Yes,it turns out it is close 
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I donāt really care one way or another and I think most people just donāt expect foreigners to know Chinese, though knowing Chinese isnāt particularly surprising either.
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Well knowing Chinese should not surprising in Taiwan. (Even for big noses).
Yeah, butā¦ if you have studied in Taiwan and somehow are NOT able to speak Mandarin that will not look good on your CV.
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That is a good point.
Guy
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To the OP. Living in taiwan english only is absolutely possible like everyone seems to have said. But you will be either 95% limited or 950% slower. Take itr slow, but its worth learning the local language where you live. It opens doors, broadens perspectives and we dont become bitter old divorced expats hating taiwan whilst not actually understanding taiwan on a deeper level (we all know these folks). Taiwan gets deep as shit and will probably always be a sort of oxymoronic sophisticated clusterfuck that will always keep surprising the best of us in both amazing and terrible ways. Keeps it interesting, a fun key to life.
I feel that taiwan is exactly as easy in English as Vancouver (canada) is in Mandarin. In many ways. But its not ideal if one wants to dive deeper, or stay longer or get more involved with society and the world. Just as the Canadians will think im stupid saying that, taiwanese also think that about foreigners expecting to live here under english only. The difference is caandians mostyl cant speak mnadarin to explain it at all and taiwanese are able to basically and tend to be more polite about faceā¦
keep it in perspective and stay humble in the beginning. My group of friends always like to remind me when strangers complement my Mandarin ability its just a face thing because of face. If they truly are friends they will ask you if you ate or why you gianed weihgt instead of saying hello. All in good fun haha but true. All part of the paradox that is taiwan. Enjoy it, stay humble its more fun.
That said, i have also noticed a HUGE improvement in english recently as well. So its not hard to live here in english only. Just seems like a seriously missed opportunityā¦and i regret not taking it serious my first decad here. It would have improved my quality of life literally 100 fold.
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The fastest way to gaining respect within taiwan is learning either ātaiwaneseā, hakka or any of the aboriginal lnguages depending on the community you live. In buisness you learn these for sourcing (probably just taiwanese is best) and mandarin for actual usefulness outside your community. Those big noses get all the grammas.
Kind of wild that a Taiwanese group would have made this. What a different world it was
Agreed.
To be quite honest, I think that if youāre not planning to stay for the long haul or for an actual career (like less than 20 months) , not learning mandarin wonāt kill ya. It will make for a more basic expatriation experience which gets boring eventually. If youāre living a life that is adjacent to the locals like they donāt exist and only have meaningful relationships with english speaking ones wonāt make you learn anything new.
Mandarin isnāt necessarily hard if 1) you live in a mandarin speaking country, 2) you are actively taking classes and 3) are taking these classes seriously. When I was my dorm during my thesis, Iāve seen double diploma students (these usually stayed the year) go from 0 to hanging around with taiwanese locals and speak mandarin in a very correct way, because your oral skills will progress way faster than the written ones. So, if youāre just planning to take your english classes for 6 months and have a little fun without any will to go to Taiwan in the near future, mandarin will clearly not be as useful. However, itās never bad to learn the basis of a language while youāre there.
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It actually is , to some studies I heard about it takes 5x longer to for reading and writing compared to say another European language. There simply isnāt any language that compares with the difficulty of mastering the reading and writing component.
You can only get so far with the mastery of Mandarin without delving into the reading and writing component. I know this from personal experience as I learned to speak before reading and writing and there were many errors due to the Taiwan dialect I was learning .
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They made the whole world hate them . Fecking idiots ! Talk about a massive own goal !
Guoji hua lolā¦
SHE taking the RMB thereā¦
I learned Chinese for years but basically have given up on it now I have very little interest in mainland Chinese content or ever living in China and that is the problem. I coast along with my level in Taiwan.and see little benefit from getting more fluent for my future goals (mainly because itās only really used in Taiwan and China ). I agree a small amount of Chinese can go a long way living here even if just for a short time.
Living in Taiwan is pretty tough for foreigners to integrate with locals , one further issue is that many Taiwanese donāt speak Mandarin as their 'friendly language ā . Their local language for friends and family when joking could be Taiwanese or heavily influenced Taiwanese Mandarin (Taiwan Guoyu 
). So yeahā¦Challenging.
I think itās actually as easy to speak English with many people in the cities cos they want to speak English with you and prefer it so they can practice their English. Some will be much more eager to hang out with a newbie who speaks English with them , and knows nothing about Taiwan , than Mandarin
I would pay no attention to some suanming racists on PTT.
Ive studied Chinese now for 13-14 years. Well say studied, but I have never stopped trying to improve. Now I can speak easily with groups of Taiwanese and keep the conversation with the group at the same pace and nobody really accommodating me as a foreigner. If I speak English to Taiwanese friends, they will change to Chinese. After all this time, its only at this point that can say has really helped me to integrate here, which I am happy about, but its a long slog.
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great to hear this positivity
Iām almost at as many years as you, though I admit I havenāt really picked up a text and tried to improve my vocabulary in about five years. Chinese can be learned to a high degree of fluently in 2-3 years if you do nothing but study it all the time and only hang out with native speakers. The problem is that you get into those language intensive programs and your brain turns to mush about three weeks in. Three years is a long time, but, if you started from zero, youād be at grad school, native-level fluency (in all aspects) at that point. All depends on the goals.
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I stalled after 2-3 years of fairly intensive trying. I blame the tones. No idea what people are saying unless they are pointing to something I just mentioned.
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Yeah I studied Chinese intensively for two years in China and did the hsk, but at that point my Chinese was still pretty shit. I think at every point Iāve forced myself to be reading and improve, with lull periods of no progress. What really improved things for me was working in companies where you have to talk to customers and colleagues all day in Chinese.
Itās a long slog, and if I was better at learning languages, more organized and started earlier, I could have made a much better fist of it. I never really learned another language before
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That would suggest you donāt have any innate language acquisition ability for Asian languages. Chinese isnāt that hard but it does need a good ear. Whenever I hear friends struggling after two or three years of hard study my advice tends to be give it up. Pursue something you have ability in.
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