I learn Taiwanese because 1. I don’t want anybody to say anything
behind my back that I don’t understand anymore, e.g., “the bus is
coming”. 2. I will get more compliments about how smart I am, just
shows they don’t really know me.
Indeed, if you go on to also learn Hakka, then you will become the
source for many TV crew visits.
Knowing Mandarin plus one dialect then gives you parallax vision into
historical Chinese phonology.
If foreigners take the effort to learn even a little Taiwanese it
will help to restore the pride of the Taiwanese in their language
and hopefully encourage young Taiwanese to study it more
seriously.
Interesting. I don’t think even when campaigning for Peng Mingmin
[1996 DPP presidential candidate] [before the cops told me I was not
allowed to interfere with internal politics, twice] I would have said
something like this. I don’t think Taiwanese pay that much
attention to what foreigners think.
Anyway, I would remind the poster that Taiwanese is all well and good,
but don’t get suckered in for the Tongyong Pinyin wrappings, as I have
warned elsewhere.
Dan, drop the US passport-then go campaign for a pro indep candidate. I think Taiwanese pay a great deal of attention to foreigners, which is why the Peng camp agreed to have you campaign for him? (also reference the heavy influence of western pop culture and academic thought thru Taiwanese who have studied in the US). I remember years ago an American missionary won a Taiyv yanjiang contest- he spoke Taiwanese and knew more Taiwanese folklore and sayings (which he weaved into his speech) than the university professor/moderators did. My Taiwanese friends were very impressed with this missionary and I got the impression from their comments that they thought if a foreigner could speak such excellent Taiwanese and know Taiwanese culture so well, Taiwanese should themselves be able to. They seemed to feel valued.
I had heard that if someone doesn’t speak Taiwanese there they get beat up. So some of my wai sheng friends learned it in a hurry. That might be the way to go – fear of getting the sh*t kicked out of you.
Most of the Taiwanese I learned in the army was either military-related or just unrepeatable in polite situations. I never heard of anyone getting beat up if they didn’t speak Taiwanese, though, and there’s always a few that don’t speak it so well, myself included. My Taiwanese now is about where my Chinese was when I first got here, i.e., I can get by, but there’s a lot I still don’t know. The main reason is that I already speak Mandarin and thus am not forced to learn Taiwanese to communicate with 99% of the people I talk with. I never studied Taiwanese formally, though. Perhaps I should start.
Do the community colleges run any Taiwanese courses? I’m a Mandarin speaker and can read, but I want to improve my Taiwanese. Surely the government must be trying promote the Taiwanese language?
I took lunch-time Taiwanese classes at Cultural University last year (and never followed up, so I’ve already forgotten most of it - but at least I could say “bo” when the lady at the flower market last weekend started chatting with me in Taiwanese and at the end asked: “Tia u bo?” )
I did the course at Wenhua with Iris. It was fun, but to tellt he truth, I don’t think the teacher was that good. He kept going off on interesting, but unuseful tangents in Mandarin.
Check and see what Feiren has written about the MaryKnoll course. That sounds better.
I’m thinking of trying to find someone to do some MP3 recordings for me. They wouldn’t have to be a teacher, just someone (preferably male) with good clear Taiwanese. I would tell them in Mandarin exactly what I want to be able to say in Taiwanese, they would help me say it, correct my pronounciation, and record it onto my MP3 player. I’d only want to do this once every week or two, and just spend the rest of the time listening to the recording. If anyone knows someone who might be willing to do this for me (with reimbursement of course) let me know.
Maryknoll is THE place to go for Taiwanese courses (at least to date).
Yeah, they still teach modified audio-lingual approach from the 1960s, and there is way too much vocab in each chapter (the chapters are like 40 pages long!! )
But their idea of learning is (a direct quote from when I went there a few years back): “How long do you want to spend on the first three books? After that you can really get down to business.” (Each book is heavy enough to be a doorstop, BTW.)
If you really want to learn, that’s the place to go. Or, you can buy the books and tapes from them. The tape quality is rotten, but audible, and at least you get a LOT of repetition with their materials, something you won’t get from the TLI materials. I don’t know about Wenhua, never took Taiwanese there.
[quote=“ironlady”]Maryknoll is THE place to go for Taiwanese courses (at least to date).
Yeah, they still teach modified audio-lingual approach from the 1960s, and there is way too much vocab in each chapter (the chapters are like 40 pages long!! )
But their idea of learning is (a direct quote from when I went there a few years back): “How long do you want to spend on the first three books? After that you can really get down to business.” (Each book is heavy enough to be a doorstop, BTW.)
