August 29, 2014 at
Davis High School
The
Davis Chinese School has been in operation since
1981 teaching beginning to advanced level
Chinese to school-aged children.
Mandarin is taught with traditional characters and with pinyin. We now have a
Taiwanese (Hokkien) class, and it is taught using a phonetic system called Peh oe ji (
POJ), the most widespread romanization system used in
Taiwan (1600's-1950's). But we incorporate recent updates recommended by the Taiwan
Government and communities which still teach
Taiwanese. (See below for alphabet chart comparison). Our Taiwanese classes are videotaped and put online to aid the students of this class. Learn Taiwanese with us!
Taiwanese
Alphabet Explained
POJ 18-22 letter Alphabet: a, b, ch, chh, e, g, h, i, j, k, kh, l, m, n, o, p, ph, s, t, th, u, x.
Notes: POJ c always appears as ch or chh. POJ ch, chh, kh, ph, and th act as consonants so I will include them in the alphabet.
Without them, there would be 18 primary letters.
Pronunciation guide:
1. ch = j sound.
Example: chia=jia (eat)
2. chh = ts sound. Example: chhau=tsau (run)
3. POJ k = g sound. Example: kiu=giu (ball)
4. POJ kh = k sound. Example: khi=ki (go)
5. POJ p = b sound. Example: png=bng (rice)
6. POJ ph = p sound. Example: phi=pi (nose)
7. POJ t = d sound. Example: tan=dan (throw)
8. POJ th = t sound. Example: thau= tau (head)
9. POJ oa = w sound. Example:
Tai-oan=Taiwan
Maryknoll Taiwanese/
English Dictionary is an online dictionary which uses POJ. Use the pronunciation guide above to help you use this dictionary.
The Taiwan Government recommends updating POJ so that all the letters reflect the sound they make with the modern alphabet. There are 9 main updates (as shown above) and they are not hard to learn. The modernized spelling is on the right side of the =
sign.
Updated Taiwanese 21 letter Alphabet: a, b (POJ p), c, d (POJ t), e, g (POJ k), h, i, j (POJ ch), k (POJ kh), l, m, n, o, p (POJ ph), s, t (POJ th), u, w (POJ oa), x, y.
Of course it is easier for
English speakers to use the updated Taiwanese Alphabet because it is similar to English. But we recommend learning POJ as well. (It is just nine main differences in letter pronunciation, as discussed above, and some distinguishing punctuation patterns which will be discussed later.) You will be able to read both old and new materials written in Romanized Taiwanese.
The English language took 800 years to standardize. Taiwanese is on a faster track due to technology and a literate society. Our Taiwanese class is a bilingual Taiwanese/English class. Thereby, both languages are used and reinforced. We think this makes it easier to learn Taiwanese.
- published: 03 Sep 2014
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