I’m posting here because I’m not quite sure if this fits under the category of project, or relationships, or services or whatever. Hopefully writing here will help me find out.
I’m Mexican. I did not know the existance of Hokkien until three months ago when I met a Taiwanese girl. She speaks hokkien but she is kind of losing it because no one speaks hokkien here (Switzerland) I like her a lot and her birthday is comming. I want to give her a note in hokkien and I’d like to be able to reade it out loud.
Thus, I’ve been looking everywhere for someone who can speak/write Min nan and who can help me with this. Any kind of help will be deeply appreciated. If someone is interested on taking this as some sort of project/job, we can discuss it too.
I just need help and I’m willing to do anything necessary to do it.
I’m posting here because I’m not quite sure if this fits under the category of project, or relationships, or services or whatever. Hopefully writing here will help me find out.[/quote]
There are two forums here which are appropriate for your needs. The people in the ‘Learning Chinese’ forum will help you compose your note. The people in the ‘Dating & Relationships’ forum will help explain to you why this relationship will never work, and will only end in a messy divorce and three kids who haven’t sen their father since he was deported from Taiwan for fighting with security staff in the Family Court. Choose wisely.
Because it’s a bit insulting.
It’s the same reason i don’t speak Mandarin to my parents in law. They understand Mandarin perfectly but they are Taiwanese and therefore we speak to them in their native tongue. It would be insulting if i addressed them in mandarin.
It would be easier for me to just learn Mandarin and not bother with learning taiwanese (which is not really that useful here or back home in Australia).
Language and culture are important. If people don’t bother then it will just disappear and the culture will vanish - over run by mainland China.
It’s sweeter to say it in Hokkien too.
You know what im saying right?
If he ever meets this girl’s parents i think they will be very impressed if he knew just 2 words of hokkien
Because it’s a bit insulting.
It’s the same reason i don’t speak Mandarin to my parents in law. They understand Mandarin perfectly but they are Taiwanese and therefore we speak to them in their native tongue. It would be insulting if i addressed them in mandarin.[/quote]
This may apply to the older generations, but not likely for someone of the age of the girl in question. If she’s like most Taiwanese people her age (I assume early 20s), Mandarin is not a problem.
In any case, though various means of writing it have been devised, Hokkien (which is usually known as Taiwanese when referring to Taiwan) isn’t really a written language. She won’t be able to read a romanized version of it (trust me on this). And if you write in Chinese characters, you’ll be writing your usual Chinese language (i.e., Mandarin).
Note: If you want to say something in Taiwanese, you could preface the next thing you say to her with “wah galligong” (Let me tell you this)!
Because it’s a bit insulting.
It’s the same reason I don’t speak Mandarin to my parents in law. They understand Mandarin perfectly but they are Taiwanese and therefore we speak to them in their native tongue. It would be insulting if i addressed them in Mandarin.[/quote]
This may apply to the older generations, but not likely for someone of the age of the girl in question. If she’s like most Taiwanese people her age (I assume early 20s), Mandarin is not a problem.
In any case, though various means of writing it have been devised, Hokkien (which is usually known as Taiwanese when referring to Taiwan) isn’t really a written language. She won’t be able to read a romanized version of it (trust me on this). And if you write in Chinese characters, you’ll be writing your usual Chinese language (i.e., Mandarin).
Note: If you want to say something in Taiwanese, you could preface the next thing you say to her with “wah galligong” (Let me tell you this)![/quote]
1.) OP wants to say it in hokkien. He seems to have looked into it and have his reasons. let’s help him.
2.) Yes, she probably knows Mandarin. I know she’ll probably understand. Im saying it would mean more if he said some phrase in taiwanese. It would show that he really made the effort in finding out about taiwan and it’s languages. It’s a love note don’t forget.
Someone here could record an MP3 of a short love message in taiwanese. OP could try and learn it phonetically or something.
[quote=“Chris”]Your point is taken. I’d like to help, but my Taiwanese is limited to a handful of stock phrases.
Which explains why it’s so widely spoken as a primary native language here…[/quote]
All part of mainland china’s plan my friend.
Just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s not foreign.
The taiwanese aboriginal languages are the true native languages of course. Just the way it goes.
Japanese was the official language for a while too.
Mainland china will probably win in the end. The y destroyed/erased all their culture in the Cultural Revolution. Boring.
Keep speaking Mandarin traitor
well… yes. She speaks mandarin and mandarin would be a lot easier for me, since there’s a lot of resources and I myself know people who could do this. But this is the reason why I want to do it in hokkien.
About the relationship haha well… It might work since she was raised in Canada
I will try to post this under a new title that might attract the attention of more people as someone recommended through PM.
[quote=“Chris”]Your point is taken. I’d like to help, but my Taiwanese is limited to a handful of stock phrases.
Which explains why it’s so widely spoken as a primary native language here…[/quote]
You are suggesting that most children who are born in taiwan will grow up speaking a foreign language as their primary language. Rofl!
[quote]
Mandarin is officially recognized by the Republic of China as the national language and is spoken by the vast majority of residents. About 70% of the people in Taiwan belong to the Hoklo ethnic group and speak both Taiwanese (a variant of Min Nan), as their mother tongue, and Mandarin. Mandarin has been the primary language of instruction in schools since the Japanese were forced out in the 1940s. The Hakka ethnic group, comprising around 15% of the population, use the Hakka language. Taiwan’s aboriginal minority groups mostly speak their own native languages, although most also speak Mandarin. The aboriginal languages do not belong to the Chinese or Sino-Tibetan language family, but rather to the Austronesian language family.[/quote]
I would suggest someone having taken the view that Taiwanese should be the native language of taiwan is taking a political stance, and the Taiwanese language is yet another imported language anyway.
The Taiwanese variant of Hokkien is identical to what is spoken in some places in China. It would be very easy to argue that both Mandarin and Hokkien are imports from China. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien
This has already been happening for decades, as Mandarin is the medium of instruction in the schools, not to mention the fact that Mandarin has long been the official language of the ROC (with Taiwanese gaining co-official status only recently). So yes, most children born in Taiwan already DO grow up speaking Mandarin as their primary language. This is borne out when I quiz my own students about their language of primary competency: nine times out of ten, it’s Mandarin (with those primarily competent in Taiwanese coming mainly from the rural south). And I know quite a few locals who can’t even speak Taiwanese.
When you walk down the street in Taipei and listen randomly to conversations, most of them are happening in Mandarin. Generally, if the people are elderly, the conversations are most likely to be in Taiwanese. But the younger the participants, the more likely the conversations are to be in Mandarin. If they’re in their 30s or younger, it’s almost exclusively in Mandarin. Walk through a university campus some day and tally the Mandarin vs. Taiwanese conversations.
[quote]The Taiwanese variant of Hokkien is identical to what is spoken in some places in China. It would be very easy to argue that both Mandarin and Hokkien are imports from China. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien[/quote]
Not just easy to argue, but obvious fact. Taiwan’s native languages, in the strictest sense, are the Aboriginal languages. In any case, Taiwanese has its roots in places like Quanzhou, China. But Taiwanese has also been influenced by Japanese, and perhaos even some Aboriginal languages.
[quote=“gorupo”]About the relationship haha well… It might work since she was raised in Canada
[/quote]
Well in that case, try English. (edit: or French, or any of the First Nation languages…)
