Module talk:zh/data/dial-syn/水費

Recognizing
I notice that your criterion for asking you dad is if he recognizes the word. Not necessarily this particular word, but I just want to point out that that's not necessarily a good thing, because theoretically I could put two characters together and our elders could recognize what it means (or what it's intended to mean), even if no one says it. The best criterion is always natural usage. Basically, you get to hear an elder use it in normal speech, without prodding or asking them. That's why linguists try to use picture illustrations when asking native speakers what word they would use to describe something, in order to not let the linguist's bias influence the speaker's response. Mar vin kaiser (talk) 18:24, 5 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Mar vin kaiser It's not just recognizing. It's the first thing to notice and the bare minimum at least if my dad couldn't be asked to say more or the environment was too noisy. The 2nd thing I would ask him if he thinks it is what is used in lán-nâng-ōe tǐ Hui-li̍p-pin or I would ask him if this term or which term is used more often he would think tǐ Hui-li̍p-pin, which he answered last time chúi-hùi and chúi-chîⁿ is supposed to be kî-koài ê ōe. I could not fish out natural speech from him if it's a term he didn't recently use and normally doesn't use on average anyways, because in our house that we've lived so far more than a decade now, we live in a building that my guama technically owns, but each floor has been rented out separately for years and the first floor and the floor we live on used to be both managed by my auntie before so she paid the bills on both of them, but that was years ago she has since moved to different houses and the last decade, we've lived in the floor she used to live at but the first floor is now run by another distant uncle we don't talk too much with. Now for the past decade or so, we always paid a huge tiān-chîⁿ for some reason that my family used to struggle paying off in the first few years, but for some reason, we never received any chúi-chîⁿ to pay for, which we've always suspected is cuz the other floor is paying it, so my parents, chúi-chîⁿ or chúi-hùi is something that's normally not in their vocabulary at least for the past decade, but I think I always remember my atsi also using tiān-chîⁿ usually for the past years and she mostly gets her vocabs from my parents or grandparents before that raised her, so chúi-chîⁿ should make sense and most everyone in chat thumbs up on it last time.
 * My dad's reaction usually is tho on words he doesn't quite remember or recognize or haven't heard of is to tell me I'm telling him kî-koài ê ōe or questioning if it's cuz I am getting the tones wrong or sometimes he feels bad if he can't think up the term and tries to avoid me or tells me he's going to think about it some more and asks me to go do something for him or asking me to go live in tāi-dio̍k or if I am Malaysia ê lâng or if I am tâi-oân-á, which is what he wonders I am getting the words from or he thinks I managed to meet someone from there and got those words from them. I ask him more frequently than my mom too is because of that behavior of his to stick with what he thinks is lán-nâng-ōe, cuz my mom sometimes defers to go with the term I told her with her thinking it probably exists in another dialect in other countries or she thinks it's ē-mn̂g-ōe, which she expects me to think it should be more proper, or she gives me the Mandarin term or gives me the hokkien reading of the Mandarin term cuz she thinks that's supposed to be the formal term. So usually, I finesse my dad on the natural lán-nâng-ōe term, especially if I happened to hear it from his speech recently and decided to look into it, but if it's a random question in chat, I think some question for him first to make him guess the answer he'd say in lán-nâng-ōe, but once he's given me the word or multiple words, I have no other choice but to ask him which one is used more, which one is ta̍k-pái lé-ēng, or which one he thinks is used more in the Philippines if he himself normally doesn't use it. I can't ask him too much as well these days cuz some weeks cuz of his job in tarlac or laguna or batangas or cavite, he's not at home for like 1 or 2 days, so I have to save up what to ask him when he gets back or defer with what others respond with in chat to prepare for if he would likely recognize it or not at least. The chúi-hùi last time was something that spontaneously came up from him first, after I was expecting him to recognize chúi-chîⁿ. I tested him after with tiān-chîⁿ, kang-chîⁿ, and ha̍k-hùi and he reacted as expected just like ahiya Dixon to what those mean and existing forms. Mlgc1998 (talk) 04:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Instead of asking your dad, for example, if he recognizes "chúi-chîⁿ" or "chúi-hùi", have you tried just asking him how to say "bayad sa tubig" in Hokkien, without saying any Hokkien words? Because with that kind of questioning, you'll be sure that the word came from his mind and not possibly suggested by you. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 05:58, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mar vin kaiser I do do that with other words I've asked him before, but in this case, I was making the 水錢 page and wanted to confirm what it meant to him too specifically to see if it matched the idea of others in the chat, and he did say at first "water bill" on first ask. In terms of what vocab he would use primarily for "water bill" tho, I'd thought it wouldn't be a big thing anyways cuz in our family, we don't talk about the water bill that much cuz of the above situation, besides when I ask them wondering why we didn't have it. "chúi-hùi" was just another additional thing he tried to correct it with then I asked him, so what was more frequent in the Philippines, which he said "chúi-hùi" and then went on about how chúi-chîⁿ was like kî-koài in a sense, which to be fair, he doesn't think highly of Hokkien words that he thinks are