The amount of materials for learning the Taiwanese language* is quite limited. I have only used a couple of books myself. I have written some brief notes about them here and also some other resources. 

The first Taiwanese textbook I had was Shenghuo Taiyu (生活台語). This book contains no English, but I think anyone who has studied Chinese to intermediate level should be able to comprehend it. The conversations and vocabulary are written in Standard Chinese, Taiwanese using Chinese characters and POJ (Church Romanisation).

The conversations in the book cover fairly simple topics like introductions, talking about where you live and shopping. The book has a set of tapes to accompany it. These days I don't even own a tape player so I need to get the tapes converted to mp3 files. 

This semester at Shi-Da I have used the materials written by Xiao Laoshi (蕭老師). The conversations in this book are interesting and sometimes even funny. They are very much related to the common things one encounters in daily life in Taiwan. Some of the topics include visiting a night market, summer vacation, typhoons and surfing the internet. Xiao Laoshi also provided a CD with audio files of all the conversations in the book. 

The image is of part of the first conversation in the book. It is written in Taiwanese using Chinese characters, standard Chinese and POJ without tone marks or numbers. The teacher gave us all the vocabulary during the lesson so we could add the tone marks if we needed to.  

The Maryknoll books are also commonly recommended. These books are published by the Maryknoll Institute which has a long history of teaching the Taiwanese language. I have not studied these books in detail, but they use English and POJ. 

The Maryknoll books and some other Taiwanese language learning materials and dictionaries can be bought from the Tai-uan e Tiam (台灣e店) near NTU. The address is No. 6 Lane 76 Section 3 Xinsheng South Road, Taipei City (台北市新生南路三段76巷6號).

A number of online resources for learning Taiwanese can be found. Taffy's blog, Phai-se, hasn't been updated for a long time, but contains a few helpful articles. I came across a pdf file of Taiwanese language learning resources. Taiwanderful has a page about learning Taiwanese including a list of links. There is also a page about writing Taiwanese using Chinese characters. I wrote this to help overcome the common misunderstanding that there is no difference between writing Taiwanese and Mandarin using Chinese characters. 

* I use the term Taiwanese language (台語). The language is also referred to as Hoklo, Hokkein or Minnan (閩南語). 

• Taiwanese class at Shi-Da
• Computer based Chinese test
• Learning Mandarin in Taiwan
• Starting Chinese classes
• Reading Chinese newspapers

              

I have made sporadic efforts at studying Taiwanese but so far I haven't got beyond learning a few of the most common words and phrases. However, I think the language is important and useful and it is something that I really want to learn.

The teacher is Xiao Laoshi (蕭老師). She has a Master's Degree in Teaching Southern Min Dialect as a Second Language. As far as I know she is the only specialist Taiwanese language teacher at Shi-Da. She is very enthusiastic and I like her teaching style.

The first class used Xiao Laoshi's own materials. The class mainly covered phonetics. The Peh-oe-ji (POJ) romanisation system was used. POJ is sometimes referred to as Church Romanisation because it was originally invented by Presbyterian missionaries. The teacher commented  indirectly that she uses this system because it is the most well known. There are other systems but they are not in common use.

A few of the students in the class already knew a little Taiwanese. Others knew none at all. There was quite a bit of material covered. As well as the phonetics we also learnt a simple conversation. For the complete beginners it might have been a bit overwhelming.

My only complaint is that the class is only once per week. I think it is disappointing that Taiwan's largest Chinese language school cannot offer more classes in Taiwanese.

I will write some more about the class and the Taiwanese language over the next couple of months.

• Starting classes at Shi-Da
• Reading about Taiwanese History
• Taiwanese language learning materials
• Article at culture.tw
• More Taiwanese Chinese

              

First, here's a brief language lesson. The word for internet cafe in Mandarin is 網咖 (wăngkā). The first character comes from the word for internet, while the second comes from the word for coffee. (As an aside this is the word used in Taiwan, while in China they use 網吧 (wăngbā) meaning internet bar.)

The sign above is on an internet cafe. It uses the characters 網腳 which are pronounced as wăngjiăo in Mandarin. However, Zhuyin Fuhao (bo po mo fo) has been placed next the character 腳. The Zhuyin reads ㄎㄚ(ka). This is actually the Taiwanese pronunciation of 腳, which means foot. 

Hence the sign can still be read as wăngkā, even though the second character is somewhat different from the standard. The English name of the internet cafe is "Net Foot", a direct translation of the two Chinese characters. Hence the play on words extends to a third language. 

