The Teochew Store Blog / English

Teochew Gasig  (潮州教室) is an Instagram and Facebook platform that teaches and explains daily Teochew words and phrases in English, Indonesian and Mandarin. Since its inception in 2021, it has built a strong following among young Teochews from many countries.

The founder of Teochew Gasig is Vivian Lee, who lives on Batam Island. What made this member of Generation Z want to promote our ageless and charming Teochew language to other youngsters on social media? Recently The Teochew Store has had the privilege to chat with Vivian to find out about her journey in running Teochew GaSig.

Lim Ngian Tiong, Nigel, is a veteran Teochew language radio newscaster and teacher in Singapore. He has been actively spreading Teochew language and culture through the radio, opera stage and classroom for half a century.

Coincidently 2023 marks Lim Ngian Tiong’s 50th anniversary as a Teochew language radio newscaster and his 20th year as a language teacher. Lim Ngian Tiong has also served as language instructor and event host for the annual "Lai Bia Teochew Ue" (來拼潮州話) quiz competition for Teochew language enthusiasts in Singapore since 2020.

The Teochew Store had the pleasure of speaking with Lim Ngian Tiong recently to learn about his journey in promoting Teochew language and culture, and to pick up some tips for young people interested in learning to speak Teochew.

Wild Teochew, the first ever nature-documentary on wildlife in the Teochew region was officially released in the Teochew language recently. Deng Cueng (丁銓), who hails from Teochew, China, is the documentary’s director, as well as the editor of the photographic collection Historical Photos of Teochew. The Teochew Store had the pleasure of interviewing Deng Cueng to learn about his enthusiasm in promoting the nature and culture of his homeplace and the gains he has received from it.

近期，首部讲述潮州野生世界的自然纪录片《野性潮州》潮语版正式上映。来自中国潮州的丁铨是这部纪录片的导演，也是影集《旧影潮州》的编著者。潮舖特别连线丁铨先生，请他与我们分享他在推广家乡自然及人文文化中的热忱和收获。

Wild Teochew 《野性潮州》 is the first video produced on the wildlife in the Teochew region. It is a collection of footage produced by a group of local nature lovers over the course of 3 years.

This amazing documentary was nominated for the Best Production award (最佳作品) in the 3rd China Wildlife Image and Video Competition in 2022 (2022第三届野生生物影像年赛) hosted by Chinese National Geography and organized by DDFW and Chinese National Geography Book Company. 

Wild Teochew can now be watched in Teochew-language commentary provided by its director Deng Cueng 丁铨 (author of Historical Photos of Teochew 旧影潮州), accompanied by Chinese and English language subtitles.

Finding the proper Teochew terms to help 3-year-olds pick up a basic vocabulary in the Teochew language is surely as easy as ABC.

This was what we told ourselves when we set out to create Wa Si Teochew Kia—My First 120 Teochew Expressions Multimedia Flashcards 精选一百二十潮语词语》- 多媒体早教图卡), a set of educational flashcards with animated videos developed specially for babies and toddlers to learn their mother tongue together with their parents. 

Then, we came to the word "mother"... Read more about some of the challenging decisions we faced in conceptalising and designing The Teochew Store’s first in-house product, which we realised through the generous funding of more than 100 backers from 14 different countries on Kickstarter last year. 

The Teochew people are not the only ones who live in the Teochew region. Watch Wild Teochew 《野性潮州》, an extraordinary documentary on wildlife in Teochew's mountains, rivers, city, villages and sea that is directed by Deng Cueng 丁铨 (author of Historical Photos of Teochew 旧影潮州) and collects footages produced by a group of local nature lovers over the course of 3 years.

Wa Si Teochew Kia—My First 120 Teochew Expressions Multimedia Flashcards is on sale now!

《我是潮州囝——精选一百二十潮语词语》- 多媒体早教图卡, 正式发售！

We are entering the final 50 hours of our Wa Si Teochew Kia – My First 120 Teochew Expressions Kickstarter campaign. As we make our final push, do continue to help us tell more people about our project. Thank you!

To learn about this project or contribute to our crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter,  please click here.

《我是潮州囝——精选一百二十潮语词语》的众筹活动已进入最后五十小时。我们还在努力做最后冲刺。请您继续支持我们，并帮忙转发我们的项目给您身边的亲戚朋友，谢谢！

请点击这里，了解这个项目并资助我们在Kickstarter发起的筹款活动。

Parents, do you still remember the excitement of watching your newborn open his/her fingers for the first time? Or executing the first rollovers? Sitting up, standing, and walking?

