Dear Konrad, There are two different pronunciations for some of the words we use. One is vernacular(e̍½,is pronounced as peh), which is what you mentioned; the other is so-called literatural(e̍½,pek), which is usually used in proper names, such as people's name, street name, place name, TEL number, or the like. My TEL 3897630 is read as sam-pat-kiu-chhit-liok-sam-khong. å «å¾·è·¯, pak-tak-lou. But this is not aylways the case. 岡山is Kong-san, but 鳳山 is Hong-soann, not Hong-san! The problem is Ho-lo-oe is on the way toward standarization. Once standarization is reached, the writing/reading will be consistent. Babuza

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Konrad Hsu ASCHENBACH" 
To: "" 
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 9:12 PM
Subject: counting numbers


> Babuza,
>  I have a question about <http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/lang/taiwanese/t12.htm>. 
> Is the spelling for "5" correct? Should it be ngou2 in POJ?
>  Also, I thought counting things should be leng, chit, nng, sann, si, 
> gou, lak, chhit, peh, kau, chap. So why do they count "3 kinds" as sam 
> and "5 kinds" as ngo?
> 
> --Konrad
>

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