Taiwanese Today, Losing of Chinese Heritage Options

[progen]

Sometimes I feel that Taiwan, being detached from China for so long, is losing its "Chineseness"

I am not saying that Taiwan is going to be like Singapore. However, a lot of Taiwanese today speak poor Mandarin.

With the opening of Taiwan to China, this will eventually change. After all, Taiwan is a lot closer to China than Singapore.

This post has been edited by progen: Feb 7 2008, 10:20 PM

[Red Fox Ace]

However, a lot of Taiwanese today speak poor Mandarin.

Poor Mandarin? In what sense?

[progen]

There is the accent thing, which is understandable since Mandarin is not indigenous to Taiwan.

It is just the way how things are said. If you live in Beijing for a month, you will understand what I mean.

[riversouth]

^lol we use the zz alot but no mandarin is the official language, beijinese don't speak better mandarin than taiwanese.

it depends on the person growing up.

[Red Fox Ace]

There is the accent thing, which is understandable since Mandarin is not indigenous to Taiwan.

It is just the way how things are said. If you live in Beijing for a month, you will understand what I mean.

You're being a bit biased. An accent is no measure of the quality of the language. In fact I think that southern Chinese and Taiwanese speak smoother and more fluid Mandarin that doesn't have the thick nasal tone of people in Beijing..............Get what I'm saying? This is becoming a matter of personal preference.

[product_ako]

There is broadcast Mandarin. Which is standardized in the Mainland and Taiwan for people pursuing careers in broadcasting....
Local accents just take time getting use to.

Travel to English-speaking countries globally to see what passes for "English" this days.

Same goes for Mandarin. Travel the globe and it is quite shocking...

[progen]

Well, Singaporeans have a way of using " 粒" instead of "个" to describe things like apple, etc. Everything is "li".

I was shocked, but most people there don't know the difference.

Well, I really like Singapore nonetheless, so it does not make any difference.

[product_ako]

Do you love Singapore more than Taiwan?

[badparticle]

There is broadcast Mandarin. Which is standardized in the Mainland and Taiwan for people pursuing careers in broadcasting....
Local accents just take time getting use to.

Travel to English-speaking countries globally to see what passes for "English" this days.

Same goes for Mandarin. Travel the globe and it is quite shocking...

One only needs to travel to southern china. Geez. It's common sense.
And first of all the so-called Mandarin is not an just an artificial form of spoken chinese..its a mixed of everything. Also Mandarin in Taiwan has never been exactly Mandarin in China.
If you've seen the journalists and anchormen and anchorwomen on taiwanese TV, that's our Mandarin, which is understood by everybody except my grandma. It's their choice of words that are getting worse by day...or rather, their lack of choice of words.
If you want to know how Taiwanese Mandarin became what it is today you'd have to realize who were teaching and learning mandarin after 1949. The majority of teachers were from Sichuan, Hunan and Zejiang. and its very unlikely that their accents and understanding of Mandarin were uniform at all. The students were native Hoklo and Hakka speakers of course, since nobody spoke Mandarin before 1949.

Hoklo, among some other southern dialects, is close to the original language spoken by the ancient Han people.( less corrupted by the nomads who invaded and settled in northern China century after century). It used to be that an well-educated native Hoklo person could recite literary Chinese in Hoklo without any problem. It used to be that Japanese and Korean could do so too. Why not. The Kanji or Hanja were just symbols so they could pronounce it whatever they like. When I was learning Japanese I noticed the pronunciation of many words was so much easier if I could associate it with Hoklo than with Mandarin alone. Being aware that the Han characters can be pronounced differently helped. And I speak English too. So for me it's very fun to study Japanese.

[progen]

Do you love Singapore more than Taiwan?

Actually I like both, and felt comfortable in both places.

This post has been edited by progen: Feb 8 2008, 04:58 PM

[protocl]

worthless thread...