Adapting to Taiwanese Mandarin

[dakonglong]

In an interesting twist of fate, I have an opportunity to live in Taipei for a few years. I couldn't be more excited! However, this creates a bit of an issue because all of my studies have been geared towards learning standard Beijing Mandarin (erhua, simplified characters, etc...).

 

Now I need to learn the traditional characters and the Taiwanese accent. I have about three months to do it.

 

The traditional characters I am somewhat less worried about. I just picked up 20+ traditional Chinese mangas and have started reading those with the help of a dictionary. I'm pretty sure I can use this technique to power through learning most of them, and maybe transition to light novels / novels to learn the rest. The bigger issue is the accent. When I watch shows from the mainland I can probably understand 80% - 95% of the dialog. When I watch shows from Taiwan, I can understand like 20%. It just sounds to me like the Taiwanese accent enunciates less and the words kind of run together - granted, I felt the same way about Beijing Mandarin until I had more practice listening to it. The other issue I seem to run into is that half of the shows I try to watch mix Taiwanese in with Mandarin. I sometimes can't tell if I can't understand the accent, or the language itself. This is only a minor annoyance, but it adds to the difficulty (and is probably something I will deal with on the ground in Taipei also).

 

I know the answer is probably just "read more" and "listen more" but does anyone have any tips to adapt from Beijing Mandarin to Taiwanese Mandarin? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Jan Finster]

If your comprehension level of mainland Chinese is 85%+, you should be ok within 3 months after listening exclusively to Taiwanese content. 

 

But, why do you feel pressured to be perfect within 3 months??? 

[Wei-Ming 魏明]

I've lived in Taiwan for way too long. But it still bugs me that words such as 四 and 是 are pronounced as homonyms (sì). BUT everybody has it drilled into their heads that they're not homonyms! "Shi" exists in theory. What people learn officially from Ministry of Education textbooks doesn't actually match what they say. It's the same with words pronounced 陳 and 成. Only "chen" practically exists in speech, but both "cheng" and "chen" appear in educational materials. 

 

Briefly,

 

f becomes fo

zh becomes zi

ch -> ci

sh -> si

r -> l (容 is often pronounced long2) or e (兒 is often pronounced e2)

ng -> n

 

[dakonglong]

On 8/14/2024 at 12:41 PM, Jan Finster said:

But, why do you feel pressured to be perfect within 3 months??? 

 

It's for a job, and while the company does provide interpreters, I would prefer not to have to use one. I'm ok being at only a limited working proficiency-level when I start, but if someone were to say something to me in Taiwan-accented Mandarin today, I would probably just stand there looking confused.

 

On 8/14/2024 at 2:08 PM, Wei-Ming 魏明 said:

f becomes fo

zh becomes zi

ch -> ci

sh -> si

r -> l (容 is often pronounced long2) or e (兒 is often pronounced e2)

ng -> n

 

This is very helpful, thank you!

[Flickserve]

Some people might sprinkle a bit of minnan hua into their conversation. 

[jannesan]

On 8/14/2024 at 3:19 PM, dakonglong said:

if someone were to say something to me in Taiwan-accented Mandarin today, I would probably just stand there looking confused

 

I find that hard to believe, personally Taiwanese accent feels closer to standard putonghua than Donbei or Sichuan accent for example.

 

Though I may have exposed myself to more Taiwanese speakers by now and can’t judge objectively anymore, but I don’t recall ever having as much trouble as with most other regional accent.

 

If you feel okay about working in mainland and dealing with all kinds of accents, I am sure you will do just fine in Taiwan!

[wibr]

In case you haven't found it already, here's a list of Taiwanese podcasts I compiled and still maintain:

 

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/61302-taiwanese-podcasts-for-chinese-learners/

 

My graded watching site also provides a way to sort by country to find Taiwanese shows or movies:

 

https://www.jiong3.com/gradedwatching/

 

What I noticed when talking to teachers from China is that, more often than I expected, some words are different and even more tones are different, e.g. 質 is zhi2 in Taiwan.

[Lu]

On 8/14/2024 at 6:53 PM, dakonglong said:

The other issue I seem to run into is that half of the shows I try to watch mix Taiwanese in with Mandarin. I sometimes can't tell if I can't understand the accent, or the language itself. This is only a minor annoyance, but it adds to the difficulty (and is probably something I will deal with on the ground in Taipei also).

It's been a while since I've spent meaningful time in Taiwan, but I expect that white-collar people in the presence of a foreigner generally won't mix in Taiwanese. Mixed-in Taiwanese is generally for when the speaker knows the other person also speaks Taiwanese and there is some amount of informatily.

 

I came to Taiwan after learning textbook Mandarin and spending time in Beijing, and I thought that the Taiwanese spoke wonderfully clear Mandarin, clearer than in Beijing. They do have an accent (exactly as Wei-Ming writes), but I found them easy to understand.

