Building Sentences in Penang Hokkien

Building Sentences in Penang Hokkien is easy because, most of the time, the sentence structure in Penang Hokkien corresponds to that of English. The examples provided here are intended to help you get familiar with the sentence structure of Penang Hokkien. By replacing the words in the example with your own words (derived from the Penang Hokkien Dictionary), you can build quite a number of sentences in Penang Hokkien.

Noun:
Man
Lang2
Subject:
The man.
Heh1-leh1 lang2.
Subject with modifier:
The old man.
Heh1-leh1 lau33* lang2.

* Tone 3 unsandiable morphemes are written with the tone 33. For details, read unsandiable morphemes.
Sentence with predicative adjective:
The old man is happy.
Heh1-leh1 lau33 lang2 hnua3hee4.
Sentence with predicative adjective:
The happy man is old.
Heh1-leh1 hnua3hee1* lang2 lau33.
Sentence with predicative nominal:
The old man is my uncle.
Heh1-leh1 lau33 lang2 si33 wah4-eh3 pek3.
Sentence with predicative nominal:
My uncle is the old man.
Wah4-eh3 pek3 si33 heh1-leh1 lau33 lang2.
Sentence with intransitive verb:
The man sleeps.
Heh1-leh1 lang2 khoon3.
Sentence with transitive verb and object:
The man eats rice.
Heh1-leh1 lang2 ciak3 pnui3.
Sentence with question tag:
The man sleeps, doesn't he?
Heh1-leh1 lang2 khoon3 meh4?*
Sentence with auxiliary verb:
The man can't sleep.
Heh1-leh1 lang2 be33 khoon3.
Sentence with auxiliary verb and question tag:
The man can't sleep, can he?
Heh1-leh1 lang2 be33 khoon3 nia2?
Sentence with question word:
Who sleeps?
cui33-cui33 khoon3?
Sentence with subject-auxiliary inversion:
Does the man sleep?
Heh-leh1 lang2 khoon3 nia2?
Sentence with subject-auxiliary inversion:
Can the man sleep?
Heh-leh1 lang2 e3 khoon3 boh2?
Sentence with direct object:
The man sells books.
Heh-leh1 lang2 beh33 chaek3.
Sentence with indirect object:
The man sells me books.
Heh-leh1 lang2 beh33 wah4 chaek3.
Sentence with object of preposition:
The man put the book on the table.
Heh-leh1 lang2 haeh3 chaek3 ti1 tok1teng4.
Imperative sentence:
Put the book on the table.
Haeh3 chaek3 ti1 tok1teng4.
Imperative sentence with adverb:
Please put the book on the table.
To3long3 haeh3 chaek3 ti1 tok1teng4.

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You can also listen to the above lesson on YouTube. I noticed two minor typos in the video which I corrected on the webpage above and mark them out with *. My apologies for these typos.

Penang Hokkien Grammar

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