Study holiday in Taiwan - notes

[wibr]

I had the opportunity to spend around 7 weeks in Taiwan in September and October, the first 5 weeks I focused on studying, 2 weeks in Taipei and then 2-3 weeks in Tainan. I mostly wanted to improve my spoken Chinese.

 

Taiwan

• mobile internet: I used the 60 day data flatrate from 中華電信, super reliable, I used it for my online classes in Tainan and had pretty much zero issues (hot spot from my phone with laptop and tablet connected using USB and wifi)
  • tip: I also brought my previous smartphone, first it's good to have a backup since we use smartphones for everything nowadays, second I used it as a MP3 player with plenty of storage for audio files from old textbooks, podcasts etc.
• apps:
  • Taxi: 55688 in Tainan and on the East coast, "Find Taxi" in Taipei but there are a few drivers in other cities as well
  • LINE to chat with Taiwanese friends etc.
  • Uber Eats to order food
• "language wars": almost nobody tried to speak English, most just talked Chinese with me like with any other customer. Occasionally they were surprised ("你的中文很標準！") and asked where I studied Chinese or if I live in Taiwan, but that's just nice positive feedback.
• Taiwanese: in general super friendly and helpful, this was not my first time in Taiwan so no surprise here... my spoken Chinese now was much better than before though, so I could directly talk to everyone and understand most of the conversation. Example: Once I was walking back on a quiet but well-lit country road, returning to the hotel from a restaurant outside the city. That would have been just a 1h walk, but after 5 minutes the first scooters overtaking me immediatelity stopped and asked me to hop on.

 

Taipei

• Taipei is pretty much as I remembered from my visits before Corona
• Stayed in an AirBnB, no issues, plenty of options available
• I found that taking the bus is often faster and more convenient than the MRT, since they are shown in Google Maps it's quite practical
• I took private lessons at TLI near 古亭 station

 

Tainan

• The main reason for me to stay in Tainan was my almost-free accomodation, but I've never been in the South of Taiwan for a longer time so that was a nice opportunity to see something else
• It was still very hot in September and October and they had the second-largest outbreak of Dengue fever ever (this seems to be a special problem of Tainan for some reason)
• Tainan is not very convenient to get around unless you drive yourself with a scooter or car. There is no MRT and the bus density is pretty low. In the end I mostly took taxis or walked.
• There weren't any suitable restaurants near the place I lived, so I ordered my lunch on Uber Eats on most days, usually healthy bentos with some rice, meat and veggies.
• Tainan provies free city walking tours, definitely worth it! It's not very well known so I got a private tour...
• Taiwanese is more common in Tainan than in Taipei, but the people I talked to all spoke Mandarin and what I heard on the street was also mostly Mandarin.
• In Tainan I took private online lessons (LTL flexi classes) for 4-6 hours a day, usually in 2h blocks and 2h breaks in between.

 

Private Lessons

Since my Chinese level is somewhere on the high-intermediate to advanced spectrum and I needed the flexibility, private lessons were the only option for me. I'm also not a student anymore so I don't mind spending some money on education. One alternative would have been the "independent study" approach and find some very cheap tutors and just pay them to talk to you and correct you. I didn't really want to deal with the organizational overhead though.

 

• italki: as a preparation for my stay in Taiwan I already took some lessons on italki
  • + many teachers, can filter for teachers from Taiwan
  • + teachers usually note down new words which come up during the conversation, so you can review them afterwards, add them to flashcards etc.
  • - you have to find suitable time slots in the teachers calendars
  • - pricing can be confusing with USD being the main currency, some "hours" being 45min units etc.
• TLI Taipei:
  • + in person class can't be interrupted by connectivity issues
  • + teachers and students can't be distracted since the class is in a private classroom
  • + Taiwanese teachers
  • + good location near 古亭 station
  • - less flexible than the online options
  • - no pricing on their website (the price is 650-800NTD per hour (50min + 10min break), depending on how many classes you book. I paid 700 for 3h per day for 10 days)
• LTL flexi classes
  • + can just book the time slot I want and I get some teachers assigned
    • cancellation has to be done 72h before the class, which is maybe not as "flexi" as someone might expect
  • + interesting mix of teachers
  • + transparent pricing
  • - no option for Taiwanese teachers (there are some though, and it would be nice to be able to select a preference)
  • +- they provide materials for each class and most topics are quite practical, but
    • in my opinion, there are too many rare words in the texts
    • no structured approach to repeat vocabulary from previous lessons
    • not enough "free speaking" lessons for advanced learners

