Given the government's long-held position on dialects, most youth these days don't speak a word of dialect, aside from the cuss words we've picked up from pai kia (delinquent) seniors, classmates, and in the case of Singaporean guys, your army sergeants and superiors.

However, recent interest has given way to a small resurgence, with locally published books that hope to ignite a renewed love for our dialects.

But of course, there's nothing quite like learning from listening, right?

Enter this guy, who reads the Hokkien phrases from Dialect idioms & Slangs aloud:

As seen in the video, the book features Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew phrases — and yes, it also contains slightly milder-mannered insults like jiak sai (eat sh*t) and jiak pah boh sai pang. (lit. nothing to defecate after eating, meaning having too much time on your hands) 

If you can't watch the video now, here are some useful screenshots from the book via the website Sibey Nostalgic, where the book retails for S$22.00:

Want something more PG for your kids? They have a couple of other books on the site, and they're also available in physical bookstores like Kinokuniya and BooksActually.

[related_story]

Don't say bojio!

Here are totally unrelated but equally interesting articles:

This is cereals news: BreadTalk to launch new cereal floss bun, available for 8 days only

One of Us: Nothing to see here, it’s just a bowling alley supervisor turned kickass club DJ

Top image via SG Kay Poh's Facebook video