What is this word in chinese?
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Born2bwire
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- Oct 28, 2005
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Unless you know all of the dialects, it's possible that those two characters sound like 'akum'.
I don't know all the dialects but I'd be very surprised if "akum" was a valid sound combination of any Chinese dialect. I'm not aware of any that allow you to end with a consonant sound.
- Aug 9, 2000
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In my experience (mandarin, Taiwan), uncle was jiujiu, bobo, beibei, or shushu. I wouldn't be surprised if those were more colloquial names and I simply don't know the formal ones. Alternatively that's not mandarin. But I've never heard of kowfu or kumu.
edit: I should add that I'm using the standard 'pinyin' spellings of those 4 words for 'uncle', which cannot be read directly as if they were english words. Also note that while they all translate to 'uncle' in english, they don't all mean the same thing in Chinese since we differentiate between uncles on your mom/dad's side of the family & also between the older/younger ones.
When I say those sounds they sound like vowels to me? I did take linguistics years ago so I should know better. Maybe it's got something to do with hard/soft consonants, or voiced/unvoiced or some other distinction. But the way I pronounce "sun" (not at all similar to how english pronounces sun, the star at the center of our solar system) is nothing like my guesses for "kum" or "um". Like with that "m" you're actively forming the "m" when you say it, similarly to the "n" in the english "sun". But "ming" in Chinese is kinda similar to the "-ing" ending in english where you aren't explicitly forming the "n" with your mouth. If that makes any sense...
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Born2bwire
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"kaam" would be a valid initial and final in Cantonese. And it isn't unusual for Cantonese speakers to add "ah" as an affectionate prefix to a single syllable name. That is, if the person's name was Kaam, then it would not be unusual for a friend or relative to call them ah-Kaam. That's the only thing that I could think of. My knowledge of Cantonese is not large enough to know if it is an actual word.
mooncancook
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Just confirmed that is what it is....so, is Akum the right...ermmmm...way to say it?
Where the heck are you learning this bad country bumpkin Chinese? Stick to Mandarin man
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Where the heck are you learning this bad country bumpkin Chinese? Stick to Mandarin man
LOL....that is why I stopped taking chinese after Chinese I in college. My family speaks Cantonese, but i had no idea that it was way different from Mandarin. I would talk to my mom and she would just give me this blank stare like, "'WTF are you talking about!?"
I never really heard it that way in Cantonese. I've heard kaumu (ok phonetically it is cow-moo) which is what my mom called my dad's uncle's wife (makes sense in your scenario.)
mooncancook
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If I'm not mistaken, "kum" is not proper HK cantonese, it's some local dialect thing. "Kaumu" is more proper.
TuxDave
Lifer
- Oct 8, 2002
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Really? Were the type of kid who tried his best to ignore his parents? My Mandarin is terrible but I can tell when my parents are speaking Mandarin, Cantonese or Taiwanese (even though I can't understand a single word in the latter two)
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