Listen to Podcast | Teochew: How Do You Say “Favourite Country for Travel”

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New Words

Podcast Transcript | Teochew: How Do You Say “Favourite Country for Travel”

Arrgh… would you agree with me if I say that holidays are always too short? So how do you usually spend your holidays? Personally, the one thing that I look forward to during holidays is to travel and experience different cultures. Speaking of travelling overseas, do you know how to ask someone what is their favourite country for travel? My name is Eugene from LearnDialect.sg and in today’s Teochew – How Do You Say Podcast, we will be exploring more on this topic.

So first up, here are some new words that you will be learning today –

最 which means “most”;

国家 which means “country” and

𨑨迌 means “play”.

To ask someone where is their favourite country for travel, I would tap into words we have learnt on the podcast previously and say 你最舒合去底个国家𨑨迌? This translates literally into “You most like go which country play?”

Now, we’ve learnt 舒合 in one of our earlier How Do You Say “I Love You” podcast. Just a quick recap for you, 舒合 means “like” or “love”. Combining this with the new word, 最, we literally get “most like” and hence, 最舒合 is one way to express “favourite” in Teochew!

Apart from 舒合 which Singapore Teochews borrow from the Malay language, did you also know that 𨑨迌 is a term unique to Min language speakers, including Teochews and Hokkiens? If you are keen to learn more about the unique language features of Teochew, let me sidetrack a little and shamelessly throw in an ad here… do join us on our Teochew Classes for Beginners. Just visit our website at LearnDialect.sg and look under the tab on “Upcoming Classes”.

Ok, back to today’s podcast. “Where is your favourite country for travel?” translated to Teochew will be 你最舒合去底个国家𨑨迌?

We’ve now learnt that the phrase 𨑨迌 means “play”. So why do we use this phrase to infer travel in this scenario? This is simply a colloquial language shortcut. After all, similar to playing, you’ll be having lots of fun travelling to a country that you like, isn’t it?

So I really want to know, 你最舒合去底个国家𨑨迌? Please share with me in the comments. In our next podcast, I will teach you the names of some countries in Teochew. My name is Eugene from LearnDialect.sg and see you the next week!

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 Teochew in Singapore

While we include formal romanization for Teochew words, we are advocates of easy learning. Hence, we encourage you to form your own phonics so that you make an association with these Teochew words quickly. To illustrate, the formal romanization of “Teochew” is “diê ziu“. However, in our ”Can You Teach Me” podcast transcript, you’ll find that we use “teo chew”, which we think relates to us better. That said, you may use other romanization (e.g “dio chew”, “dio jiu“, etc), as long as it helps you to make sense of what you hear.