Taiwanese Question

[anonymoose]

Has anyone here actually learnt Taiwanese as a second language? Aren't the tone sandhi ridiculously complicated?

I think the lack of learning resources would make Taiwanese very difficult to learn compared with Mandarin.

[流]

Lu and adrianlondon, thanks for the info. I guess I try to pick up some Taiwanese greetings, but I'll focus 99%+ of my effort on Mandarin.

I'm also curious about Tainan; I guess because of the location, Taiwanese might be more prevalent...

And anonymoose, not only are the tones more complicated, but it does not really have a written system...

reading a bit more, I found this on this thread:

...since everyone knows Mandarin (except for when we went to the east coats Hualian...

So, that's kinda two different stories...

[anonymoose]

but it does not really have a written system

That's right, but that could be an advantage - less to learn (and in languages like Chinese, where the form of the characters don't represent their pronunciation, I wouldn't say learning the script is particularly helpful for learning the spoken language anyway).

[流]

True, but it helps to contribute to the lack of recources... If you didn't live in Taiwan, or an area with Taiwanese speakers, it would be amazingly difficult to learn it yourself I think.

Plus, knowing Kanji from Japanese has really helped me pick up some Chinese; if they didn't use hanzi, I would be worse off... So, I guess it was that mindset that cuased me to write that.

[Lu]

The tone sandhi are pretty straightforward (as far as I've learned them, which is not very far): every tone in a sentence changes, except the last one, and one tone always changes to one other tone (like, second tone always becomes fifth (made-up example)). The number of tones, however, is a problem, and the pronounciation is very difficult. At some point I could understand a few words of Taiwanese, but I never dared to speak it myself, as every time I tried I mispronounced something and it changed into maren de hua.

[bhchao]

I'm also curious about Tainan; I guess because of the location, Taiwanese might be more prevalent...

Taiwanese is the first language for most people in Tainan, although the language of instruction is Mandarin.

[Mugi]

Aren't the tone sandhi ridiculously complicated?

As Lu mentioned, the tone sandhi is regular, but the fact that it affects at least 80% of the syllables you produce means that it takes longer to get used to when speaking than with Mandarin where you really only have to think about two third tones in a row.

[anonymoose]

So what do the tone changes depend on? Does a particular change depend on, for example, the preceeding or following syllable?

Since the sandhi are so pervasive, I don't quite understand how it works in practice. I mean, if each change depends on the following syllable, right up to the end of the sentence, then surely you need to know what the last word you say will be before you even start talking...

[wix]

For the exact details of the tone changes see this from Wikipedia.

The last word of a sentence retains its original tone. Time words also generally retain their original tone regardless of their position in the sentence. I think often people's names retain the original tone, but I can't remember the exact details of that one.

[Mugi]

I don't quite understand how it works in practice. I mean, if each change depends on the following syllable, right up to the end of the sentence, then surely you need to know what the last word you say will be before you even start talking...

All you need to know is that there is a following syllable, so you only need to be aware one syllable ahead of what you're saying. E.g.

中 on its own is pronounced Tiong1, but in 中國 it changes to tone 7 (國 kok4 retains its regular tone). In 中國話, Tiong1 changes to tone 7 as before and this time 國 also changes (to tone 8 ), but 話 oe7 retains it's initial tone: 中國話 Tiong1->7 kok4->8 oe7.

Tone changes don't actually occur for every syllable right up to the end of the sentence - they occur on a phrase basis. E.g. 學台灣話無簡單, 唔過真趣味 Oh8->3 Tai5->7 oan5->7 oe7 / bo5->7 kan1->7 tan1 / m7->3 koh4 / chin1->7 chhu2->1 bi7 / (Mandarin: 學台灣話不簡單, 但是很有意思)

In addition to the time words mentioned by wix, some pronouns don't change either, along with the odd grammatical function word. There are other exceptions too, such as verb complements which tend be pronounced in a neutral (3rd) tone.

I think often people's names retain the original tone, but I can't remember the exact details of that one.

This is only true of a surname followed by 先生, otherwise names all change as well! (unless you're accentuating the pronunciation for clarity's sake).