If you really want to learn, that’s the place to go. Or, you can buy the books and tapes from them. The tape quality is rotten, but audible, and at least you get a LOT of repetition with their materials, something you won’t get from the TLI materials. I don’t know about Wenhua, never took Taiwanese there.
HTH[/quote]
I took some classes at TLI before, our teacher was OK, we learned a bit. Maryknoll sounds pretty hardcore! good if you have that kind of committment.
There used to be a fair amount of material including tapes for mandarin speakers looking to learn taiwanese, haven’t looked in ages though.
My in-laws just came back from Taiwan and they bought me the books and tapes from Maryknoll, but they haven’t come here and given them to me yet. I will post a thorough review once I’ve gotten started.
I went to Maryknoll. They rock. Wow. The Ironlady went there, too? When I was there, some people would go to TLI, then go over to Maryknoll for review because Maryknoll was cheaper. But those people were studying Mandarin. Maryknoll’s specialty is Taiwanese.
It’s Catholic, so the majority of students are priests and nuns. There was this one hot Korean nun. I think the Vietnamese priest knew about my dirty thoughts. Ya, well…
They had big, spacious rooms and a little park behind the school.
It’s in Taichung
瑪利諾 - Maryknoll
三民路一段120號
120 San Min Rd Sec. 1
You can also take classes in Taipei with Maryknoll.
I don’t know the address, but the building is that big curvy one on the corner of Zhongshan and Zhongxiao W. Roads, near the Taipei Train Station. Easy to get to on the MRT. There is a post office downstairs, and I think a fairly visible art store in the same building. Sorry, it’s one of those places I always went to or pointed at but never wrote to to know the address.
Shi-Da also has Taiwanese classes offered as electives. WHen I was there about 2 years ago they were taught by a great teacher named Hsiao. Not sure if she’s still at Shi-Ta, tho.
I’m in Tai\chung. The missus reckons the community college has something. I’ll go check out Maryknoll as well. Thanks. I really kick myself for spending all that time learning the filthy language of the oppressor instead of Taiwanese. If I’d known then what I know now… :sigh:
I’ve been thinking about taking up Taiwanese, since I’ve been here for almost four years and all and need to try something different. The web page doesn’t mention anything about scheduling or fees. Does anyone who’s been there know how it works for scheduling classes and what the costs are? Also, how many hours per class and classes per week are the norm? TIA!
I am learning Taiwanese at Mary Knoll’s at the moment.
One hour (50 min.) costs 380, one by one, they don’t do classes.
Apart from me there are currently three missionaries (one from Indonesia and two from the Philipines).
They are flexible to arrange your schedule as long as you want to have classes within their normal working hours. I go there twice a week, Wednesday afternoon for one hour and Friday morning for two hours.
I can imagine that book one can be tough, but if you speak Mandarin it is OK. It helps if you have been into listening to Taiwanese pop song before (Lim Giong, Wu Bai and the like).
Telephone number is 04 2375 8433, Chen Laoshi (Tan Lau-su)
If you are in Taichung, we can meet first and I can show you the text book etc…
I studied Taiwanese for about 2 years at TLI in Kaohsiung. My classes were all private classes. 380 per hour. My teacher was awesome.
After the pronunciation booklet, we used one by TLI called Taiwanese Survival Course, then went on to Maryknoll Book 2. I didn’t like the Maryknoll book. I thought the units were way too big and really boring.
[quote]I am learning Taiwanese at Mary Knoll’s at the moment.
One hour (50 min.) costs 380, one by one, they don’t do classes. [/quote]
They don’t have ‘classes’, but apparently if you get a few people together you can have a private class, which makes it cheaper.
I’m thinking of doing a lunchtime class after New Year, once or twice a week, if anyone’s interested. I could do from beginner to about Ch.5 of the first MaryKnoll book as a starting point.
Am interested in beginning to self-study Taiwanese (classes would be nice but I’m in Donghu and don’t want to go to CCU or the train sta. area), and so am looking for good tape and book materials to back up the real-life practice. From the above thread, it sounds like the Maryknoll tape quality is poor and the books are old and boring. Do y’all really recommend them anyway? So is there anything better on the market? Are any of the books or tapes at Caves, PageOne, Chengpin etc. any good?
It’s really the only serious game in town. And I don’t think a serious learner will find the books boring. There is a lot of old-fashioned drilling though. The problem with other books is that they often don not show tone marks and none of the other mark the tone sandhis the way MK does in the first book.
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