Taiwan is a great country for studying Chinese, no doubt about it. The learning environment is really great, a lot of chances to speak and listen to Chinese. But I have been thinking about the question: do you really make use of that great environment? Because actually you can avoid all those great oppurtunities to speak Chinese.
You can get your food from 7-11 where you don’t have to speak a word. You could also go to all those Western fast-food chains, and even speak English to the people who work there without having too much of a bad feeling. You could spend your free time with some buddies that you got to know here in the forum and that happily just speak English or your mother tongue with you.
–> you avoid all the chances to really improve your Chinese!
Sadly, some of that is true for me too. So where are the chances to really speak Chinese? I have to say, for me I really always enjoy to take a cab and try to talk with the cab driver. Most of the time, they are really chatty and happy to talk to you. Also, my local “lu wei” vendor, whenever I buy my “lu wei” we are having a little conversation, and I am happy to see that I can express more and more.
So what kind of language learner here in Taiwan are you? The “avoider” or more the other type, who would jump into any possible conversation with a local?
You can talk to cool people if you know Chinese because cool people don’t learn foreign languages.
For example, the woman at the temple near me who sells prayer beads, my friend’s dad, my landlady.
Buttercup’s sensitive disposition prevents her from listening to annoying Chinglish all day, so she makes everyone else listen to her annoying Engnese as a defence mechanism.
I’m a jumper (although one look at my physique brings to mind more of an armchair-collapser image). Almost 13 years ago, I moved in with locals who didn’t speak any English (although they imagined they knew a few words), and lived with them for a long time. Immersion is the only way to go.
I think this thread underscores a major difference between Taipei and just about everywhere else. In Taipei, it seems like there are foreigners struggling in search of Mandarin practice opportunities. Move outside of Tp and you’ll never have to search again.
There are loads of people to talk to in Taipei, but you have to be empathetic (ew, I used that spazzy word!) about it. It’s a capital city, people are in a hurry and are busy going about their lives. Who wants to be stuck in the coffee queue behind the spoddy beginner language student? We’ve all been in situations with English (or our other 'mosan languages) learners when we are tired or sick or just feeling homesick and impatient where we just avoid dealing with it at all.
We can’t expect people to always be receptive and interested in our mangled tones. But try and make some friends. At first, they’ll hang around with you 'cos they want to learn your language, or shag you, but hopefully it will develop into a real relationship, as you get better.
I don’t ‘need’ to learn Chinese at all. I have enough to deal with the eventualities that come my way, I just like it. But then I’m boring and bookish, and consider learning thousands of word squiggles a productive way of flushing what remains of my three score years and ten down the toilet.
My Mandarin is pretty crap, but I actually find that it’s better understood whenever I’m up in Taipei, than it is anywhere else in Taiwan.[/quote]
I have yet to find anyone under 80 who cannot speak Mandarin. I’m seldom in Taipei, but comprehension is seldom an issue. Anyway, my point is in response to OP’s notion that you can avoid speaking Mandarin somehow. If you live outside of Taipei, you will need to learn Mandarin just to get by in your daily life.
Ha. I don’t know that Taipei is that ‘international’. I always heard someone complains the English environment here. Though one of my english teacher told me he didn’t speak any chinese at all after he has been here for three years.
It is just like that we go to any English-speak city for learning English. Any big city in the world are full of Chinese.
When I lived in Taipei, people I met would tell me “You should let Taiwanese people practice their English.”
Ok, then where do I go to practice Chinese? They thought that was a weird question :loco:
“But you already understand everything we say in Chinese, so you don’t need practice.”
I exercised last week. Is that enough for the rest of my life?
Taipei is the worst place on earth to learn Chinese. Get out of there or go to China. Heck, I’ve spent more time speaking Chinese in my homeland and third countries than I did in Taipei (not counting paid class time). I am not exaggerating.
[quote=“um”]When I lived in Taipei, people I met would tell me “You should let Taiwanese people practice their English.”
Ok, then where do I go to practice Chinese? They thought that was a weird question :loco:
“But you already understand everything we say in Chinese, so you don’t need practice.”
I exercised last week. Is that enough for the rest of my life?
Taipei is the worst place on earth to learn Chinese. Get out of there or go to China. Heck, I’ve spent more time speaking Chinese in my homeland and third countries than I did in Taipei (not counting paid class time). I am not exaggerating.[/quote]
Wow, is this some alternate universe Taipei? Did you notice a lot of people with goatees and eye-patches?
Nobody’s ever said that to me; I’ve lived in Taipei for years, and I can go for days or weeks without speaking English if I don’t happen to run into any of my foreign friends.
I can’t imagine living here without speaking Chinese and some Taiwanese. It would feel like buying a box, jumping inside and never coming out.
I agree with an earlier poster that if one gets out of Taipei, it’s a whole different ball game. You can even practice Taiwanese (without that yucky sounding Northern accent).
Though one of my english teacher told me he didn’t speak any chinese at all after he has been here for three years.