When I was growing up, my family members were the only Teochew people I knew, and the only people I spoke Teochew to. For some reason I always assumed that everyone was introverted and soft spoken.
I now have Teochew neighbors who exist on a different volume, so I think it just means my entire family is introverted and autistic. Nothing to do with the language we speak.
there aren't many resources for learning teochew at all if you didn't grow up speaking it
i think this site, and this specific speech, is the gold standard for what singaporean teochew sounds like (it's also a strong political speech)
Study guide to Teochew language for heritage speakers. Teochew (潮州話), also known as Chaozhou, Chiu-chow, or Chaoshan, is a Chinese language in the Southern Min subfamily. This site helps to explain the grammar and usage of the language to heritage speakers who would like to improve their understanding of Teochew.
it's kind of funny coz i never perceived my teochew accent as being one way or another (there were very few people i could speak it to... most people my age in singapore don't speak it anymore)
but here in san francisco, every single vietnamese chinese person who speaks it tells me i sound like i was born and brought up in swatow. a place i'd never been (the place my grandparents were born)
the main thing that gives it away is i sometimes use malay words sometimes for some common words and then the vietnamese people have no idea what i'm saying. they also then use vietnamese words while speaking teochew and i have no idea what they're saying.
we probably don't understand every 10th word spoken by the other person, but we make it work.
Adrianna Tan
Dr. Ward