Name of Things in Penang Hokkien

Chau1bo33 (11 March 2018 Ipoh)


This item can be aclled a chau1bo33 (straw hat) as well as a kam1sam1phoay3 (food cover).

Kham1ceng1 (8 October 2009)


This is a kham1ceng1 , or covered jar. It is one of the most well-known item among Nyonya porcelian. In English, it is written as kamcheng.

Teng1 (28 February 2004)


This is a teng1 or lantern. This includes lamps that are lit, such as kerosene lamp, or thor3iu3teng1 . In Penang Hokkien, teng1 always refers to lantern, although in other Hokkien variants, it may refer to lamp as well. If it is powered by electricity, more likely we will call it hoay4 in Penang Hokkien, the same word as fire. So, electric lights are called tien33hoay4 .

To turn on the lights, we say khui3 hoay4 in Penang Hokkien, which surprises speakers of other Hokkien variants, for it sounds like "open fire"! To them, turning on the lights in khui3 teng1 .

Read also Penang Hokkien Vocabulary

Learn Penang Hokkien with Memrise

Now you can use the most user-friendly tool on the web to learn Penang Hokkien. It helps you to listen, understand and memorise. Go to Memrise, and learn Penang Hokkien at your own pace.

Return to Penang Hokkien Resources

About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.