Lesson 7
To describe a thing
Instead of describing something with only one word, you will learn how to describe a person, object, or place using an entire clause.
In English, we usually put the noun first and the description afterwards. We say “the person who came yesterday,” “the food that my grandmother made,” or “the house where my grandmother lives.” Hokkien approaches this differently. The clause that describes the noun comes before the noun itself.
The basic pattern is:
[describing clause] + noun
Think of the sentence as answering the question “Which one?”
If you want to say “the person who came,” the important information is “came.” That information comes before “person.”
If you want to say “the food that my grandmother made,” the important information is “my grandmother made.” That information comes before “food.”
This may feel strange at first because it is the reverse of what an English speaker expects. Do not try to translate the English words one by one. Instead, identify the noun you are talking about and put the information that identifies it before that noun.
Let's start with two simple sentences.
i lâi. (He/she came.)
i sī wa ê pêng-iú. (He/she is my friend.)
If you keep these as separate sentences, you are simply saying that someone came and that this person is your friend. But suppose there are several people around and you want to tell your listener exactly which person you mean.
You can combine the two pieces of information so that “came” describes “person.” The resulting meaning is:
the person who came
The first clause tells us which person we are talking about.
This is called a relative clause. The term sounds complicated, but the idea is simple. A relative clause is a clause that gives us more information about a noun.
You have already learned how to make a clause such as:
i lâi.
“He/she came.”
Now that clause can become a description:
[lâi] + person
“the person who came.”
Instead of the action being the main thing you are saying, it is now helping you identify a noun.
This is an important step in your Hokkien journey! Until now, you have mostly been building sentences by putting one event after another. Now you can put a complete description inside a sentence.
Exercise 1: What Is Being Described?
Read each English phrase. Identify the noun being described.
“The person who came.”
“The food that grandmother made.”
“The person who drank tea.”
“The house where grandmother lives.”
“The thing that I bought.”
Write only the noun for each answer.
Now reverse the exercise. I give you the noun, and you decide what information could be placed before it to identify it.
For lâng, write something that could answer “Which person?”
For pn̄g, write something that could answer “Which food?”
For chhù, write something that could answer “Which house?”
Do not worry about producing a complete Hokkien sentence yet. The purpose is to understand the structure before producing it.
The Role of ê
A common Southern Min construction uses ê to connect a descriptive clause with the noun it modifies. This is a grammatical construction that you will encounter when forming longer descriptions.
For teaching purposes, you can think of the structure as:
[describing clause] + ê + noun
The ê does not mean “who” in the simple one-to-one way that an English learner might expect. It helps turn the preceding material into a description of the noun that follows.
For example, the underlying idea of “the person who came” can be represented as:
[lâi] + ê + person
Likewise, “the food that grandmother made” can be represented as:
[a-má made] + ê + food
The important idea is:
The clause before the noun describes the noun.
Exercise 2: Build the Pattern
Take the following English descriptions and separate them into two parts.
“The person who came.”
“The food that I ate.”
“The tea that grandmother drank.”
“The house where my grandmother lives.”
“The thing that I bought.”
For each one, write:
description + noun
For example:
“the person who came” = came + person
Then try to express the same structure using the Hokkien vocabulary you already know.
Do not add new vocabulary. Use only words you are confident about.
Describing People
Let's begin with people.
You already know lâng, meaning “person” or “people.” You also know verbs such as lâi, “to come,” chia̍h, “to eat,” lim, “to drink,” and kóng, “to speak.”
These familiar words can now be used in a new way!
Suppose someone is eating. You could simply say:
i chiah.
“He/she is eating.”
But suppose there are several people and you want to identify one particular person. You can use the action to describe that person.
The meaning becomes:
the person who is eating
The description is “eating.” The noun being described is “person.”
The same thing works with drinking tea. You already know lim tê, “to drink tea.” That can become the description of a person:
[lim tê] + person
“The person who is drinking tea.”
Notice that you did not have to learn a completely new expression. You already knew the verbs. What has changed is the grammar.
Let's take a look at an example!
Wa ū chi̍t ê pêng-iú, i chin ài lim tê. I lâi wa ê chhù ê sî, goán siōng chē chia̍h pn̄g, lim tê, koh kóng chin chē. (I have a friend who really likes drinking tea. When he/she comes to my house, we usually eat, drink tea, and talk a lot.)