 

Language Apps

Pleco is the workhorse of my Chinese learning, but I thought these two months would be a good opportunity to get the most out of the more expensive subscriptions:

• Glossika: theoretically it should be just the right tool to improve my spoken Chinese but somehow it doesn't work for me. The app seems to be pretty good but then they ask me to repeat a sentence over and over again just be cause I answered it wrong once. I also think the sentences are too random and not optimized for Chinese learners, e.g. regarding grammar patterns. In the end I gave up on it after a short time.
• Chinesepod: Not bad but also not really worth it for me since I still have a backlog of audio materials from text books I've bought and read in the past.

 

Conclusion

I didn't have any concrete goals, just wanted to learn Chinese, experience the language in Taiwan and have a good time. I can speak more fluently than before, which also makes me hit the vocabulary wall more often. So on the long term I want to grow my active vocabulary (back to flashcards I guess...) and take some online lessons to maintain my spoken Chinese level.

[litcandle]

How was your social life outside of class there? How did you meet people?

[Jan Finster]

Nice write-up.

Personally, I find city-bikes to be the best option to move around both Taipei and Tainan.

 

What was your level before you went to Taiwan?

May I ask how much you paid per night in Taipei? And, why was the lodging in Tainan "almost free"?

 

[wibr]

On 11/18/2023 at 4:46 PM, litcandle said:

How was your social life outside of class there? How did you meet people?

I only met up with people I already knew, didn't try to make any new friends or go out and socialize to be honest.

 

On 11/18/2023 at 7:57 PM, Jan Finster said:

Personally, I find city-bikes to be the best option to move around both Taipei and Tainan.

Yeah I've used ubikes before in Taipei and they are super convenient, however Tainan was still very hot so I didn't really feel like biking.

 

On 11/18/2023 at 7:57 PM, Jan Finster said:

What was your level before you went to Taiwan?

Hard to say. My pronunciation including tones is pretty good, at least everyone always understands what I am saying (if all the words are correct). Reading level is also ok, don't have any issues with everyday tasks but still struggle with 金庸 for example. My biggest weaknesses are listening comprehension and speaking, so I focused on those this time. I did manage to do almost everything in Chinese from the very beginning, the biggest improvements were regarding fluency and listening comprehension.

 

On 11/18/2023 at 7:57 PM, Jan Finster said:

May I ask how much you paid per night in Taipei? And, why was the lodging in Tainan "almost free"?

In Tainan I was living in a house owned by a friend of a friend who is currently staying in the US. In Taipei I paid 800€ for 15 nights, the location was pretty good though.

 

[Lu]

On 11/18/2023 at 8:33 PM, wibr said:

Reading level is also ok, don't have any issues with everyday tasks but still struggle with 金庸 for example.

Jin Yong is fairly advanced reading though. His vocab and sentence structure are not exactly easy.

[suMMit]

On 11/18/2023 at 7:06 PM, wibr said:

• LTL flexi classes
  • + can just book the time slot I want and I get some teachers assigned
    • cancellation has to be done 72h before the class, which is maybe not as "flexi" as someone might expect
  • + interesting mix of teachers
  • + transparent pricing
  • - no option for Taiwanese teachers (there are some though, and it would be nice to be able to select a preference)
  • +- they provide materials for each class and most topics are quite practical, butI 
    • in my opinion, there are too many rare words in the texts
    • no structured approach to repeat vocabulary from previous lessons
    • not enough "free speaking" lessons for advanced learners

 

Having done all the Hsk 4 and 4+ classes on LTL over the summer, I agree with most of what you say. For most of the summer, there was a great mix of teachers picking up classes, but then around the the end of summer vacation, only two teachers were regularly picking up Hsk 4 classes. Those two teachers happened to be my least favorite, so it became a chore. There were also relatively few students taking classes(maybe more at lower levels?). I don't know what the situation is now. I also second the comment that there are a lot of less frequent words. Their levels are skewed towards the high side as well, ie there was a lot of Hsk 5 type material throughout the Hsk 4 classes. Basically,  I am always back and forth on my opinion of the Flexi-classes.