Learn Taiwanese Language and Standard Mandarin Chinese Phonology Online

Do you want to learn Taiwanese Language? Do you know Taiwanese language and script? Taiwanese is important etymologically because when we compare the pronunciation of character phonetics in Taiwanese we sometimes find that they are closer than in Mandarin. Learn Taiwanese Language and Standard Mandarin Chinese Phonology Online today.

Taiwanese Language and Script Review

Taiwanese is an important language as far as Chinese Etymology is concerned and as far as China is concerned. However, Mandarin is not native to Taiwan, yet it is the national language of Taiwan’s citizens.

In Chinese it is referred to technically as MinNanHua 閩南話 Southern Min Language It is spoken in Southern FuJian 福建 province and in Taiwan. It is often referred to as TaiWanHua 台灣話 Taiwanese Language or XiaMenHua 厦門話 Amoy Language. Amoy (XiaMen) is the main Chinese coastal city in FuJian where this language is spoken. It is also called TaiYu 台語 Taiwanese. It is not understandable by Mandarin speakers who have never been exposed to it. I estimates that about 80% of Taiwanese has the same etymology as Mandarin, but with very significant phonetic shifts.

Written Mandarin can be read in Taiwanese, but it is a very stilted and does not reflect the grammatical structure of real spoken Taiwanese. Unlike Cantonese, Taiwanese in most cases did not invent new characters. When there is a Taiwanese word which has no Mandarin equivalent, they usually took Mandarin characters which when pronounced in Taiwanese would sounded like the Taiwanese word in question. Some characters will be used in places with the usual Mandarin meaning and other characters will be used for the sound. The average Mandarin will not understand written Taiwanese.

MinBeiHua 閩北話 Northern Min Language is the other dialect spoken in FuJian, and is quite different from MinNan.

FuZhouHua 福州話 is spoken in FuZhou and is also very different. Many of the Chinese emigrants to South East Asia came from ChaoZhou in southern Fukin and speak a language called ChaoJouHua 潮州話 CaoJou is similar to and for the most part understandable by Taiwanese.

Taiwanese is important etymologically because when we compare the pronunciation of character phonetics in Taiwanese we sometimes find that they are closer than in Mandarin.

Taiwanese has 7 tones. The teaching materials say 8, but this is so that the saying of all the tones will sound more fluent. There are 2337 unique syllabic utterances in Taiwanese. The database of syllabic utterances was done by Sharry Wu

The language with the most native speakers in Taiwan is Mandarin Chinese followed by Taiwanese Hokkien, or “Taiwanese” for short. Hokkien is a topolect of the Chinese family of languages originating in southern Fujian and is spoken by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. Recently there has been a growing use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media.

Book References:

台灣話大詞典 閩南話漳泉二腔系部份 by ChenShou 陳修 主編
Probably the most extensive Taiwanese to Chinese dictionary
used for my Taiwanese syllabic database.

By the way, My mandarin language skill is far from perfect. I need fluent Chinese mandarin speakers to help me with conversation and listening. In exchange of course the help with English will be offered. Photographies appreciated.

Questions: What is the significance of Standard Chinese phonology and what information about this topic is available online? – Some answers may be found in this site as well as suggestions for locating additional info on Standard Chinese phonology.