How to read Hokkian Romanization

Hokkian Romanization I'm using in this site is set to spell Hokkian words as accurate as possible in a consistent way. The ideal rule is one letter for one phoneme but it couldn't be perfectly applied because of limitation existing on our keyboard. There are difficulties to map phonemes employed in Hokkian into Latin alphabet since there are phonemes that exist in Hokkian but have no exact representation in Latin alphabet. Hence there are several unusual mapping in this romanization system to ensure it can serve its purpose effectively. Some effort may be needed at the first time learning Hokkian Romanization but soon it'll be very easy for you to pronounce words written with this system.

Basically the pronunciation of letters in Hokkian romanization is similar to Indonesian, Japanese romanization and Wade-Giles romanization. Some exclusion existing is related with pronunciation of Greek alphabet.

The main reason why I don't use Pinyin system to spell Hokkian words is the fact that there are phonemes employed in Hokkian but not in Mandarin (Putonghua) and vice versa. Pinyin is a good tool to spell Mandarin but it will be a clumsy tool if used to spell Hokkian or other languages. There should be a universal alphabet that can express all phonemes existing in world languages but the problem is how many letters then should it including? May be more than 50 (letters and marks)! Hence it's not an effective solution too, at least for the time being.

Hokkian Romanization	Comparison					Notes
Hokkian Romanization	Indonesian	Japanese	Pinyin	Greek	English	Notes
Vowel:
a	a	a	a	a	a in "father"	-
y	-	-	i in "shi"	-	-	"y" phoneme is found in Tang-Ua dialect; others read it as "i" or "u"
r or er	e in "benar"	-	e in "te"	-	er in "her"	"r" phoneme is found in Tang-Ua dialect; others read it as "e" or "ue"
e	e in "enak"	e	e in "gei"	e	e in "set"	-
i	i	i	i in "yi"	i	i in "sit"	-
o or o`	o in "cocok"	o	o in "huo"	o	o in "for"	-
w or o	ou	ou	ou	w	o in "toe"	-
u	u	u	u in "zhu"	u	u in "put"	-
Consonant:
m	m	m	m	m	m in "me"	-
b	b	b	-	b	b in "big"	-
p	p	p	b	p	p in "apple"	-
p' or ph	ph	-	p	-	p in "put"	-
n	n	n	n	n	n in "no"	-
d or j	d	d	-	d	d in "day"	"d" phoneme is found in Tang-Ua dialect and also read as "l"; others read it as "j"
t	t	t	d	t	t in "subtle"	-
t' or th	th	-	t	q	t in "ten"	-
l	l	-	l	l	l in "lot"	-
q or ng	ng	n	ng	gg	ng in "sing"	-
g	g	g	-	g	g in "good"	-
k	k	k	g	k	k in "sky"	-
k' or kh	kh	-	k	c	k in "key"	-
h	h	h	h	¢	h in "he"	-
j	j	j	r in "ri"	-	j in "joy"	"j" phoneme is altered as "d" or "l" in Tang-Ua dialect
c	c	-	z	-	-	-
c' or ch	ch	ch	c	-	ch in "child"	-
s	s	s	s	s, V	s in "see"	-
* (asterisk) is used to indicate nasalized vowel such as: a, i , iu, ua, etc.

I use Tang-Ua (同安 Taq~ Ua*/.

) dialect of Hokkian language which has 6 main tones (or 7 main tones if we count separately 2 tones that are alike in their original tone but have different shift tone) and 2 additional shift tone and several expressional tones; those tones are represented with "/ ", "^", " -", "~", "v", "\", "=", "`", "_".

Original Tone	Shift tone	Example	Notes	Sample
/ or 1	-	si/. (詩 poem) si- p'ian/. (詩篇 Psalm)	"/" is similar to first tone in Mandarin.	si/.
^ or 8	~	hok^. (服 dress) hok~ coq/. (服裝 costume)	"^" is similar to fourth tone in Mandarin.	si^.
- or 7	~	si-. (是 right) si~ hui/. (是非 right and wrong)	-	si-.
~ or 3	^	si~. (四 four) si^ kui~. (四季 the four seasons)	"~" is similar to third tone in Mandarin when pronunced before other tones.	si~.
v or 5	~	siv. (時 time) si~ tai-. (時代 era)	"v" similar to third tone in Mandarin when pronunced as a single word .	siv.
\ or 2	=	si\. (死 die) si= boqv. (死亡 death)	"=" similar to second tone in Mandarin.	si\.
\ or 4	^	hok\. (福 happiness) Hok^ Kian~. (福建 Hokkian)	-	si=.
"`" is a neutral tone and usually appears at the end of a sentence/phrase. e.g.: gia^ lai` (拿來 bring it here) "_" is a expressional tone used to emphasize the meaning of a word. e.g.: aq_ aq~ aqv. (紅紅紅 very very red)				si`.
				si_.

Temporary I use " . " not only to indicate the end of a sentence as the original usage of it, but also to indicate the end of a section/phrase. We need an indication mark for section or phrase ending because in Hokkian, tones of modifier words are shifted but tone of modified word is retained. Like English and other Chinese languages/dialects, in Hokkian the pattern of a phrase/section is "Modifier words"+"Modified word". For example: 紅花 "aq~ hue/."

means "red flower" ("hong2 hua1" in Mandarin); the modifier is "aq" (紅 red) which tone is shifted from the original tone "v"

to "~"

; the modified word is "hue"

(花 flower) keeps its original tone "/.". So I use "." to indicate the original tones in a sentence, e.g. 我信我主耶穌基督 "gua\. sin^ gua= Cu\. Ia- So/. Ki- Tok\."

has 4 original tones (modified words) and 4 shifted tones (modifier); 第三日從死人中復活 "te~ sa*- dit^. tui^ si= laq~ tioq/. kw^ ua^."

has 3 original tones (modified words) and 6 shifted tones (modifier).