Texts

Learning Teochew can be difficult because it is mostly a spoken language, and there are few printed texts in the language.

Here is a selection of texts from different times and places, either from published sources or transcribed from videos or audio recordings, to show Teochew in use, beyond the short example sentences in the study guide.¹

Each text is transcribed with Guangdong Peng’im (see Pronunciation and Orthography) as well as Chinese characters and a rough English translation.

If you would like to contribute interesting texts or transcriptions, please get in touch!

Bible excerpts:

• The Beatitudes
• Lord’s Prayer
• The Christmas Story
• List of digitized Teochew Bibles

Stories:

• A Graduate Kneels Before a Magistrate
• The North Wind and the Sun

Conversations, speeches:

• Chua Hong Kee Interview
• Wang Sa and Ye Fong
• Low Thia Khiang Speech
• Pear Stories
• Get Vaccinated

Rhymes, folksongs:

• The Moon Shines Brightly
• Rain is Falling

Opera:

• See our companion website: Learn Teochew with Teochew Opera

Other:

• Swadesh List

Other Teochew readings online

The Hong Kong Teochew Culture Association has a great website (in Chinese) with Teochew readings (in characters, some with Pêng’im and sound recordings):

• Teochew Songbooks 潮州歌冊 Diê5ziu1 Gua1cêh4
• Excerpts from Teochew novel “Tales from the Countryside” 作田人瑣事 Zoh8cang1nang5 so2se7
• Teochew art and culture

Tung Tong-ho 董同龢 (1959) 「四個閩南方言」 Four Southern Min dialects: contains transcriptions of stories and folk songs from four different Southern Min varieties, including the Gêg’ion dialect of Teochew. These are transcribed with the International Phonetic Alphabet and include a vocabulary list.

Primers and dictionaries from the 19th century, mostly written for missionaries and foreigners, are now in the public domain. Digitized versions and links to full-texts (if available) are listed in the Bibliography.

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