Dictionary - Penang Hokkien

However, they will NOT laugh if you use your and say: "Wah beh chiak char koay teow."

For decades, this dialect was purely oral. It was the secret code spoken by the Peranakan (Baba-Nyonya) community and the Chinese diaspora who settled on the island. Unlike Mandarin or Cantonese, it had no official script, no textbooks, and certainly no dictionary. To learn it, you had to be born into it, or spend decades eavesdropping at coffee shops ( kopitiam ). penang hokkien dictionary

| Penang Hokkien | Origin | Meaning | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | Hokkien | You (singular) | | Wah | Hokkien | I/Me | | Kay | Malay (Kaya) | Rich | | Tapi | Malay | But | | Suka | Malay | To like | | Batu | Malay | Stone | | Mata | Malay | Police (Eyes) | | Chiak-pa-boe? | Hokkien | Have you eaten? (Greeting) | | Kam-sia | Hokkien | Thank you | | Paiseh | Hokkien | Embarrassed | | Hami? | Hokkien | What? | | Toh-lok | Hokkien | To drop/fall | | Zeh-zeh | Hokkien | Older sister | | Ko-ko | Hokkien | Older brother | | A-ne | Hokkien | Like this / So | | Ki hoo | English/Mix | Go fishing | | Boh-chap | Hokkien | Careless (Lit: Don't care) | | Kay-ng | Hokkien | Dumb/stupid (Lit: Chicken egg) | | Thiam | Hokkien | Tired | | Kong-bok-kong | Hokkien | Nonsense (Lit: Talk wood talk) | Why You Can't Trust Google Translate for Penang Hokkien Let’s address the elephant in the kopitiam . Google Translate does not support Penang Hokkien. If you type "I want to eat fried noodles" into Google, it gives you Mandarin: Wo yao chi chao mian . If you say that in a Penang market, people will understand you, but they will laugh and reply, "Wah, lu Mandarin chin eh ho..." (Your Mandarin is very good). However, they will NOT laugh if you use

For the uninitiated, the sound of Penang is a symphony of linguistic chaos. Over the clatter of wok hei from a char koay teow stall and the hum of rickshaw tires on cobblestones, you hear it: a rapid-fire, melodic, and often hilarious language that is neither Mandarin, nor Malay, nor English—yet somehow all of the above. To learn it, you had to be born