Listen to Podcast | Teochew: How Do You Say “Nice to Meet You”

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Podcast Transcript | Teochew: How Do You Say “Nice to Meet You”

Hi, nice to meet you! Stay in touch! Ever wondered what’s the equivalent in Teochew? My name is Eugene and we will explore this phrase with today’s Teochew – How Do You Say Podcast on LearnDialect.sg.

Let’s start with the word, “Nice“. Even in English itself, “nice” is a very flexible word as it can be used to describe many things – beautiful, good, and the list goes on. As such, there are many ways to express it in Teochew too. For example, how do you say that a watch is nice?

In Teochew, the term “nice watch” can be translated into 手表真雅. Literally, this means “the watch is very beautiful”. Now, let’s break it down word by word.

手表 refers to “watch”;

真 – as we have learnt the last episode – can mean “really” or “very”;

真雅 means “really beautiful”;

There you go, the watch is very nice. 手表真雅.

You may ask, can I use 真雅 to describe a person and the answer is yes! However, by using 真雅, you are specifically referring to that person looking beautiful. So it works best if you are complimenting a lady, “My girlfriend真雅 “. Hey guys, are you listening to this?

What if – beyond physical looks – you wish to compliment someone for having a nice character? Well, for example, if I want to say, “John is a nice person”, I’ll express in Teochew as John个人真好. It roughly translates into “John’s personality is very good”.

Get it? Great! Let’s move on!

So now, how do we say “Nice to meet you”?

This is expressed in Teochew as 真欢喜见着你. Let’s break it down again,

真欢喜 means “really happy”.

见 refers to “meet” but local Teochews in Singapore commonly replace it with 看, which we have learnt it last week to mean “see“.

As such, there are 2 expressions that you can use interchangeably.

“Nice to meet you” is 真欢喜见着你 while “Nice to see you” is 真欢喜看着你 in Teochew. I would suggest for you to choose one that you are most comfortable with pronouncing. One more time,

Nice to meet you – 真欢喜见着你

Nice to see you – 真欢喜看着你

Are you still with me? Great! I’ve got one more phrase to teach you today, which is commonly heard in Singapore. How do you say “Stay in touch”? We express this by saying 别日再联络.

别日 means to “another day”; 再 means “again”; while 联络 refers to “contact”.

As such, 别日再联络 means “stay in touch”.

Let me repeat, 别日再联络.

Now, let’s put everything together! How do you say, “Nice to meet you! Stay in touch!”

Go on, pause the audio and give it a try. Learning a language works best if you keep practising. Play the audio only when you are ready to listen to the answer.

Nice to meet you! Stay in touch!

真欢喜见着你, 别日再联络!

Once again, thank you for listening in to How Do You Say on LearnDialect.sg. 我真欢喜看着你, stay tuned for more podcasts and 别日再联络!

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.