• Taiwanese Chinese
• Taiwanese language learning materials
• Starting Chinese classes
• Taiwan gets a Chinese test
• Not Chinese but Signese

              

In my Chinese class I have been regularly reading articles from the Guoyu Ribao (國語日報). I have always thought of the Guoyu Ribao as a somewhat anachronistic institution, dedicated to preserving Mandarin Chinese in a form that was spoken in China in the 1930s. This was reinforced during the time I was studying Qibai Zi Gushi (published by the Guoyu Ribao). My teacher would often comment that various words and phrases were only used in China and some of them would even be considered quite old fashioned there. 

I was surprised to discover that some of the Guoyu Ribao articles use some words and characters that are unique to Taiwan and show the influence of Taiwanese (台語) on the Mandarin used in Taiwan. 

The headline in the article* above is a classical example. It is also a play on words. It reads 我學童金厲害 (Wŏ xuétóng jīn lìhài). Literally this translates as "My students golden amazing". The "golden" makes this sound a little strange. However, when you take the sound of 金 (jīn) in Taiwanese it means "truly" (written as 真 (zhēn) in standard Chinese). Hence the meaning of the headline is "My students are truly amazing". It is also a play on words because the article is about students competing in a World Robot Building Championship where they won gold medals. Hence the 金 (jīn) in the headline can also refer to 金牌 (jīnpái): gold medals. 

* * * * *  

A few more examples of "Taiwanese Chinese" my teacher taught me are:

系金ㄟ  pronounced as si jin e in Taiwanese or xī jīn ēi in Mandarin meaning 是真的 (shì zhēnde)  or in English "It's true!" (系 was written as 口 + 系 but I don't know how to type this character)

好呷 pronounced as ho jia in Taiwanese meaning 好吃 (hăochī) in Mandarin or delicious in English. 

* The full text of the article can be viewed here.

• More Taiwanese Chinese
• Taiwanese language learning materials
• Starting Chinese classes
• Taiwan gets a Chinese test
• Not Chinese but Signese

              

Yesterday’s Taipei Times has a story and photo. The article goes on to say:

Forget about asking the local residents for directions, though — chances are they won’t have a clue as to which road’s name you’re trying to spit out.

“I think street names using Taiwanese [romanization] are unhelpful to both foreigners and locals,” said Chang Chia-ming (張家銘), an employee at the Keelung Visitor Information Center.

“I’ve seen a lot of foreigners ask for directions [according to street signs' Taiwanese romanization],” Chang said. “I can’t understand them. I have to think for a while before I finally guess which road they’re referring to.”

I am all for the promotion of the Taiwanese language, but I don’t think this is a very good way to go about it. The article says there are “historical and cultural factors” for using Taiwanese romanisation, but doesn’t explain what these factors are. Of course there are historical and cultural reasons why just about any street in Taiwan could have its name written in Taiwanese romanisation. However, the rest of Taiwan seems content using romanised forms of the Mandarin pronunciation. The only problem being the use of several different systems of romanisation.

What Taiwan really needs is a single standard system and ideally that system should be Hanyu Pinyin. However, it seems that every municipality seems to use whatever system it pleases without thought about how it actually works in practice.

* Taiwanese refers to Hoklo or Minnan. In Chinese 台語 or 閩南語.

• Green House
• Trip to Jinguashi
• Photos of Formosa from LIFE
• Links 20 August 2007
• Movie review: Reflections

              

No progress in native-language education has been made in schools despite the central government promising to encourage local culture and language education three years ago, native-language teachers said yesterday.

Liu Feng-chi (劉豐極), director of the Taiwan Association of Mother Language Teachers and a teacher of Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), said he felt cheated that the government had “not taken in any of our suggestions to improve native-language education in school” over the past three years.

Liu said the Ministry of Education had not put much effort into reform nor native-language education. Classes in schools were not being planned carefully and lack continuity, he said.

How could something so simple become so difficult? Well, for a start it would help if they could work out how to write these languages down. The competition between various romanisation systems, zhuyin fuhao (ak bo po mo fo) and Chinese characters probably doesn’t help. I guess there are also cultural issues to be dealt with. Languages that were banned in the classroom for almost 50 years may still be perceived by some as uncultured and not having academic value.

At least the government are not afraid to spend money in the hope that the next generation of Taiwanese remain fluent in their mother tongues. According to the Taipei Times report:

The ministry spends NT$400 million (US$11.9 million) annually on native-language courses, while English classes have NT$200 million per year in funding. Elementary school students are required to take at least one period of native-tongue classes per week.

However, throwing money at something won’t necessarily make it work. A well thought out policy, rather than a piecemeal approach, would be of far more benefit than few extra NT$100 million.

• Computer based Chinese test
• Taiwanese language learning materials
• Starting Chinese classes
• Taiwanese class at Shi-Da
• Learning Mandarin in Taiwan