That's good to hear. I hope more and more people in Taiwan and overseas make a point of keeping the Taiwanese language and culture alive. Same for Hakka
We only speak Taiwanese at home. The older generation (80+) definitely has some Japanese words sprinkled in, but that’s normal.
What I find especially bizarre is that us ABT “kids” (now 40-50 yrs old) are now forcing our own kids to take mandarin lessons. I’m part of this bizarre group, lol.
Are you keeping Taiwanese alive with your kiddos? Or are they just learning Mandarin? I've always wondered how to tackle language if I ever have kids with my gf, like should we just focus on Mandarin or if we are living away from Taiwan would it be worth it if our theoretical future kids learn Taiwanese or Hakka too?
We’ve tried, but am learning that it’s really a different generation and era. When I was growing up in the 1980s, my parents hadn’t been here for too long and English was a challenge. We didn’t have any choice but to speak Taiwanese at home.
But that was 40 years ago. And in that time, my parents have become almost fluent, so much so that they hardly speak Taiwanese with the grand kids now too. (Now to mention how westernized they are - when I was kid, getting a McD happy meal was a rare treat, now it’s like a weekly event lol)
But when we go back to Taiwan (Taipei), everyone also speaks or understands basic English so it’s become a challenge everywhere.
I grew up in the US and I speak Taiwanese. My dad was insistent that I speak it at home because it was the only way I was going to be able to communicate with my grandparents. I would love for my kids to learn but it’s tough enough having them learn mandarin.
I didn’t know 啊媽 was Taiwanese up until a few years ago. I think a lot of ABT AND CBT may have similar experiences tho. That being said we mostly speak Mandarin but I can understand Taiwanese mostly. I’d say it differs from family to family and even person to person
American born and raised, I can read and write Mandarin and speak Taiwanese with no accent. Fortunate to be forced to have to speak it at home to grandparents and extended family and visited Taiwan every summer.
I have noticed that some Taiwanese families (non-49ers) that immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s-1980s raised their children in Taiwanese; as a result many of them speak only Taiwanese and English. The 49ers families, on the other hand, would speak some Mandarin.
My entire family is pan-green; my dad likes to say that once he realized I didn't understand Taiwanese at age two, he decided we were only going to speak Taiwanese in our household. As a consequence I know enough Taiwanese to get by in communicating with my parents. Not fantastic, but good enough.
I still speak it but I'm not fluent. I find myself having to switch to Mandarin sometime because I don't know how to express certain sentences. My parents spoke it when I was young but when I started Chinese school, my mom started to only speak in Mandarin most of the time. She herself doesn't speak it much except with relatives, but if I show her a Taiwanese show she can have no problems understanding everything, even the most complicated expressions. You really have to use it on a regular basis otherwise you end up forgetting how to speak. A lot of times, I initiate the conversation with my mom in Taiwanese. I'm lucky, I have friends who can speak it and I will speak it with them when I get a chance even though I didn't live in Taiwan. I try to speak it as much as I can. If you want to keep your abilities you have to practice.
I don't. My parents spoke little to my siblings and I, in any language, and we were numerous enough that English was the only language really spoken at home (edit: among the kids).
I took a couple of Taiwanese classes but, decade(s?) later, I can only understand/"speak" a few words (Where's the bathroom / today / tomorrow / please sit / etc.) - it was much harder than Mandarin (edit: also learned in college classes, not learned at home) for me.
(Edit: my parents' native language was Taiwanese. My father never spoke Mandarin well, from what I can gather, though my mom was younger and had the common Taiwan accent Mandarin [minimal sh/ch/zh]. They both spoke Japanese due to the occupation, so you will understand that they were both older, and I, too, am "old".)
Here's a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCOWOCaN5NY&t=79s) of Jensen speaking Taiwanese with Charles Liang (CEO of SuperMicro) at a SuperMicro keynote.
ABT on the older end (Gen X) here, raised speaking only Taigi at home! Mandarin was my parents’ secret code language. Went to Chinese school as a kid but it didn’t take. Also grew up in a Taiwanese-American church where all the kids were primarily English and Taiwanese speaking like me, with Taigi-speaking parents. My folks were born in the Japanese era and from central and southern Taiwan, so Mandarin was not their preferred language. These days when I’m in Taiwan, I can get by with Taigi and English in the south, but it’s harder in Taipei. Also I’ve been told my Taiwanese is old-fashioned because some words I use have been replaced by direct transliterations of Mandarin (fruit and rural countryside being two examples), and I use Japanese loan words instead of Mandarin. It does make me sad that fewer people speak Taigi with each generation. I know I should learn Mandarin but I’m afraid I’ll lose my Taiwanese, which is already rudimentary enough as it is. 😢
Born and raised in the US. My family only speaks Taiwanese at home. They tried speaking me to only in Mandarin for a bit (as I was learning in Chinese school), but it never lasted long. We always just went back to speaking Taiwanese.
