Penang Hokkien Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe nouns and noun phrases. For example, "red" in "red dress", "old" in "old man". Most adjectives in Penang Hokkien can be placed in front of the nouns they modify. In such a position, the adjectives sandhi. Only words where the final morpheme has tone 33 do not show any changes.

red dress
ang3 sna1 (from "ang2" and "sna1")

long table
tng3 tok3 (from "tng2" and "tok3")

old man
lau33 lang2 (from "lau33" and "lang2")

old house
ku33 chu3 (from "ku33" and "chu3")

Some adjectives require the inclusion of "-eh3" which translates roughly as "that is". This is optional to some adjectives but not to all. Note that in the presence of "-eh3", the adjective is in the citation tone.

lazy person
pun3tnua33-eh3 lang2 / pnun3tnua33 lang2

careful person
sio1sim1-eh3 lang2

slow car (literally, "a car that is slow")
ham3ban33-eh3 chia1

If the adjective and the word it describes creates a new word from the resulting compound, they are written without space in between.

am1khang1 = tunnel (from "am3" dark, and "khang" hole)
am3-eh3 khang1 = dark hole

tau33iu2 = soysauce (from "tau33" bean, and "iu" oil)
tau33 iu2 / tau33-eh3 iu2 = bean oil

Unlike English, the linking verb is not used in Penang Hokkien to link a noun to its description. In the examples below, observe that the linking verb (is, are, etc.) are not translated in Penang Hokkien. Adverbs (e.g. very) and negators (not) can be inserted into the sentences, almost always in the same word order as English.

My shirt is red.
Wah-eh sna1 ang2.

The table is long.
Heh1-leh1 tok3 tng2.

That man is old already.
Heh1-leh1 lang2 lau33 liau4.

This worker is very lazy.
Cit1-khien1 kang3lang2 cin3 pun3tnua33.

This child is not careful.
Cit1-leh1 gin1na4 boh3 sio1sim1.

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