[ChristianCC]

This might be a good case for Glossika, as they have a Taiwanese-Mandarin course drilling sentences. You can binge watch various Taiwanese dramas/tv shows on Netflix as well. As you said, they mix in Taiwanese with Mandarin... but just think of it as listening practice as you will be able to differentiate the both when you live here.
That said, the only thing that will trip you up is very weak/non-existent zh/ch/sh that vary speaker to speaker.
Minnan-hua or Taiwanese the language is very different, but you won't encounter it unless you really live in the countryside or speak to older people.
That said, older speakers who speak Taiwanese day to day (and not Mandarin so much) do have a different accent when speaking Mandarin and can be hard to understand if you are not used to it.

[honglam]

Indeed there are vocabulary differences between mainland and Taiwan. Some time is needed to get used of the differences, that's for sure.

Yet, as a native speaker, I feel that the main difference between Beijing accent and Taiwan accent is just the accent. The Taiwan accent of Mandarin is, I guess, affected by dialects like Hokkien and Hakka. We can watch many videos by Taiwan video-makers in mainland and although it's quite easy for people from mainland to identify Taiwan accent(Although we could be sometimes wrong. One of my friend from Xiamen speaks just as the Taiwan accent), we hardly find any point of the accent incomprehensible. It may sound strange for someone living in the northern China for long to hear Taiwan accent, but the pronunciation of initials and rhymes are similar, just a bit different in the place of articulation.

As for traditional characters, i think you could find the original document of simplifying characters of mainland and use it in an opposite direction.

As for Hokkien and Hakka mixed with mandarin, I'd say I have no idea. But I think you should directly ask them for an explanation when you don't understand. Requiring a foreigner with mere knowledge of Mandarinto understand Hokkien and Hakka is simply unreasonable

[Lu]

On 8/15/2024 at 2:50 PM, honglam said:

One of my friend from Xiamen speaks just as the Taiwan accent

Minnanese 闽南语, the main fangyan spoken in Taiwan, is also the fangyan spoken in Xiamen 🙂 There are probably small differences (just like between Guoyu (Taiwan) and Putonghua (China)), but it's the same language.

[vellocet]

On 8/15/2024 at 3:40 PM, Lu said:

I came to Taiwan after learning textbook Mandarin and spending time in Beijing, and I thought that the Taiwanese spoke wonderfully clear Mandarin, clearer than in Beijing. They do have an accent (exactly as Wei-Ming writes), but I found them easy to understand.

At the risk of going off-topic, as I have little experience with Taiwan Mandarin, but I can't let this pass.  erhua isn't standard, more people in China say 哪里 than 哪儿.   In fact, one of the tests I used to use to check a new textbook was to see if it even mentioned 哪里. If it didn't, back on the shelf.  Heck, when I went to Beijing  my comprehension level also went from bout 80% to 20%. Everyone sounded like they had marbles in their mouths.  Then we were at this famous restaurant where Mao once dined and I could understand the waiter just fine. I asked if he was a Beijinger, and he said he was from Guilin.  I said, oh that's why.  I then asked if it was just me, or are these people hard to understand?  He said, oh I can't understand them either.   felt better, at least.

I remember listening to this amusing song back when we had Weibo(I miss Weibo) and it had all of these strange usages and foreign words mixed in. Turns out, it was Malaysian Chinese. All I can add is that in Zhejiang  四 and 是 are also pronounced as homonyms (sì). I got called out a couple times for this, although it's hard to tell if it's just my terrible pronunciation in general that's the problem.  When native speakers can't understand me, it is always me that is the problem.  

[honglam]

On 8/17/2024 at 1:48 PM, vellocet said:

erhua isn't standard

Nope. If you look up in 现代汉语词典 you'll find plenty word titles are written with 儿化. It is accepted in the standardisation(since it is a general phenomenon find in different dialect branches.

On 8/17/2024 at 1:48 PM, vellocet said:

more people in China say 哪里 than 哪儿.   In fact, one of the tests I used to use to check a new textbook was to see if it even mentioned 哪里.

I think there are major differences between native speakers and non-native speakers. We grew up in a context of different accent and vocabulary manners, and Chinese is the first language we use when we come up with any idea. And we tend to break every word and sentences into characters when comprehending them. Thus 哪儿 哪里 什么地方 啥地方 哪块儿 哪边 are approximately the same thing to us. It's really possible to find every usage of mandarin that you may be facing. 汉语方言大词典 may does, but that's really professional reference for linguists. Real world Chinese are mixtures of standardised usages, regional terms(like place names and food names) and dialect usages. For well-educated people, English terms show up sometimes in there speaking as well. I think English share a similar but not that complicated situation as well.

I think the only way to break up such barrier is to communicate more in the community that someone's living in. Though it's impossible to be so adaptive to different dialects and accents as native speakers may do, adapting to the very Chinese-speaking circumstance of the community is still meaningful.

[vellocet]

It's just that someone picked a village near Beijing and decided that would be the "standard" accent for all of China.  Imagine someone enforcing at the point of a gun that a Noo Yawk accent should be the "correct" way to speak English for all of America, and all other ways are wrong, and you'll get the idea.  

When you can get through an entire multi-volume course of Chinese and still never have run into 哪里 despite it being the standard for China by virtue of more people speaking it than 哪儿,  that's a bad course. 

