Introducing Learn Penang Hokkien

Penang Hokkien Made Simple (8 October 2009)


Learn Penang Hokkien adds to the various attempts to promote Penang Hokkien. It is created to help unlock the language for the benefit of tourists, visitors, expatriates, as well as Malays, Indians, Cantonese, Hakka, and Hokkien speakers from Malacca, Klang, Singapore and other places. Whether your purpose is to know enough for a short trip to Penang, or sufficient to make living in Penang an enjoyable experience, this Facebook Group hopes to make both possible.

Penang Hokkien a creolised version of the Southern Min or Min Nan language. Though it bears similarity with Hokkien spoken elsewhere, Penang Hokkien is spoken only in this part of the world and nowhere else. As the Penang Chinese is the predominant ethnic group in George Town, Penang Hokkien is the most commonly spoken local language in the city.

I want to help you learn Penang Hokkien speedily. The lessons are developed so that learners grow into the language. In putting them together, I want to ensure that Penang Hokkien is easy to learn. I often have to simplify the grammar rules of standard Hokkien, but I do that while making sure that the result does not over compromise on the learners' pronunciation and intelligibility to Penang Hokkien speakers.

A major stumbling block encountered by people trying to learn Penang Hokkien, apart from the lack of learning material, is that lessons often take a Chinese approach that require the knowledge of the Chinese language. Being English educated myself, I understand this problem. So I create lessons that do not require you to have any knowledge of Chinese. The Hokkien you learn in this course is the same street Hokkien you will hear in use in the markets, malls, bus stops, hospitals, offices, and other places where Penang Hokkien is spoken.

Rather than simply giving you sentences and phrases to memorize, I let you familiarize with sentences I feel it is important to explain the various parts of speech. That way, you can eventually construct your own sentences, your first step towards fluency. There will also be conversational situations to show you how Penang Hokkien is used in daily context.

In order to get your pronunciation right, I recommend you get someone who speak Penang Hokkien to pronounce some of the words to you. Do the intonation exercises to get familiar with the various tones of Hokkien. I have simplified it to correspond with Mandarin intonation, so that it is easier to learn. Getting the intonation right is crucial in your learning process, otherwise your effort will be futile.

In addition to the language, I will also share with you information on the history and culture of Penang people. Get to know how Penang Hokkien come about, why do we speak this language, and so on.

Penang Hokkien is the intangible heritage of the Penang people. Since the early 20th century, it has suffered a decline due to the increased use of Mandarin. The Mandarinization of the Penang Chinese people accelerated towards the end of the 21st century, when English schools and mission schools were nationalized. As a result, many families who would send their children to English schools are now switching to Chinese schools. Many Chinese children in Penang are growing up unable to speak Penang Hokkien. Unless we do something to arrest the decline, Penang Hokkien faces imminent extinction.

I support efforts taken by various enthusiasts in promoting Penang Hokkien, each in his own way, each using his own method. Though the approaches differ, the goal is the same: to prevent further decline in the use of Penang Hokkien. Rather than argue over which is the best approach, let's just leave it to the learner to choose.

I will update Learn Penang Hokkien from time to time with new lessons. Existing lessons will also be refreshed from time to time to provide you more examples as I continue to improve on the teaching method. Join me in the Learn Penang Hokkien Facebook Group to get the latest updates. My goal is to make learning Penang Hokkien easy, fun and free.

If you've always wanted to learn Penang Hokkien, here at last is the opportunity. So come in and join the fun. And if you know of any friends who would benefit from learning Penang Hokkien, add him/her to this group now!

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.

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Do you have a property for sale or to rent out? Are you looking to buy or rent a property? Get in touch with me. WhatsApp me (Timothy Tye) at 012 429 9844, and I will assign one of my property agents to serve you. I will choose the agent for you, according to your property needs. So when you message me, provide me some details of what you need, whether to sell, to buy, to rent or to rent out, and what type of property, is it condo, apartment, house, shop, office or land.

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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.