Hey there, long time reader first time poster. Just had a question I’ve always been curious about. There does seem to be a good share of foreigners who have lived in Taiwan for a long time (sometimes for decades) and don’t speak Chinese. Just wondering if it bothers them, feel embarrassed or they really don’t care much. When I meet their Taiwanese wifes/gf’s they usually want to speak Chinese and then inevitable turn to their SO and say “you’ve been here forever, why can’t you speak Chinese?” Is there a certain point being here it becomes a learning block? Do they despise the foreigners that do speak it fluently? Just curious of what they’re thinking.
Welcome OTB.
From what I can see they are surprised by any level of fluency and really respect the few people who are truly fluent. They will however try to switch to another dialect to maintain some privacy and just to keep you on your toes.
They speek Chieese here? That explains a lot.
I always joke that my brain is so full of English that there is no room for any Chineese 
Been here 3 years and can bairly order food.
Everything about second language learning is harder than you think it is, especially for adults. There are literally thousands of “units” of info that you have to learn as well as the complex ways that those units interact with each other, vocab and grammar basically, and if you don’t use or review those “units” you will forget them. No wonder some people don’t want to bother. If you start on it though, and perhaps if you realize you have at least some talent for it, it becomes really quite fascinating, and then you don’t mind so much investing the time. The conversations you have with locals after that still might not always be all that scintillating but at least it is in another language and that makes a world of difference. I’d surely go nuts here if I wasn’t learning the language.
I wish my Chinese was better, but I’m L.A. ZEE ZEE Why.
Living in a small town like Jiayi helps a lot.
I’ve been in Taiwan for 7 years. I lived in Taipei for the majority of that time. But i’ve been in Jiayi for a year and my Chinese is MUCH better that it was before.
I’ve picked up a lot from my students.
Mostly insults and swearing so I am fluent in telling people off 
. I actually told someone off today at the gas station becuse she cut in line.
I always forget people can’t speak Chinese. I’m stupid. I’ll start talking to some white guy in Chinese just because I’m too lazy to switch languages…
You know, that might be a part of it. I find the hardest part to be switching between languages. If I go all day speaking English, I don’t want to speak Chinese. If I have spent all day in Chinese, I don’t want to speak English.
The point of this rant is…
well I have no point. Tylenol PM is good, mmmkay.
I hate it when foreigners try to speak to me in Chinese. Half the time I can’t understand a bloody word they’re saying.
Or wait. Is that…I hate it when Scots John tries to speak to me in English when he’s hammered? In John’s case it would probably be better if he spoke Chinese.
I’m going to take a nap now.
Happy holidays today folks… 
A spanish guy spoke to me in Chinese the other night and I thought his accent was interesting so, taking a stab in the dark, asked if he was from France, he said, “bu wo shi xibanyaren estudia espanol?” and thinking that he was still speaking Chinese I said “yidian dian” and he said “mucho gusto” and I said “gaoxing jian dao ni” and it went on like that for a bit till I realized we had gotten our languages mixed up some time prior. Then there was the issue of the lovely ladies nationality and their preferred language of discourse, which, if one were honest, was probably body, body langauge and what with all that and the other it was a delightful time, just delightful.
I think longtimers who don’t speak, just never eally bothered and actually don’t care. Anyone interested enough could learn Mandarin or Taiwanese. I know of couple of guys who’ve been here for over 5 years and can’t put a sentence together, they are married and have kids and it doesn’t bother them a bit.
That’s nothing. There’s this long-term American expat in Tainan married to Taiwanese wife, with Taiwanese kids, who’s been here for over 25 years and can’t speak more than 5 words of Chinese.
Yep, there are a few of those in Tainan.
Also quite a few who could hold their own in an argument in Chinese with a local.
Then there is the other guy (very nice guy) from NZ whose Chinese is so bad it’s comical. But he always insists in talking to my SO in Chinese. Then she turns to me and says, “Ting bu dong.” with a wide eyed look of terror on her face. She’s easily scared, the poor dear.
“Other priorities right now. Working on my paper. Too busy. Speak a foreign language already (!?)”
Heard it all. Lazy gits.