanization of the English word, “eat”, is “chia̍h” in Hokkien. However, in our “Have You Eaten” podcast transcript, you’ll find that we use “jiak”, which we think relates to us better. That said, you may use other romanization (e.g “chiah”, “jia”, etc), as long as it helps you to make sense of what you hear.