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 (\u6377\u904b) is called \u5730\u9435, pineapple (\u9cf3\u68a8\uff09is called \u83e0\u863f, Potato \u99ac\u9234\u85af is called \u571f\u8c46 and so on. One thing I have found really interesting is how Taiwanese (Min language) also influences the mandarin spoken here. For example, \u5783\u573e (trash) is pronounced l\u00e8s\u00e8 as opposed to l\u0101j\u012b, and you can sometimes hear people use the word \u6709 as an auxiliary word in questions such as “\u4f60\u6709\u4f86\u904e\u53f0\u7063\u55ce\u201d\u3002<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading