I have a few questions for you foreigners out there who can speak Taiwanese. First, do people look at you like you are some kind of strange animal? Second -and this assumes you know both Mandarin and Taiwanese- do you get a better reception from people when you speak Taiwanese as opposed to Mandarin? Or, I guess you could compare the reception you get compared to your Mandarin speaking foreigner friends. It seems to me that learning Taiwanese would really endear one to the Taiwanese people (at least those who speak it), more so than speaking Mandarin. I am curious to hear from people with first hand experience. Personally, I love the Taiwanese language. I asked my in-laws to get me the Maryknoll series if they have the time when they go back.
I’m curious how many foreigners there are out there who can actually speak Taiwanese. My spoken Mandarin isn’t too bad, I can manage to read the odd newspaper article, but I’ve never really progressed beyond a few stock sentences of Taiwanese. Most people I meet here who speak Chinese are in the same boat.
I remember a few years back I attended a Mandarin speech contest for foreigners, and at the end one guy (a missionary of course) gave a speech in Taiwanese. I was pretty impressed, until I asked my girlfriend how he was doing. She said she couldn’t understand a word he said.
So is there anyone out there who can get beyond the basics in Taiwanese? If so, do you have any advice on how to go about studying?
My Taiwanese is still pretty poor, but I can get by in it.
Some people look at me like I came from the moon when I speak it; others are completely natural. A lot like when I was learning Mandarin I guess. Older people who can only speak Taiwanese are the best.
I can’t say enough good things about the Maryknoll Center and the teachers there–especialy Zheng Laoshi and Ye Laoshi. They can really teach. And the textbooks are very well edited and practical. I wish I had had teachers and materials like this when I studied Mandarin.
If you want to endear yourself to the majority of locals then speaking Taiwanese does wonders. I knew one bloke who could sing just the chorus of a well-known Taiwanese song (about drinking). It used to go down a storm. He sometimes wouldn’t need to buy another drink for the rest of the night. I’ve seen other examples, but that one stands out. He was the man of the moment every time he sang that stupid song!
However, once upon a time, I tried learning to speak the language but every single time I spoke to someone they just stared, open-mouthed or laughed. Even the peple that understood just repeated what I had said or ignored me. Not one answer to even the simplest question (How much does it cost?) was received. Naturally, I gave up pretty quickly.
I speak Mandarin pretty fluently and translate newspaper articles (Chinese to English) for a living. So, I don’t need Taiwanese to communicate and if the locals want to me to make further efforts to endear myself to them, they’ll need to learn some manners first.
Taiwanese is really, really hard. Did you learn the tone-change rules? Lots of people don’t, and if you don’t know them, you are probably speaking gibberish. That may account for some of the stares.
I’ve had more problems in Taipei and speaking with younger people. Maybe they just don’t speak Taiwanese? Also, I’ve noticed that people are much pickier about Taiwanese than they were when I was learning Mandarin. I get corrected all the time.
My Taiwanese is a lot better than my Mandarin and as a result I find myself slipping into Taiwanese whenever I am faced with difficulty in Mandarin conversation. This can be a problem at times as I really do want to better my Mandarin and once people discover that I speak Taiwanese they use that instead to talk with me. It’s more comfortable for me but doesn’t get me very far in recalling my Mandarin!
It does tend to endear one to locals who speak Taiwanese but I have found that there are far fewer Taiwanese speaking locals now than there were back in the days… Kind of sad really - I’m glad to see that children are finally starting to learn it in school.
When I first moved to this house my neighbours were stunned by the fact that I was able to speak Taiwanese. Late one night I was walking my dog and a woman made a point of coming right up to me and saying “Hey - you’re the waigoren who lives on that street over there and speaks Taiwanese!” Funny though, she said it in Mandarin!
The other really common statement I hear is “You must know the French Catholic Priest - he speaks Taiwanese too!”
In general, people who live south of Hsinchu speak Taiwanese more often than those in the North as Taipei. Because the educational system just recently allowed Taiwanese classes, most students relied on their family environment to learn Taiwanese. Since there are more immigrants from China and other places who do not speak Taiwanese in Taipei, you find a greater population who do not know how to speak Taiwanese or speak very little.
I know many people who were raised in Taipei but cannot speak - they don’t know how mainly b/c it is not spoken at home. I was raised in the U.S. but I’m fluent in Taiwanese simply b/c I learned it at home. It is my second language and Mandarin is my 3rd (so I’m a bit backwards in that).
It’s interesting b/c you can usually guess who is from the “South” by whether or not they speak Taiwanese and how well they speak it.
I think ppl may be pickier about Taiwanese b/c the ppl here hold the language closer to their heart (that seems like an awfully obvious answer)- it’s prideful, traditional (very meaningful for ppl who have lived here for a few generations).
The best way to learn Taiwanese is find a person who knows it well and just talk to them. We taught our Spanish co-worker to speak Taiwanese. And it’s as good as his Mandarin.
Uh, ‘only’ seven are actually used. The really hard part though is the tone changes. Basically, if you have two syllables in a row, the first one changes according to these rules:
1->7
2->1
3->2
4->2
5->7
7->3
8->3
And then there are lots of exceptions and special rules for tones at the ends of sentences.
But IMHO, the way to go about it is NOT to worry about the “original” or “dictionary” tone, but learn the word with the tone contour as it is used in continuous speech. I have a Palm dictionary for Minnan which gives either original tone or changed tone – if anyone’s interested. Not sure how many words are in it but it’s fairly substantial.
I can speak fair enough, having the aid of 12 years of non-mandarin speaking parents in law—sitting around staring at the tv grinning like a dork gets tired pretty quickly. Otherwise I could have never learned in Taipei. I’ve found speaking Taiwanese to people gets one of these two reactions:
answer in mandarin, occasionally disdainful
utterly shocked
getting to normal conversation takes some effort. taxis are the best place for it. and the crutch of mandarin is always there, tempting and easy to use.
my farily white looking kids speak fluently and you should see the reactions they get. you would think taiwanese was a completely exotic language unheard of in these parts. one lady even said once “how strange!” I feel like screaming, HELLO!!! THIS IS TAIWAN!!! IT’S NOT FUCKING STRANGE! but I don’t
maybe this is just me, I don’t know.
the tones are just–just–slightly easier than they look because the 4th and 8th only apply to words with final consonant sounds like b d k and the throaty h.