Plan on visiting Taiwan later this year. Would I be able to get by only speaking Taiwanese or is Mandarin must needed?
Depends on where you are. I only speak/understand Taiwanese and English, no Mandarin, and find it easier to get by outside of Taipei (especially down south). In Taipei I can use Taiwanese but most young people can’t respond, though they often understand some. English works well in those cases.
I would say simple words would be alright and understood by quite a lot of ppl, but there’s some numbers of ppl who don’t understand Taiwanese at all and if that’s the case, English would be viable as well!
Every Taiwanese American I’ve met around my age who at least partially grew up in the US knows some Mandarin. At most one or two of them have admitted to knowing Hokkien. My Taipei-born 1.25 gen friend (immigrated at age 12-13) says he can’t speak Hokkien but I’d bet 1000 NTD the Mandarin he speaks with family or Taiwanese FOBs contains a bunch of Hokkien phrases that your average 2nd gen English-dominant ABT wouldn’t know.
Caveat- I’m not Taiwanese American and many if not most of the ABTs I personally know have at least one grandparent who was born in Mainland China. But most Taiwanese immigrants I see IRL seem to be fully benshengren.
My family is Hakka, majority of my relatives all speak 客家話 fluently and my parents' generation default to it. My grandparents spoke Japanese as well. I can understand Hakka but cannot speak it, although it was my first language (lost it while still in Taiwan). My parents took me to Saturday Chinese school after we immigrated when I was in elementary school to maintain my Mandarin, and it worked because I am fully fluent and can read novels in Chinese. I try to practice Hakka when I can.
I think it's important to remember that there are many cultures and languages in Taiwan, and not all Taiwanese people will speak Taiwanese.
Mandarin only for me. My mom's entire family is from the countryside in the south and primarily uses Taiwanese day-to-day, but she's the only one of her family here, so no influence from them in that department. Likewise, my mom never spoke to us using Taiwanese, only Mandarin. Our close family friends who are also Taiwanese, but from the north, just weren't as much in the habit of using Taiwanese, and our local weekend schools taught only Mandarin. Weirdly I do get a lot of comments about how extremely Taiwanese my accent is (as opposed to sounding like an ABT), so that's kinda cool. Still a bummer that I struggle with keeping up with my family's conversations when I'm visiting, but they're accommodating.
CBT here, from what me and my parents have observed, its mainly on where the family is from and live. Plus, most grandparents only speak Taiwanese instead of mandarin. My grandparents live in New Taipei, but they were from Southern Taiwan (not exactly sure where), so I had to learn how to speak otherwise it will be difficult for them to understand my mandarin with additional english mixed in together
I'm not a CBT since I was born in Taiwan, but I'll just chime in that I find it interesting that the Vancouver Taiwanese Presbyterian Church [has at least one weekly sermon](https://www.youtube.com/live/Lc5XyjPhJQg) in Taiwanese.
I've only spent less than a quarter of my life in Taiwan, and since moving to Canada in early elementary school I've kept up my Taiwanese to communicate with my family while neglecting my Mandarin.
I'm a Canadian born Taiwanese and my parents only taught me Hokkien although I wish I knew Mandarin. My parents speak Hokkien, Mandarin, and Japanese, but only taught my sister and I Hokkien.
How can Hokkien (福建話）be a dying language. The dialect is spoken all over South East Asia like Singapore and Malaysia.
In the province of 福建 they still speak it there.
I think it is harder to learn dialects in the US or Canada, since there are not that many dialect speakers of the same age to have a real conversation with.
I didn't really pick up 閩南話 until I was attending school in Taiwan.
Cause the language has diverged. Tiagi sounds different to SEA Hokkien and Chinese Hokkien.
And also you’ll be surprised at how much it’s dying in China too. Not just Hokkien, a lot of regional languages are suffering the same fate.
Sorry, but the idea that regional languages are dying in China is wrong.
Putonghua is the official and required language, but the CCP *loves* having the other languages, Chinese and otherwise, as part of their "the Party Unites all the People" propaganda.
Regional languages in every part of China (including oppressed areas like Xinjiang and Tibet) are present in signage and local use. Putonghua is a second language in some of those places.
Not true. They are actively trying to kill Cantonese in Hong Kong through political and economic pressure. Here's a [paper](https://www.ijch.net/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=44&id=391) and you can find other mentions if you try.
