Strangely I always felt an English speaking person can learn to speak Taiwanese easier than mandarin
There are no lessons, tutorials, or instructions on Taiwanese.
If you go to Shida they will teach you Mandarin. If you go to school in Taiwan classes will be taught in Mandarin, as will all course materials. There isn’t a “intro to Taiwanese” classes that I am aware of, and Taiwanese who speak it learn it from their parents speaking it. Not to mention they are basically a language of slangs, similar to the language spoken by blue collar/gangster types in the US. Not going to learn it unless you come from that community as no schools taught it.
And there is no need as all official businesses are conducted in Mandarin. The only time it is absolutely needed is talking to elders who never learned Mandarin (and are often illiterate so you can’t show them characters).
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
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It seems a lot of the religious type foreigners I meet abroad in Chinese speaking countries always have the best most fluent command of the language and even local dialects. Maybe more daily immersion in the local culture with church activities and the local christian community?
Honestly it’s impressive to me, especially the ones that have zero roots to the target language’s culture.
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So there’s a school I can go to to learn Taiwanese?
Have you even been to Shihda as a student?
What are you going on about?
Do you think before you speak?
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Anyone tried the Taiwanese language program at NTNU?
Unless you live in Taiwan, Learning Taiwanese is as practical as learning the languages of characters in the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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medical students in south from North maybe have to learn Taiwanese in classes.
Taiwanese is taught in schools in Taiwan. I can’t speak for every school, but I know of many students who have to take Taiwanese class.
Shida also offers it on a once-a-week basis, you can also sign up for more frequent lessons if you request a class be made (significantly more expensive).
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community colleges often have classes.
Phonologically Taigi and English are more compatible.
There are very few languages that use ʈʂ, ʈʂʰ, ʂ and ʐ. Aside from Mandarin and those that might have been influenced by Mandarin, it seems to be a Slavic and Uralic thing. Then there’re even less languages that pair those consonants with ɻ̩.
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They want people’s souls. We just want their money.
I think there was a law (or at least rules agreed upon by medical schools to avoid a law) that medical students had to learn to communicate in Taiwanese and even Mandarin with their patients. As medical education was in English, doctors were unable to explain problems in Chinese. With my own doctor, we speak Mandarin for greetings and everyday conversation, but he slips into English when he’s using medical terms.
Hokkien is also spoken in Fujian, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
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I’ve spoken Mandarin in lots of places, very useful language. It even got me out of a visa jam in Africa once.
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It’s a nifty skill to have. But another question is opportunity cost. A person can get 2 PHDs in unrelated hard sciences (and job offers for high salaries) in the time it takes to become fluent in Chinese.
And Taiwanese is not mandarin.
It’s better to know Taiwanese than Klingon, except at the annual Star Trek convention. My wife say a person just needs a good body good smile. She has first hand experience
She had been in USA a few months as my gf and answered a Craigslist ad for an Asian model for a calendar. I take her to the Sheraton to meet the person while I run errands. She said everyone knew who he was. The waitress called him Mister Shatner. My gf said he told her his career was in aviation. The whole time he was trying to get her up to his room. She declined. She said he was unbelievably self confident. She didn’t know anything about Star Trek. The next day a Priceline commercial came on. My gf Had never seen it but she blurted out “That’s him!” This was in 2007
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I’m not saying everyone should learn Mandarin, just agreeing with you that Taiwanese isn’t a particularly useful language outside of Taiwan
I got the Mandarin basics and pinyin from a teacher over the course of maybe 10-20 hours of one-on-one lessons (can’t remember, so long ago), but mostly picked it up from living in China so not much time or money invested directly in learning the language
If someone who knows nothing is wondering what to focus on while they are in Taiwan, I’d suggest Mandarin, is all
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Do you still practice? How?
I have some mandarin reading material or audio on me all the time. I practice when I’ve nothing better to do.
Over the years, I’d run into Chinese people wherever I was and use what I could remember. Also, watching movies in Mandarin with English subtitles, but parroting what I could when it comes on. Most recently, I’ve moved to Taiwan which has already been very helpful!
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