父母们，你是否还记得第一次看到您的宝宝打开小手时的喜悦？或是在看到他们第一次翻身、坐、站和走路的时候呢？

All these “firsts” are swiftly achieved one after another. These are glorious days when new parents are still in a state of wonder, but the baby seems to know exactly what to do next as if he/she is pre-programmed. How many times are we led to believe our precious baby can master just about anything, and will one day become everything he/she is destined for?

这些所有的“第一次”，伴随着宝宝的成长，一个又一个迅速地出现。我们父母还在感叹这些“里程碑”的时候，我们的宝宝好像被预设默认程序一样，似乎已经知道下一步该做什么。有多少次，我们被引导着相信，我们可爱的孩子们几乎可以做任何事情，有朝一日他们会实现他们命中注定的潜能。

Then the child learns to talk...

后来，我们的宝宝开始学说话。。。

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Wa Si Teochew Kia".

Do you know our Wa Si Teochew Kia jingle is sung by J.J., a 3-year-old Teochew boy from Singapore? J.J. also composed the tune as an English counting song for Mummy when she was out for dinner one night.

All children have incredible learning potential.

Wa Si Teochew Kia – My First 120 Teochew Expressions is a set of multimedia flashcards developed by The Teochew Store to help children under 3 learn to speak Teochew together with their parents.

To learn about this project or contribute to our crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter,  please click here.

“一，二，三，四，五，我是潮州囝”。

你知道吗，我们项目《我是潮州囝》的小曲是由新加坡三岁潮州男孩J.J.演唱。J.J.在某个妈妈外出的晚上创作了这首曲。

每个小孩都蕴藏着惊人的学习潜能。

《我是潮州囝——精选一百二十潮语词语》由潮舗推出，是一套帮助父母与三岁以下幼儿一起学习潮州话的多媒体早教图卡。

请点击这里，了解这个项目并资助我们在Kickstarter发起的筹款活动。

An exciting new project for our very young is coming soon! 一个专为宝宝设计的项目即将启动， 敬请期待！

A PDF copy of Primary Lessons in Swatow Grammar (Colloquial) is now available for free download on our online store.

Primary Lessons in Swatow Grammar was published by American Baptist missionary Rev William Ashmore in Swatow in 1884, despite suffering partial loss of sight for a prolonged period because of ophthalmia. He accomplished this with the assistance of Rev. William Duffus of the English Presbyterian Mission, who had charge of a small press. 

Here’s the third and final group of our flashcard videos for English speakers. Teochew audio taken from 汕頭話音檔》 ("Archive of the Swatow vernacular").

We wish to hear from you if you find such a learning method (video flashcard with picture + English/Chinese text + English/Teochew audio) useful. Do give us your feedback in the YouTube video comments. 

Here’s the second group of our flashcard videos for English speakers. Teochew audio taken from 汕頭話音檔》 ("Archive of the Swatow vernacular").

We wish to hear from you if you find such a learning method (video flashcard with picture + English/Chinese text + English/Teochew audio) useful. Do give us your feedback in the YouTube video comments. 

The Teochew Store has produced a series of flashcard videos for English speakers to pick up some basic Teochew vocabulary. The Teochew audio is taken from a late 1990s source 《汕頭話音檔》 ("Archive of the Swatow vernacular").

There is a total of 15 videos, 5 of which have been uploaded on our YouTube channel (shown below). The other videos will be uploaded progressively over the next two weeks.

We wish to hear from you if you find such a learning method (video flashcard with picture + English/Chinese text + English/Teochew audio) useful. Do give us your feedback in the YouTube video comments. 🙂

Teochew is a language full of rich expressions. How many of the Teochew vernacular terms (土話) in this video do you know?

A fellow Teochew in the UK is running a blog, Learn Diosua Ue with Juyee 和如意學潮汕話, since 2013 to help English speakers learn and appreciate our mother tongue. Her name, you guessed it, is Juyee 如意.

Juyee's blog is at learnteochewwithjuyee.blogspot.com

Juyee grew up speaking English and picked up Teochew, both speaking, reading, writing only as an adult. The Teochew Store recently spoke with her to find out more about her blog and her personal experiences in becoming fluent in our language, a formidable task for many of us!

How did you fare in the previous rounds? This is the 6th and final challenge!

Are you getting better at this?