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The sentence

We are looking at the first sentence of the part of Liû-lõng kàu Tām-tsuí sung solo, which is typically found written:

扞着风琴提着吉他 双人牵做伙

According to my research, noting that I cannot find 扞 in my reference so I guessed the syllable from the video and marked it as unknown tone, the sentence has the following Tai-lo:

Kuạnn-tio̍h hong-khîm thê-tio̍h gì-ta Siang-lâng khan tsuè-hué

My translation is:

Playing accordion and guitar let us dance in pairs

Q1

Question 1 is naturally about that unfindable verb. I hear either kua or kuann in the video, and since the character is hàn in Mandarin I guess it's the latter. It should mean "play" like thê shortly after. So I was wondering:

What is the tone? Is that the correct syllable? How should I spell it?

I assume that character is not correct because Wiktionary gives me no matching meaning, but maybe it's a Min-specific meaning?

Q2

Question two is about 双人牵做伙. AFAIK the single words translate to "pair of people - pull - together", with "pull" being "hold" when coupled to "hand" (i.e. qian shou is hold hands). So "pull pairs of people together". My take is that "pull" refers to certain dance movements where the man pulls the woman towards himself, and this idea of dancing is also suggested by the instruments playing, probably accompanying the dance.

Is this idea correct? If not, what does this mean?

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  • The fist one is a verb about holding or taking something. The second one means that the two people form a group to help each other.
    – lxg
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 8:15
  • The one takes a accordion and the other takes a guitar, and they two decide to go/tour together.
    – lxg
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 8:20

1 Answer 1

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The official MV of 流浪到淡水.
Published: 1997

扞著 ná-tio̍h
提著 thê-tio̍h
Both mean "to bring".
扞著 = 拿著

影片中的兩位盲人(金門王 和 李炳輝)是本歌的原唱者。
The two blind people in the MV (Jīnmén Wáng and Lǐ Bǐnghuī) are the original singers of the song.

(金門王:金門人,姓王。)
(金門王: A Jīnmén person with surname Wáng.)

「牽」並不一定是手牽手。
牽 does not have to be hand in hand.

For example, 他用狗鏈牽著狗散步 means "He walks the dog on a leash"

影片中(1:00 - 1:12),金門王用手搭在李炳輝肩上。這就是一種「牽」。和跳舞無關。
In the MV (1:00 - 1:12), Jīnmén Wáng puts his hand on Lǐ Bǐnghuī's shoulder. This is a kind of 牽. It has nothing to do with dancing.


小學五年級時,因為一時的好奇,出生在戰地的金門王誤觸一枚信管而炸斷了左手,並且造成雙眼的失明。

喜歡音樂的他,在好友李炳輝的帶領下,來到了淡水,開始了二十多年在茶室裡的走唱生涯。 帶著幾許滄桑的歌聲,他們唱出了市井小民的心聲和辛酸。

後來,透過歌手陳明章(本歌的作者)的引薦,兩人合作的第一張專輯「流浪到淡水」,紅遍了大街小巷。

During his fifth year of primary school, because of a momentary curiosity, Jinmen Wang, who was born on a battle field, accidentally hit a fuse, and lost his left hand and both eyes' sight in the explosion.

Since he liked music, under his friend Li Binghui's guide, he came to Danshui, and began singing of his life in tea rooms for over 20 years. With a few worldly songs, they sang the common people's feelings and bitterness.

Later, through a recommendation of the singer Chén Míngzhāng (the author of this song), those two people's first album "Roaming to Danshui" became popular all over the city.

Ref

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  • What a big misunderstanding I had about this song :). So could I translate the start as "Bringing an accordion, bringing a guitar, let us pull each other", referring to what Jinmen does in the MV? Also, about the "ná", I do hear a "ná" at the start of the MV, but in the repetition, and both times the line is sung in my video, I'm still hearing "kuann", so I looked for Min versions of 拿 and 提 on my reference and found 捾 | kuānn, glossed as "提、拿。用手勾抓住物品的把手或是用手下垂提取東西。例:捾菜籃仔 kuānn tshài-nâ-á(提菜籃)、捾水 kuānn tsuí(提水)". Could it be that either the two repetitions were meant to have different verbs…
    – MickG
    Commented Nov 19, 2017 at 21:24
  • …with 拿 in the first repetition and this kuānn in the second, or that either of the verbs is an error? Oh PS that was definition 1, definition 4 is "富含、帶有。例:伊的跤捾水。I ê kha kuānn-tsuí. (他的腳有水氣。指腳水腫。);捾跤氣 kuānn kha-khì(腳氣病)。", maybe this one fits more :). Nah, scratch that. Still, I do hear kuānn, so maybe this actually is the right verb, though those definitions don't seem to fit the context too well… or maybe I'm just misreading one of them.
    – MickG
    Commented Nov 19, 2017 at 21:25
  • Yes, 捾 (kuānn) also means 提. Sometimes, the singers don't follow the original lyrics or even melody. It's possible. (We usually use the transliteration instead of pinyin when we translate a name.)
    – user-487
    Commented Nov 20, 2017 at 10:34

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