What's the deal with the Taiwanese adding 有 and 啦 everywhere?

[淨土極樂]

Been consuming some Taiwanese media lately and this really puzzles (and to be bluntly honest, irks) me.

 

A mainlander would say: 我今天洗(过)澡了. A Taiwanese says: 我今天有洗澡. Same with 你吃晚饭了吗？ and 你有吃晚饭吗？And even more strange sentences, like 你有够坏. Does this have something to do with Westernization, because we do say "have + v." (perfect tense) in English... Or does it come from 闽南语 that seems to be popular over there?

 

They also seem to be overusing 语气词, mostly 啦, but also 哦/喔, 啊 and 嘞/勒. Even grown men...

[Lu]

It's called an accent. To my knowledge, the 有 comes from Minnanyu, and the 'overusing' of 啦/哦 etc is normal Taiwanese usage. I find it annoying that you seem to think that Mainland Mandarin is the only 'right' form and any deviation from that is 'irking'. If you have a problem with the way Taiwanese people talk ('even grown men', because omg the Rule Book of Men says that men are not allowed to cannot possibly be heard to use 啦), the best solution would be to stop consuming Taiwanese media.

[淨土極樂]

It's called an accent.

No, it's not. Accent is just pronunciation, which I'm not going to touch here.

 

I find it annoying that you seem to think that Mainland Mandarin is the only 'right' form and any deviation from that is 'irking'

I'm all for diversity, but "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". TW Mandrain is not studied anywhere but TW. If you try to use this kind of grammar in a, let's say, US university, you'll just get bad grades. The point is, Mainland Mandarin/普通话 is the prestige dialect of Chinese in the modern world.

 

Anyway, let's try to not get nationalistic in this thread. I'm purely curious as to why they speak like this.

[Demonic_Duck]

Oh boy, this thread is gonna be fun.

 

I'm not intending to wade into the inevitable shitstorm that's about to follow, more like sit on the sidelines and eat popcorn. But I will say that I find it odd when Taiwanese people end a sentence with “了啦” (e.g. “走了啦”), as I always thought “啦” was supposed to be a contraction of “了啊”, so it's like saying “走了了啊”. Anyone have a linguistic explanation for this?

[querido]

Maybe it's, like, just like "like" and "y'know", y'know?

As "the poor (in conformity to the rules we prefer) will always be with us", I wouldn't get too uptight, man. :-)

[Lu]

I'm all for diversity, but "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". TW Mandarin is not studied anywhere but TW.

UK English is not taught anywhere in the US. If you write 'honour' and 'humour' in an American school, it's marked as wrong. So?

You're not 'purely curious', you're implying it's wrong, that's what ticks me off. You can like or dislike any accent you want, but it doesn't make it wrong or 'less' simply because it's a small accent or you don't like it or you're not used to it.

I don't know what a regional variety is called if it's not an accent. Taiwanese Mandarin, with its 有 and 啦, is one form of Mandarin, much as Flemish is one form of Dutch and American is a form of English.

If you can leave out the judgement, this can become an interesting and informative discussion. If not, well, Demonic Duck already got the popcorn out.

[gato]

There is no need to get defensive about Taiwanese Mandarin. So many discussions about Taiwanese Mandarin end up turning into discussions about Taiwan independence. A few days ago another poster said that Beijingers sound like "pirates". There was no equivalent expression of outrage. The OP should be entitled to say that he's "irked". It would be even better if he could explain why he's irked. I think that we need be so politically correct to rule such discussions to be off limit. It should be possible to discuss in a language discussion forum why one prefer one dialect over another. I can certainly imagining people discussing they prefer London English over California English, or vice versa, in an English-learning forum, without shouting each other down.

[淨土極樂]

Please don't try to see judgement when there's none.

 

Anyway, here's what a 网友 has to say, pretty convincing explanation:

 

 

have 是时态助词，不应该直接翻译的。汉语里是用“着”、“了”、“过”来表示时态。这是典型的英式中文。只有在受英语影响比较多的港台地区才这么说。

[Shelley]

Is this not similar to Beijingers putting er 儿 on the ends of words, sometimes in my opinion making pronunciation difficult. I find words ending with a vowel easier to say with er 儿 than words ending in consonants.

 

I was taught about it (to help presumably with listening comprehension) but not to use it, but we did practice it in class to help us understand it.

 

Like querido says perhaps its like say y'know etc annoying but a part of the language of the day.

 

Languages are forever changing and evolving and hard and fast rules tend to fall by the way when fads and fashions dictate other wise.

 

Generations have their vernacular and it is something that is always changing . I believe it happens in all language.

 

I find people who use these types of things annoying but I ignore it as much as possible and don't use it myself, y'know what I mean.

