The more time I spend in Taiwan, the more I realize how much more Chinese I have to learn. In a conversation I had with a friend, we compared many differences in the words used between the mandarin spoken in China and in Taiwan. For instance, in China, the MRT system (捷運) is called 地鐵, pineapple (鳳梨）is called 菠蘿, Potato 馬鈴薯 is called 土豆 and so on. One thing I have found really interesting is how Taiwanese (Min language) also influences the mandarin spoken here. For example, 垃圾 (trash) is pronounced lèsè as opposed to lājī, and you can sometimes hear people use the word 有 as an auxiliary word in questions such as “你有來過台灣嗎”。
At this point in my studies, I am no longer intimidated by traditional characters, but actually find them exciting! I would even say that I am more used to seeing traditional characters now that when I read a text in simplified characters, it takes me a second to readjust.
As the summer session draws towards an end, I look forward to the fall semester to not only continue improving on my writing and reading abilities, but more importantly, to continue to improve my speaking and listening skills, especially in picking up the local dialect.