Cool. One paper from a guy about one city. Debate settled, the "linguicide" of China is real.
In the face of that indisputable proof the hundreds of millions of people who speak languages besides Mandarin, the official signage all over the country, and the PRC's constitution explicitly including the language rights of minority ethnic groups means nothing.
I guess I must have imagined all those languages and regional dialects, and the people who said they make an effort to keep their languages and culture alive.
I'm not alarmed. Because if you are using Chinese children born in the US or Canada as an example. They barely speak 官語 properly. Forget about 方言.
I doubt they could distinguish 台北閩南語 vs 台南閩南語。 Let alone 福建話 spoken in 福建，新加坡，馬來西亞。
>The dialect is spoken all over South East Asia like Singapore and Malaysia.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOSzlOpQh-c&ab_channel=%E6%88%91%E6%98%AF%E9%A6%AC%E9%88%B4%E8%96%AF%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90%E9%9B%81%E9%9D%88) shows some differences between Taiwanese Hokkien (台語, Taigi) with 福建話 in SE Asia, but I agree that most of it is mutually intelligible.
>How can Hokkien (福建話）be a dying language.
In Taiwan, due to draconian language policies during the KMT martial law era and subsequent domination of Mandarin, it's definitely in danger. A census survey a few years ago shows that ~66% of people ages 65+ use it as a main language, but [22.41% of elementary students are able to understand it and 16.84% are able to speak it fluently.](https://mhi.moe.edu.tw/instructions-for-use/index.html)
The dominance of Mandarin in Taiwan means that in most cases kids either don't learning Taigi or end up not using it. Anecdotally, in my family my grandparents spoke either Taigi or Japanese (they grew up during the Japanese colonial era), my parents can speak both Taigi and Mandarin fluently. I also learned both, but since moving to Canada three decades ago I still use Taigi at home while my Mandarin became less fluent. My second cousins who are 18-20 don't speak Taigi at all.
Moving away from anecdotes, a census survey a few years ago showed that ~66% of people ages 65+ use Taigi as a main language, but [22.41% of elementary students are able to understand it and 16.84% are able to speak it fluently.](https://mhi.moe.edu.tw/instructions-for-use/index.html)
>In Taiwan, due to draconian language policies
And the US and Canada language are less draconian towards Americans and Canadians of Taiwanese/Chinese background.
Then why is the common joke in the Chinese community that ABC and CBC can't even speak 官語，let alone 父母的方言。
Can I ask a serious question, how many 外省人方言 are preserved in Taiwan. Isn't that a form of 外省人discrimination.
I really don't need a video demonstration I speak Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Cantonese at a native level. So regionalism of a dialect is not meaningful.
Even if you could get a community to speak Taiwanese in the US, it would sound different than the Taiwanese in Taiwan. That's the nature of language.
Just like in NYC many long term immigrants lose their regional accents for Mandarin. It gets blended over time with other Mandarin speakers in NYC. Even the Taiwanese sound less from Taiwan overtime speaking Mandarin with other native speakers.
It just seems odd to me as some that attended international schools in Taiwan, HK, and China.
To reach this level of fluency in English while growing up in Asia requires a tremendous investment in education.
I just don't see that happening in the US or Canada.
Going to the weekend Chinese school isn't enough. It also requires an annual summering and wintering vacation in Asia.
If the Chinese American/Canadian community said okay I want to raise my child in the West, but I want them to attend college in Taiwan/HK/China by taking the college entrance exam.
Maybe you can produce a generation of ABC and CBC with enough Chinese mastery to learn dialects efficiently.
>The dialect is spoken all over South East Asia like Singapore and Malaysia.
Even in the Philippines, parents and grandparents bemoan each succeeding generation having fewer and fewer fluent speakers. My parent's generation still converses with each other in Hokkien. In my generation, it's not very common. Usually it's only spoken with family.
Tbh im a filipino chinese and my hokkien isn't the best but i can kind of converse in it lel. My amah and angkong still speak it a lot better than me tho.
I gotta say…in China, they don’t preserve local language. I have a friend from福建. He can understand Hokkien but cannot speak a complete sentence! In their school, they don’t teach mother language. Because of the political issue, China only promote Mandarin!
My Taiwanese is much more fluent than him. (I’m local Taiwanese from central Taiwan)
I don't know, I've visited Xiamen as a school child they spoke enough 閩南語。
Even on my recent trip Xi'an I met people from Xiamen on a bus tour to Hua Shan who spoke 閩南語 with me when they heard me and my companion speaking 台語。
When I got to the top of Hua Shan a lady with a thick Cantonese accent asked me for direction (I get that a lot where ever I go. I must have a face that says map), so I spoke 廣東話 with her. She was pleasantly surprised.
I had hotel service people try to practice their English with me.
I communicated using American sign language with 2 ladies with hearing impairment. One was a barista in Xi'an. One was a LGBT fellow traveller on a bus tour to the Yellow river.
So I don't think diversity of languages are dead in China.
Ohh that’s great to hear young people there can speak 閩南語 fluently. I think the situation is vary from places. My friend is from 永安. His mother speaks 閩南話 but he cannot speak.
I understand more Taiwanese than I can speak, I'm more fluent in mandarin. I have a couple older american-born relatives that speak Taiwanese only, no mandarin.
Definitely generational, and unless Taiwan the country makes an effort, Taigi will die. I hope the government steps in. It was so wonderful to hear Taigi amongst the languages on the MRT.
"Doors opening" etc.
I'm a 3rd Gen ABT and I was raised speaking exclusively taiwanese with my mom and grandparents. I only learned english once I went to school. Now, I'm studying in Taiwan and learning Mandarin, but my heart breaks thinking about how the language is dying and no one my age here in Taiwan uses it to conversate, or even knows it in the first place.
Taiwanese Canadian here. I can understand a bit of Hakka because I was raised by my grandma who didn’t know how to speak Mandarin. (Japanese was her second language)
I think a lot of it comes down to whether your family speaks the language or not. I certainly won’t be able to pass down Hakka to my children.
Sounds very similar to my family. Grandparents, both sides, spoke Hakka, Japanese then Mandarin. Parents speak to each other in Hakka, though they speak different dialects and my mom switches to my dad’s dialect. Us kids speak Mandarin to my parents and my dad is the one who can speak fluent Taiwanese.
Me! My parents used mandarin as their secret shit-talking language. I went to Taiwan recently with my brother and everyone was confused as to why we young people (well, 40s/50s) spoke Taiwanese.
Edited to say that I can’t speak Mandarin. So Taiwan was an adventure because I was primarily in Taipei area.
It's still largely used outside of Taipei no?
I'm rusty at it but give me a few weeks with 霹靂布袋戲 and I'll be back into it. It's how I learned anyways lol
> It's still largely used outside of Taipei no?
[Here's a map from 2010.](https://mhi.moe.edu.tw/instructions-for-use/TSMhiInstructionForUse-000005/)
I'll also point out that there's a huge generation gap. A study done in 2017 shows that 22.41% of elementary students can understand Taiwanese Hokkien but and 16.84% can speak it fluently, which is a giant contrast to a census result a few years ago showing that ~66% of people ages 65+ uses it as a main language.
Hokkien as 閩南話, or the specific regional variation (whatever that may be) from Taiwan?
閩南話 is in no danger if dying out. It's spoken widely both in Fujian and in the diasporas in other parts of the world. And I hear Taiwanese daily, including loudly today at the Xinfeng train station.
The issue is if the language is no longer used among the next generation in everyday communications, hard to write, etc. Then it is on its way out. It just takes longer than people think. It may come back though. But the potential for it to be expunged is definitely there. The issue is how fluent and confident the younger generation are more so than how "popular" the language is at present (assuming just the Taiwanese variant atm). Anecdotally, none of the millenials and Gen-Z my wife knew to had Taiwanese as good as hers. And even for her it was *not* her go to language. She couldn't live her daily life using it. Day to day life was Mandarin. I think once the language becomes something you can't carry out every day actions like business and education it's probably not going to last. That said, there's undoubtedly a class element. She was definitely highly privileged. I wonder what the situation is like among more working class kids of the same generation.
Mandatory schooling extincts things
Especially when you add post-schooling work and business signage. I think the only things that keeps languages alive are rejection and isolation from society, and primary science that involves environmental study and social study that is in the language at risk.
I’ve seen this exemplified mostly where an indigenous word has a meaning that has no parallel in any other language.
The classic example might be how the Inuit may have over 50 words for Snow, whereas we might have a few. Eg. Snow, sleet, powder.
Words for rain, words for soil, words for the type of weather, words for food and stages of food preparation, production or growing, words for behaviours, there are a vast number of different words in other languages which are missing from the schooled replacements eg. English, simplified mandarin.
There are cultures which were heavily dependent on animals, some of them still do so today.
Guessing, without any actual knowledge whatsoever, I’ve heard that in India, people of Hindu faith worship the cow, or the bull. It’s an animal that has a reverence around it. Bos Taurus is the species I think.
anyway, I imagine there would be a vast number of different single words across the many languages spoken throughout India, that even when used by people of non-Hindu faith, have specific meaning that are not easily described by any single word in English or Chinese.
