What is the difference in Hokkien dialects?

[kurii]

Ua tia li gong jia ho? Me thinks not.

Not a native Hokkien speaker myself, his pronunciation sounds ok. You can tell his proficiency needs improvement right?

[hitmen]

I bought this dictionary from one of the bookshop in Singapore. The Singapore Hokkien Association wanted to publish a Hokkien dictionary, but I do not know whether it is Hokkien to English or whether is already on sale.

Which bookshop is it from? Popular? Kinokuniya?

[creamyhorror]

I'm going to look for that Hokkien dictionary too. I assume it'll be available at Chinese bookstores? I'll probably head down to Bras Basah to take a look later...hope I find it.

An e-dictionary would be nice, too.

[Goujian]

I only know about the Hokkien spoken in China.

There are two main accents:

Zhangzhou (Chang-chiu)

Quanzhou (Choan-chiu)

There is also Amoy/Xiamen Hokkien, which is a mix of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou accent. Since Taiwanese Hokkien is also a mix of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou accent, it's almost identical with Amoy Hokkien. But there is slight shift towards Quanzhou accent in the North (probably Keelung), but a slight shift towards Zhangzhou accent in the South (Tainan and Kaohsiung); but Taipei accent is the closest to Amoy Hokkien.

There are also minor varients of Hokkien:

-Zhenan Min (spoken in Wenzhou, and possibly in some isolated pockets in southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang province; also includes Hui'an dialect and some nearby Hokkien dialects; closer to Quanzhou)

-Longyan Min (spoken in some small part of Longyan; closer to Zhangzhou)

Puxian Min used to be a variant of Hokkien (presumably a proto-Hokkien) until Fuzhou dialect exerted its influence, so it's considered to be a separate dialect.

[UKtoChina]

Slight variance on the listed topic, but I was just wondering what the differences are between Teochew and Hokkien dialects. I'm currently studying Mandarin, but would like to learn both of the above dialects (hoping that that they aren't too different!).

PS Any tips for home study of Hokkien/Teochew are most welcome!

[Lu]

There are a few threads about learning Hokkien/Taiwanese/Minnanese, with some websites and books mentioned. But my number one tip would be, as for Mandarin: get a teacher, at least for the basics. I have no experience with Teochew, but I've never heard of any book or website that explained Minnanese enough to understand it at home without a teacher or a lot of knowledge of the language already.

Anyway, good luck!

[David Dunn]

What I can add is that Hainanese and Lui, at the very Southern tip of Guangdong are also Hokkien-Minnan variants. I am a quite fluent speaker of Taiwanese Minnan, with an accent more from Taipei. I have no problems anywhere in Taiwan. I have heard that some of the Penghu Minnan dialects are quite different. (I think particularly Chit Bi - 七美。） Just about every post in this thread agrees with what I know. I can add that there are supposed to be Minnan speakers in Sichuan also. I have heard the Zhejiang Minnan. The place is called 洞頭縣，Dong Tou Xian. Here is a thread about it. http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=631368398 The history apparently is that people from Southern Fujian migrated to this location - an island close to Wenzhou, fairly recently. The words on the tieba post are very similar to Minnan. The Zhejiang Minnan I heard was quite similar to Taiwan Minnan but not really easy to understand. Singapore, Philippines Hokkien are much easier. My next language will be Chaozhou. I can understand and speak a bit but still find it challenging. From my perspective Chaozhou - Teochew is 60% identical, 20% similar and 20% completely different from Hokkien/Minnan. Maybe a bit like Spanish and Portuguese although I know neither. Maybe a bit like Thai and Lao, I know a bit of Thai. From what my Thai teachers told me, foreigners that speak good Thai do better with Lao than Thai people. (I guess they have less cognitive interference.) I hope I have the same experience learning Chaozhou. I have run into Taiwanese and Minnan people that spent time in Chaozhou and Shantou and they told me that they could not understand Chaozhou. So for them it may be a bit like Thai people learning Lao.

[bro]

Hi I'm new to this forum..I didn't know that there were a lot of people like me who are interested in the Hokkien (Minnan) language. Awesome!!

I speak Minnan as well..and I think I can shed some light about Singapore/Philippine-Hokkien being easier to understand. I think it depends on who you're talking to. While I've personally experienced that Singaporean Hokkien is closer to Philippine Hokkien (I'm a Chinese-Filipino); most of the Minnan speakers I've met say that our Minnan is hard to understand (apparently the accent is different from the "standard" Minnan). Also, because it has been so long since the first Minnan speakers immigrated into the Philippines, our Minnan vocabulary tends to be more on the formal Minnan side (Think Old-English).

By the way, been reading about a Minnan Hua dictionary on this thread, anyone know where I can get one online? Thanks!!!