yep, from 你厲害喔 to actually swearing with u and actually (finally) not giving much of a shit at all since “u r a local now” and finally treating u like a normal person
1 Like
Yea this is quite depressing. Its the way the world is going. The young generation kind of frown upon it, like, they think everyone is a pervert who wants to bother them so they shoud just wear headphones 24/7 with their face in their phone. No, we are just all human and some of us like a bit of human connection and banter.
Never was a bad thing growing up, everyone liked a bit of banter, it was definitely seen as a good thing. This modern world is just regressing rapidly imo.
3 Likes
It’s one of the things that “if u can have it easily, u don’t find it worth it”
Young people now see friendship and relationship and love as something they can have easily. Thanks to so many apps out there to meet people and so many meetups and clubs and event .There are so many options for them now. Like many times taiwanese tell me they can understand how tough it would be to live alone in another country without family and friends but in reality they don’t REALLY get it. Because it’s something u can’t experience unless u r living in it
Back in the day there were not so many options. Only way to make friends was to go out and talk to people and so people realized it’s value .
True but it ain’t no replacement. People now are lonelier and more anxious than ever.
1 Like
In China they are used to a huge variety of accents and dialects. In Taiwan there is pretty much a universal standard across the island. You might need to adjust your Chinese to how Taiwanese speak because it’s going to be slightly different than in China. You might not have picked up these nuances. Some of the vocabulary used are also different.
1 Like
If it makes you feel any better Chinese was the first language in my home for more than a decade, yet I still can’t communicate basic numbers like 4, 10, 14, 40 due to pronunciation confusions. I have to do the finger signs down at the shop like a rapper. I have people ghosting my Chinese and flipping me to English all the time. If you let them get away with it too freely they will go after your English, and start telling you that you are pronounciating and spelligating that wrong too! I usually just let them win: file under ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’. I wouldn’t let the experience dramatically reduce your impression of how much progress you are making though. Seeking progress and validation with non strangers is likely to be a better experience I’d imagine.
3 Likes
Yes I would say that Taipei restaurant staff are not going to fall over themselves to be initially friendly to most customers
If you do engage them in conversation they could unfreeze
Big city folk are generally not going to come out initially all friendly
As they say one never feels truly alone unless they are in a big city
You need to check these assumptions carefully. Most likely your usage is wrong and your pronunciation is off.
I’ve been studying Mandarin off and on for a few years.
I can tell you that if you go study Mandarin at a Mandarin Training Center for two hours a day and invest two additional hours of preparing and reviewing each day, you will learn enough Mandarin/Chinese to eventually (3-4 more years of living and working in a Sinophone society) become reasonably fluent and literate.
Of course there are other ways to do it but this way has worked for tens of thousands of people.
This ‘on and off’ stuff doesn’t cut it with Mandarin. You have to study it for several years continously and make it a very high priority in your life.
Apply yourself harder but don’t overdo it either.
5 Likes
Taiwanese people are incredibly chatty. The trick is that you need to engage with them about things they are interested in talking about and pick up on social cues. Once you master the art of banter here they will never shut up.
5 Likes
I think there are different methods to learning a language - formal and informal - the key is to understand which method works for you and then stick with it to you reach a level you are satisfied with. Some people will be satisfied reaching a “Street Chinese” level, others something deeper. One thing is certain understanding Chinese (speaking, listening, reading writing - to whatever level you are comfortable with) does make living in Taiwan easier and more enjoyable - so as other have written - stick with it, the more mistakes you make the faster you will improve…
2 Likes
An interesting experiment would be to compare the results after six months between comparable students who learned spoken Mandarin in a classroom versus those who learned to speak Mandarin using Street Chinese ™
2 Likes
Me talking to the guy in Family mart.
Zhe san guan pi jiu duo shao qian ?
Slowly thinks …wait…wait…One Hundred Forty.
Wo shi gen ni shuo yingwen ma?
Meiyou.
Weishenme haishi yao gen wo Jiang yingwen (was in a bit of a bad mood)
I walk away and then I suddenly hear from behind me a loud voice.
‘Boring!’
Steam pours out of my ears as I turn around to see the clerk. I go over to him
‘Ni shuo shenma’
‘Boring’
‘ni shi shuo wo shi boring ma!’
‘I Boring!’
Now it’s my turn to slow down and digest this information.
‘Ni shi boring , wo ye shi boring, bici bici, mei tian ting yingwen’
'‘wo shangban hen boring. Wu liao’.
,wo ye hen wuliao, ke shi ni shuode dui, Xia ban shi zui kuaile de shijian’.
‘dui a , xiaban wo zui kaixin’
Hao a Xia ci jian.
Bye.
Nice to talk to people with personality to break up the humdrum.
4 Likes
There are certainly different methods. But the Mandarin Training Center works.
Over the years, I have heard many people complain that the teaching methods are bad, it’s boring, and ‘it doesn’t fit my learning style’. That may all be true but if you go to class for every day for two years and do some prep and review outside of class, you will learn Mandarin. I know many, many people who have succeeded using this old-fashioned method. I know many, many people who tried some other way and failed.
It’s true that a few remarkable and disciplined people do manage to learn excellent Mandarin using other methods. These methods are usually their own because most of these people have a strong record of learning other skills through self-study.
2 Likes
It would be interesting. But I’m not sure it would be fair to Street Chinese. 99% of people who self-study, watch videos, or use methods like Street Chinese simply don’t do it every day. The failure to consistently study and practice is why people get frustrated. Also, because Chinese/Mandarin is heartbreakingly difficult for the first few years.
1 Like
I’m an auto didact so I studied on my own basically through immersion. It was five hard years coming home with headaches from the effort. But for sure super rewarding once those five years were done. Thirty years later I’m still learning.
5 Likes
Yep learning Chinese isn’t the same as most of their languages because of the issue of needing to learn 1000s of characters. Estimates out there say it takes 5x the effort of learning a European language if you want to read and write. And you need to be able to read to improve your Chinese. Without being able to read Chinese you will be very limited ultimately and being able to read Chinese makes life much easier.
Me too I’m still learning could still be far far better. Still learning English too.
1 Like
Street Chinese isn’t self-study. Three times a week you’d meet with an articulate language guide for a pre-arranged event out in the real world. The language guide would walk you thru whatever you need to be able to say at the bank, a government office, at the car wash, restaurant etc. depending on whatever the pre-arranged event is. You’d be expected to be the main speaker, not some passive observer. After the main event you’d move on to engaging with whatever interesting situation came your way next out in the real world.
If you learn in the classroom its pretty unlikely you will be able to speak on the streets, especially if its only 6 months.
The classroom can only get you so far, then you need to just learn from the locals. The way people actually speak isn’t taught in the classroom. They teach formal stuff and they don’t actually give a shit if you can use your Chinese to, you know, speak to people.
But yea, go to class first to get the basics etc for a year or so then pick up the slack out from real Taiwanese people and not teachers (who have their own idea of what learning chinese is all about)
I just realized that I walked into my first Chinese classroom almost 38 years ago. I’m still learning new things all the time. If I could afford it, I’d like to hire a tutor. The draft New Migrant Act claims to plan to offer classes to new migrants in the future. I might take them up on them. I make mistakes all the time.
2 Likes
Really? In my experience the locals are super friendly and always talk.(Often going on and on and on…) But of course you have to be friendly first.
Why is that you think? Is it because they don’t have many foreigners there per capita compared to Taiwan now?
2 Likes