only chiâ ê ōe, besides of course the words he doesn't know aren't said in other countries. When he knows it's only used in ph, he went on last time about some hokkien loanwords in tagalog, that chiâ ê lâng lé-phiàn lâng, so now we don't know why the ampaw puffed rice confection was named the way it is. Mlgc1998 (talk) 06:21, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I guess that's your dad's bias against local words. Another possibility though is that he interprets the Mandarin term 水費 read in Hokkien as the correct Hokkien word and possibly him saying that "chúi-hùi" is more frequent could be colored by that bias. Not necessarily saying that's the case, but it's possible. My dad, on the other hand, always says 水錢, and when I asked him if we say locally the word "chúi-hùi", he said no. That's why I want a big pool of elders that we can ask, so that the bias of each person is cancelled out, and we can see a fuller picture. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 07:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)--Mar vin kaiser (talk) 07:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mar vin kaiser I mean we have some people we can ask in chat as well to confirm, but if it's about expanding the pool to more native speakers we can ask from, I think some weaknesses of a combined chat are things like groupthink. Despite Ken saying that he thinks older people might not be affected by it, I think regardless of age, if someone saw someone offer up a word first already that they recognize even if it's not the primary word they use or first popped into their mind, they might go with what the first thing that came up in a sort of common chat then say no more than that and tell you that's the answer already, like everybody going for a bias that got introduced in first, no matter which direction that bias came from. In an ideal world, it'd be best if many speakers were asked the same questions in separate rooms so they can answer honestly what they thought without influence from anyone, with study of their backgrounds, then combine all that data to produce common patterns of information about it. The obstacles of course as well would be these older native speakers whether silent gen, boomer gen, gen X, 1st gen, 2nd gen, 3rd gen, 4th gen, or so are usually not tech-savvy and most everyone aren't hokkien literate so they have to be taught at least some basics how they can express Hokkien by text, which most are literate in English, Filipino/Tagalog, Mandarin, and Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Central Bicol, etc. Then sometimes there's wildcards to the expected usual people, like suddenly there's a person who is more in line with another historical dialect group or is a part of a generation or wave with their own little peculiarities like some newcomers or some people who came during a certain era and these people are all sprinkled about the populace in a certain manner from some sort of direction. Of course, have to take things progressively, perhaps some of these can be handled better in the future as well. Mlgc1998 (talk) 11:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Agree with what you said about a "groupthink". So better if they don't see the answer of other elders. Also, the obstacles you talk about is no problem, as long as we understand the person's background. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 11:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mar vin kaiser Also I recently tried this again asking my dad about what is the lán-nâng-ōe of this english or tagalog word, and his reaction was, he was like stumped and couldn't answer or think up anything on the spot, since maybe the topic being asked was a bit too random from what the usual everyday things he thinks about, so if he couldn't think up an answer, sometimes he tries to walk off and go do other things, so before he does that or tries to avoid my questions, I offer up some words instead if he recognizes, which sometimes he looks at me expecting I remind him with a word if he thinks I already know the answer. For my purposes on certain words I ask, it's useful for confirming if those words are used specifically, but if there were some mysterious ??? additional words as well being used that he didn't remember, it wouldn't have come out, but I suppose it's another struggle with the memory of speakers, especially the native speakers are usually getting old or are old already. He's recently received his senior citizen id last year, which I think boomer gens and silent gens these days are now crossing to senior citizen these days, tho maybe there's still some younger boomers in their 50s or knowledgeable older gen X as well. Thinking about my surviving grandparents of silent gen, despite being alive, I think there are some silent gen who it's hard to ask too much anymore since they might be having mental problems these days now that blur their memory or their thinking. I think my last grandparent who hasn't passed yet looks like maybe she might not do too well with what I been asking my parents these past years. These days, maybe it's mostly gonna be boomers as the generations get older. Of course, I guess there's some strong healthy ones as well. Mlgc1998 (talk) 11:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Recognizing
I notice that your criterion for asking you dad is if he recognizes the word. Not necessarily this particular word, but I just want to point out that that's not necessarily a good thing, because theoretically I could put two characters together and our elders could recognize what it means (or what it's intended to mean), even if no one says it. The best criterion is always natural usage. Basically, you get to hear an elder use it in normal speech, without prodding or asking them. That's why linguists try to use picture illustrations when asking native speakers what word they would use to describe something, in order to not let the linguist's bias influence the speaker's response. Mar vin kaiser (talk) 18:24, 5 January 2024 (UTC)