|| reconstructing meixian hakka: learning the dialect of southern china

v ;; to be, numbers and grammar insight

The verb 'to be' is the most important in the majority of languages. In Hakka, the character for 'to be' would be '係', the romanisation being equivalent to 'he4'. In Standard Chinese, this would be '是'.

You could use this to explain who you are, e.g. '我是中國人。', which can be directly translated to 'I am Chinese'. However, when using an adjective to describe something, you would not use '是' to describe it. For example, if you wanted to say 'I'm good', you would say '我好'. Note that the '是' is omitted, as '好' is an adjective.

Numbers are one of the first things that a language learner would typically reach towards. By learning the characters of the numbers 1 - 10, you can say numbers 1 - 99! Let's see how this works in the long run. 

First off, let's please note that Arabic numerals are typically used in place of these specific Chinese numerals. Think of the Chinese numerals being equivalent to 'one', 'two', 'three' (i.e. being 'written out'), and the Arabic numerals being the, well, Arabic numerals. It would be odd to use 'one', 'two', etc, in everyday life, e.g. writing down phone numbers. So, Chinese numerals are typically used rarely in everyday use. This is a useful note to know.

So, let's start off with '1'. This is written as '一', and is thought as the simplest Chinese character to ever write. In Meixian, this is written as 'yid2'. Next up is '2', which is '二', and, additionally, is pronounced as 'ngi4'. 3 is '三' and is said as 'sam1'.

4 = 四. Romanisation = sei2
5 = 五. Romanisation = ng4
6 = 六. Romanisation = lok1
7 = 七. Romanisation = chat1
8 = 八. Romanisation = bat1
9 = 九. Romanisation = giu4
10 = 十. Romanisation = sip2

Now you know the characters for the numbers leading up to 10, from 1. But, as I mentioned, how would you be capable of forming numbers 11 - 99 by just using those characters?

For 11 - 19, there is a brief exception from the majority of other numbers, a pattern you will recognise later. However, 11 - 19 is formed by using '十', and then the second digit within the number. For example:

十四 = 14 (literally '10 4')
十一 = 11 (literally '10 1')

Now, for the latter. 

When doing increments of 10, you would use the number of the first digit and then '10'. For example:

20 = 二十 (literally '2 10')
80 = 八十 (literally '8 10')

If you were doing 21 - 99, just add the second digit of the number. For example:

27 = 二十七 (literally '2 10 7')
66 = 六十六 (literally '6 10 6')

Because of the way that numbers work in Chinese, many individuals in China consider their number system to be efficient and hassle-free.

In response to 'where are you from?' from the last chapter, a suitable reply in Meixian would be '𠊎 ... 來嘅'. This literally means 'I [country] from'. 'From' is '來嘅'. Romanisation is 'ngai2 [country] loi2 ke3'. Chinese is '我來自__' (來自 = from). You may be wondering how to say your country/region when answering this question, but for now you can fill in the gap with the English equivalent of your country and people will probably understand. For example, if someone asked you 'where are you from?', you could answer with '我來自England'. Later on in the book, we'll be learning how to write / say country names.

Finally, the answer to 'how old are you?'. You would say '𠊎[number]歲', the romanisation being 'ngai2 [number] sei4'. Replace the gap with your age, using the numbers we have learnt prior to this.  '我[number]歲' is the written format. '歲' means 'years old'.

Last note: You may be curious for why there isn't a 'to be' ('是') in the middle of the sentence. Unfortunately, the reason for this isn't overly simplistic. '我是[number]歲' would make no sense and look very ungrammatical in general to Chinese speakers, although just about grasping the message that you're attempting to send across. It would be the equivalent of saying 'I [number] years old' in English, instead of 'I am [number] years old'. In this case, '[number]歲' is treated as an adjective, so there is no need for a '是' to be added.

In the next chapter, we'll be negotiating further details of stroke order and how to use it successfully, including notes on why it is important to learn.