Taiwanese phrase of the day: Ha Ha Ha! (I’m crying inside) 鬱鬱在心底, 笑笑陪人禮 ut ut tsāi sim té, tshiò tshiò puê lâng lé

鬱鬱在心底, 笑笑陪人禮 ut ut tsāi sim , tshiò tshiò puê lâng

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This phrase is one of a list that I got one of my friends to recite for me, it basically means that somebody is all smiles on the outside but is miserable inside. Just because you want to use the phrase, however, is not a valid enough reason to suggest to someone that they’re fun-loving friend might need therapy, although I have met a lot of people to whom this phrase could be applied. The audio is below, along with a helpful explanation in Mandarin.

Quick note just to say that I use two different but similar dictionaries for this blog, a university one and the Ministry of Education one, but one of them keeps breaking down, the phonetic system used is the same on the whole, but there are some differences, for example “tshiò” here for 笑 is written “chhiò” in the other dictionary and similarly “tsāi” here for 在, can also be written “chāi”, though this is just two representations of the same sound.

I haven’t yet updated the google doc of differences between Taiwanese and Mandarin pronunciation for this post (an ongoing experiment), but check it out here and see if you observe any patterns.

Photo: Cheezburger.com

Taiwanese phrase of the day: If there’s no fish, shrimp’s ok too 無魚,蝦嘛好 bô hî, hê mā ho

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無魚, 蝦嘛好    (Click each syllable for pronounciation or click below for whole phrase)

This phrase basically means, “something’s better than nothing,” rather loosely illustrated here in a drawing by Arvid Torres (you should have been happy with the shrimp). It can be used to refer to someone’s partner too, as in, “he really scraped the bottom of the barrel with that one,” as used in Taiwanese author Li Ang’s latest novel, to portray the racist and misogynist tendencies of Taiwanese men in the anti-government pro-democracy protests of the 1980s:

陳英俊因一般女性仍不敢靠近,基本上沒有太多的選擇,加上林慧淑頗具吸引力的姿色,很快的確定了兩人的關係。

(As no normal women [Lin Hui-shu is the product of a mixed marriage between a mainland soldier and an aboriginal woman] dared to be associated with Chen Ying-jun, he really didn’t have much choice, and as, Lin Hui-shu was really quite attractive, the two quickly entered into a relationship.)

雖然偶有政治犯同學戲稱他無魚蝦也好,但多半是羨慕又帶嫉妒。 (Although some of his political prisoner comrades joked with him that he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel, most admired him with a little bit of jealousy mixed in.)

You’ll note that she uses it directly as an adjective here, Subject + adjectival phrase.

This phrase also works in Mandarin – hurrah!

Taiwanese phrase of the day: A tattletale/an informant 抓耙仔 jiàu-pê-á

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As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I’ve been reading《路邊甘蔗眾人啃》(Everyone nibbles on sugar cane at the edge of the road) by Li Ang (李昂). The book has already thrown up a few interesting phrases in Taiwanese, such as 抓耙仔 jiàu-pê-á – which can mean tattletale in a playground context, or informant, or just someone who gives away someone’s secrets, although it literally means a tool used to scratch one’s back).

The first sound is somewhere between a j and an r.

I’ve give the context below for those interested:

「妳以前睡過那麼多男人,都很好?」 (You’ve slept with so many men, were they all good in bed?)

林慧淑知道「黨外無袐密」,她自己也說,也有那些特務、抓把仔會通風報信好藉此羞辱他。 (Lin Hui-shu knew that there were no secrets amongst the opposition to the government, she said it herself, and there were spies and informants who would reveal the information to shame him.)