Taiwan/Mainland/common word usage, how to determine which?

[jannesan]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for a way to determine if a word is commonly used, only used in Mainland, or only used in Taiwan.

As I have been reading two novels by 古龙 recently, I've learned quite some new words that are only used in Taiwan.

When I try to use this with my girlfriend, who's Mainland Chinese, she doesn't know what I'm talking about.

So I would like to tag words when they're just used in Taiwan or just used in Mainland, so I can correctly use

those words according to whom I speak.

I don't see any dictionary in Pleco having this information sadly, so maybe there is some website that I can use to

do this sort of tagging?

 

Thanks for any help!:)

[xinoxanu]

52 minutes ago, jannesan said:

I don't see any dictionary in Pleco

 

Pleco does have that functionality, albeit not for each and every word: words that are not commonly used in standard Mainland Mandarin will be tagged as "dialect", often indicating if they are used in Taiwan or whether they belong to an actual dialect. It should be available on Pleco's free version but can't really confirm that at the moment.

 

[Demonic_Duck]

 

51 minutes ago, xinoxanu said:

Pleco does have that functionality, albeit not for each and every word

 

Pleco is an app that serves as an interface to one or more dictionaries (including the default "Pleco basic" and CC-CEDICT), not a dictionary itself.

 

CC-CEDICT usually indicates when a word is TW, HK, or Macau specific, but its entries are crowdsourced, so the quality and information isn't always consistent.

 

If you don't mind monolingual Chinese dictionaries, there's also the Cross-Straits Dictionary, available as a free Pleco add-on (menu > add-ons > dictionaries > all free dictionaries). As far as I can tell, this seems to be MoeDict's 兩岸詞典.

[Leslie Frank]

Mdbg.net usually notes if a certain term, definition or pronunciation is unique to a specific country.

[Demonic_Duck]

That's because mdbg.net is another interface to CC-CEDICT. ?

[Dawei3]

One classic is:

普通话 versus 国语

 

The Langenscheidt pocket dictionary (i.e., a paper one) has 3 pages with a total ~100 words "that are more likely to be used in Taiwan."  Below are a few examples from the dictionary.  However, the dictionary dates from 2005, so there is likely a stronger mainland influence on Taiwan now than in 2005 (so the difference may be less now).

 

In the following, the 1st word is the mainland equivalent and the 2nd one is the Taiwanese one (but written in simplified).  

下午好 -  午安

空调  冷气

薯片  洋芋片

出租车  计程车

 

 

[jannesan]

Thanks for all the responses!

I am also using CC-Cedict, and you're right, it often indicates that a word is Taiwan usage.

But it is far from including all words (2 of the 4 listed by @Da Wei are not), and it would not help the other way around

(words that are used in Mainland, but substituted with something else in Taiwan).

 

I guess what I'm looking for is a monolingual dictionary that "translates" Taiwan <-> Mainland word usages.

Have been looking a bit on Baidu, but so far haven't found anything comprehensive.

 

17 hours ago, Demonic_Duck said:

If you don't mind monolingual Chinese dictionaries, there's also the Cross-Straits Dictionary, available as a free Pleco add-on (menu > add-ons > dictionaries > all free dictionaries). As far as I can tell, this seems to be MoeDict's 兩岸詞典.

 

I have added this one in Pleco, but as far as I can tell it shows only differences of pronunciation,

and for words that are only used in Taiwan, such as 冷气, it will not mark it as only used in Taiwan.

[EnergyReaper]

冷气 is not used only in Taiwan.

When using an air container with both cooling and heating system, if I feel hot and want to use its cooling system, I'll say 太热了，开点冷气吧 whereas I'll say 太冷了，开点暖气吧

Maybe in northern China people don't say so; I am not sure.

@jannesan Which words that are only used in Taiwan do you see in 古龙 novels?

[jannesan]

Okay, so here are a few words that I assume are just used in Taiwan, but maybe also in Mainland in the South?

• 眸子
• 掴
• 正职

Then there are some words that have different meanings like:

• 何况 (used liked 而且, but no such usage in Mainland)

[Demonic_Duck]

2 hours ago, jannesan said:

I have added this one in Pleco, but as far as I can tell it shows only differences of pronunciation,

and for words that are only used in Taiwan, such as 冷气, it will not mark it as only used in Taiwan.

 

It includes notes on pronunciation but also usage — see for example the entry for 土豆. I guess the difference in the 空调 meaning of 冷气 is either something they missed out or didn't consider to be a reliable enough difference between 台 and 陆 (based on what @EnergyReaper said).

[EnergyReaper]

2 hours ago, jannesan said:

何况 (used liked 而且, but no such usage in Mainland)

Do you mean using them like below?

这地方本来就偏僻，何况/而且 他是第一次来，不一定能找到

I guess in Taiwan people don't say "不但...何况..."

 

[jannesan]

3 hours ago, EnergyReaper said:

Do you mean using them like below?

 

Yea I think it's the same, here are some examples from 古龙's 欢乐英雄:

“何况，这些东西既然是偷来的，我们若收下来，岂非也变成了贼”

“何况还有这位我不惜重资请来的黑仁兄。”

[EnergyReaper]

Well, it's one of 何况 usages, also in Mainland, and people can tell you 何况 and 而且 are a little bit different used in this way. Usually, you can ignore the difference.

In daily conversation I seldom use 何况.