[淨土極樂]

 

It would be even better if he could explain why he's irked.

 

Because this grammar doesn't make sense to me. E.g. 有够 seems to be a common structure in TW Mandarin, but I'm used to 够...的. OK, you can drop the 的, but what purpose does 有 serve here?

 

Same with the particles. E.g. 南部人不代表是乡下来的孩子啦. Why add 啦?

[roddy]

"Please don't try to see judgement when there's none."

Equally, please don't try and say 'irks' (to irritate, annoy) isn't a judgement.

[Guest realmayo]

Definitely interested to know if 有 has come from English, or from one of the other languages spoken in Taiwan.

 

Stuff about an extra 啦 or whatever, I presume that's less interesting, TW isn't not the only place where local Chinese gets extra sounds put on the end of sentences.

[renzhe]

Using "有" as a past tense marker is an influence from Minnanese, I believe. "Standard" Mandarin only uses "有" for negating past tense.

That's simply how people in Taiwan speak. Mandarin has developed in a different direction over there, just like American English and Quebecois French and Brazilian Portuguese diverged from the European variants. That's what languages do.

I much prefer the Mainland pronunciation, standard Putonghua in particular, but live and let live, policing accents is a rather silly thing to do... The only thing that "irks" me is the claim that Mainlanders don't know how to speak Mandarin, which is occasionally made.

[Guest realmayo]

I agree with people saying: language variance is inevitable.

But I also think that finding some of that variance irksome is also inevitable. 

 

Maybe we're programmed to or learn to dislike hearing language that sounds incorrect? We're certainly highly sensitised to small variance.

[Nathan Mao]

Do not underestimate the far-reaching impact of the blurring of "c" vs "ch", "s" vs "sh", "z" vs "zh", and "n" vs "ng".  Communication efficiency must be maintained...if discriminators blur in one area, new discriminators will appear to assist in intelligibility/comprehension (which is how the Beijing "er" developed, I think).

[renzhe]

I personally think that language learners often take these things too seriously. A native speaker will often just say "Oh, he has a Taiwanese accent" or "oh, she is from Brazil", while language students on both sides of the strait are fighting holy wars. At least this is how it sometimes appears to me. Maybe we are more "irked" when our language level is not sufficiently advanced, and we struggle with unfamiliar accents. Most native speakers will be convinced that their accent is "the right one", but are generally not bothered by this stuff, since they understand everything and communicate effortlessly anyway.

I think that minding the accent can be important in some contexts. My English accent is quite idiosyncratic because I've interacted with people from all over the world, and got bits and pieces of every accent under the sun. This bothers me. Nowadays I try to stick with one particular accent when learning languages. Listening to Taiwanese or Brasilian accent is excellent practice, but if I do pronunciation drills, I like sticking to Mainland and Portuguese materials, to avoid mishmashy accents in the future.

But native speakers should speak however they want. It's their language, after all.

[Shelley]

I have to say that just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it won't get used. There are loads of things in English that don't make sense but are used all the time.

 

When I came from Canada to Scotland and then to USA and then back to England I was exposed to a huge variation in one language of non nonsensical grammar, word order and pronunciation. None of it is wrong just what they do in different places.

 

Its annoying yes, but don't get stressed over something that will probably fade away to be replaced with something different but equally annoying.

 

Why not speak to one of these people who uses these and ask them why, maybe there is a good explanation. If not you may just have to "suck it up" as they annoyingly say in some places It gets everywhere

[renzhe]

(which is how the Beijing "er" developed, I think)

This is one of those things that "irks" me, and I don't mean your comment in particular because you are not passing judgment on the issue -- you just happened to bring up this particular topic ;)

The "Beijing" "er" is sometimes attributed to the Manchurian influence during the Qing dynasty, but if you read classic literature from Ming times, you will still find it written -- it is common in Water Margin, for example.

Erhua is not a Beijingy corruption of Mandarin, it is a part of the spoken Mandarin language. It is also a part of the vast majority of dynastic and early Republic literature.

Some people choose to ignore this particular part of the language, but it doesn't make erhua any less correct.

[Guest realmayo]

Erhua is not a Beijingy corruption of Mandarin, it is a part of the spoken Mandarin language

By mandarin do you mean putonghua? I ask because I understood that Beijingers use a lot more "er"s than is taught as putonghua?

[Ruben von Zwack]

Scottish! Good Lord! I am determined to learn to understand it though. I have friends in Glasgow (Glesga!) and they keep inviting me, but I'm still scared to go

 

As far as I'm aware, accents (and/or variants) are not only a result of language changing, but also remainers of the ancient language that was spoken in a place, before folks were invaded and had to learn the new ruling classes' language. The phonemics and certain grammatical structures of that lost ancient language survive in form of a - well, "accent".