[honglam]

On 8/26/2024 at 5:08 AM, vellocet said:

It's just that someone picked a village near Beijing and decided that would be the "standard" accent for all of China. 

Not really. The standardised Chinese accent of mainland is in fact generally consistent with the standard accent of Taiwan(which is consistent with the accent of the ROC era, i.d. 1912-1949). Back to the 90s you would find the "News reporters' accent" of both mainland and Taiwan is generally the same(except for the precise pronunciation of several characters). The "most standard" accent is the accent of old aristocrats in Beijing(of Qing Dynasty), which could hardly be heard in Beijing today(After all, the population of old aristocrats is originally small). Some "Taiwan-like" accent, like pronouncing 和 as hàn when meaning "and", is originally the accent of these old aristocrats. The accent of current Taiwanese people is affected by dialects, that's for sure.

And listing all possible version of certain term is originally impossible. I'm a Shanghainese so I frequently mix some Shanghainese expression with my Mandarin. My friends, classmates and teachers(of course, the majority is Chinese. Yet there are some Japanese and Korean students) don't really find my speaking incomprehensible.

[Flickserve]

On 8/15/2024 at 5:19 AM, dakonglong said:

if someone were to say something to me in Taiwan-accented Mandarin today, I would probably just stand there looking confused.

Maybe at the beginning but after a month of daily exposure, you’ll be okay.

 

What do you think of the coach’s accent at 3.37 of this video and the player speaking at 5.00. Took me a few reviews to realise she was contracting the pronunciation of 現在.

 

https://youtu.be/UvVBd6Gms7k?si=GCI5y2z7LyxxROWp

[sanchuan]

On 8/26/2024 at 9:19 AM, Flickserve said:

Took me a few reviews to realise she was contracting the pronunciation of 現在.

That's just normal lenition though. Not specific to any one dialect or accent.

[dakonglong]

Just a quick update for anyone who is curious, or faced with the same situation.

 

Traditional Characters. I started out knowing exactly zero traditional characters, and I will admit, the task of learning them seemed pretty daunting at first. Thankfully, I have a Kinokuniya (Japanese bookstore chain that also carries Chinese books) near me, so I dropped in and picked up 30+ manga in traditional Chinese. I only had to read a few of them before I developed a foundation adequate for me to read normal books with the help of a dictionary. If you want to try this, I recommend the Dragon Ball manga (Tong Li Comics edition). The text is very clear and easy for Pleco image recognition to pick up, and most of the language in the early editions is surprisingly useful. Prior to that I read Demon Slayer, which, due to the drawing style, was much harder for Pleco to parse. This was frustrating at times when I couldn't make out a character, and neither could Pleco.

 

Taiwanese Accent. Because the internet told me that it was super popular show, I started off watching The Victim's Game on Netflix and I had serious difficulty understanding anything that was being said. Maybe this was because of the crime-related subject matter, I'm not really sure. When I told my teacher this, she recommended that I switch over to an older Taiwanese Idol Drama, so I chose Love Now! on Netflix, and so far it is 100x easier for me to understand (if anyone can speculate as to why this is, I would love to know). If real day-to-day communication sounds more like Love Now! And less like The Victim's Game I think I should be fine by the time I arrive with a bit more of the same types of preparation.

 

Long-story short, I was initially skeptical, but I think a month or two of study is enough to adapt to Taiwanese Mandarin.

[wibr]

Quote

I chose Love Now! on Netflix, and so far it is 100x easier for me to understand (if anyone can speculate as to why this is, I would love to know)

That was the main motivation for me to create the graded watching website linked above, to see which shows are easier than others. There are many factors which can contribute to the difficulty, but I think the main one is usually vocabulary and since both shows are on the list:

• The Victims' Game: 351 / 468

• Love, Now: 158 / 381

The first number indicates the number of new words per hour on average in the whole show, since "Love, Now" has much more eposides it's naturally much lower. But even if we only consider the first four hours, indicated by the second number, the number of new words introduced per hour is 20% less for "Love, Now". One of the easiest shows is actually 你的孩子不是你的孩子, if you like shows like Black Mirror.

[dakonglong]

On 8/28/2024 at 10:55 PM, wibr said:

That was the main motivation for me to create the graded watching website linked above, to see which shows are easier than others.

 

This is amazing, thank you! Also, as far as I can recall, The Victim's Game has relatively few words in the first episode (there's a lot of mood-setting and less talking) so I'd be curious to see what the ratio of unique words to total words is within the first four hours compared to other shows (versus just the number of unique words in the first 4hrs).

 

On 8/26/2024 at 12:19 AM, Flickserve said:

What do you think of the coach’s accent at 3.37 of this video and the player speaking at 5.00. Took me a few reviews to realise she was contracting the pronunciation of 現在.

 

Yeah, I listened to this a couple of times and all I can hear is the 现!

 

One of the things I find difficult about the accent is that it eliminates some of the more distinct syllables and just kind of "flattens" the range of the language. It makes it a bit harder to differentiate. For example, at 6:42 the announcer says 之下 but it sounds to me like "zhi sa" or "zhi sha" instead of "zhi shyia", the latter just seems like a more unique sound and easier to recognize (to me at least).