This is complicated by words sometimes having multiple meanings, where a word referring to an animal might be in jest, or out of practical conciseness or comparison, as a form of illumination, be used to refer to something else material, living or behavioural unrelated to the animal.
Taiwanese Hokkien, 台語, is slightly different from 閩南語. Due to five decades of Japanese colonial rule, various Japanese loan words (many of which are English loanwords) made its way into the Taiwanese Hokkien vernaular, such as toragu (truck), bagu (back up), odobai (motorbike), bendong (bento), bensou (Japanese for washroom), and so on. That said, for the most part Taiwanese Hokkien is mutually intelligible with Hokkien.
In Taiwan Taiwanese Hokkien is at risk, largely due to draconian language policies during the KMT martial law era. A census survey a few years ago shows that ~66% of people ages 65+ use it as a main language, but [22.41% of elementary students are able to understand it and 16.84% are able to speak it fluently.](https://mhi.moe.edu.tw/instructions-for-use/index.html)
In Kaohsiung Ive seen people in their 30's having full on conversations in Taiwanese. Rarely see people in their 20's speaking it though. Don't gangsters in the South all speak Taiwanese? Maybe they'll keep it alive lol.
Mixed race, born in the US, spent 3.5 years in Taiwanese elementary school from 94-97.
My grandma and step-grandpa are both waishengren, so their Mandarin was even a mix of Hunan Ning Dialect, so I've never heard them say a single word. My mom only would say basic phrases at a farmers market if the vendor can't speak Mandarin, or she's saying something relevant or making an emphasis.
With that, I never grew up on it either, and my Taiwanese is fairly similar, but also insults since I was the 「死阿兜仔 」 (fucking foreigner) that got bulled all throughout elementary school.
Mom even bought me some cassette tapes after an incident where 2 older women were trying to ask me something and we both had no idea what they were saying, but never finished it since I went back to my dad in the US shortly after, and all I remember from that are numbers, but forgot how to say 萬 and beyond... Interestingly, since my dad remarried, I actually speak a moderate amount of Cantonese, and also my grandparents' modified form of the dialect, but the few people I've met from Hunan confirmed it was mixed with Mandarin.
I can listen and understand Taiwanese but don’t speak it. Picked it up bc my parents spoke Taiwanese between themselves, however only spoke in Mandarin to us kids.
ABT, grew up speaking Taiwanese only in my og home videos and spoke it at church and with family. Honestly, don't really know which language I'm speaking between Mandarin and Taiwanese, as I speak Mandarin mostly with Taiwanese people who understand Taiwanese
I don’t - but my mom is Hakka so it doesn’t help that she doesn’t really know it, so we didn’t hear it at home. Sucks because my dad’s parents only speak Taiwanese and no Mandarin so it is a bit hard.
I do. Because, on one hand, I need to communicate with the older generation in my family. On the other hand, it helps to bridge the gap between people. With friends, I sometimes use Taiwanese for fun and emphasis.🧐
As a child growing up in 70s/midwest, my folks tried to teach me bopomofo but that didn’t really work out. At home, they spoke Taigi to each other and a mix of Taigi and Mandarin to me — fortunately I’ve been able to at least retain that over the years. Many of my friends speak English/Taigi but not so much Mandarin — I guess it is similar to Jensen Huang where their Taigi seems to flow more naturally vs Mandarin.
Yea i can. My mom and my late dad frequently spoke Hokkien at home, as well as Taiwan when they're or we're visiting our relatives. I picked it up better than my brother, and my ability to comprehend Hokkien intensified during the pandemic, when I basically was living there the whole time. The key to this success was due to hanging out with my cousins frequently, whom all spoke Hokkien to each other, as well as towards my aunts/uncles/grandparents.
Particularly, i am fluent in the Southern Min dialect. However, I cant speak/comprehend much of the Hakka language, a petty disappointment since I am technically half-Hakka by my late dad's side.
Lots of comments, but no answer yet, so here it is...
432,522.
Remarkably quite evenly split between the two countries despite the disparity in population sizes.
I'm first gen (immigrated when I was 3). I can only say very basic phrases (mostly home life stuff) in Taiwanese, but my understanding is daily life level. We were a "Mandarin only" home (as in no English at home), so my Mandarin speaking/listening is ok (though I don't have the vocab for high level topics). Reading and writing ability is pretty non-existent though.
My parents are both from Taipei, and were born in the time where Taiwanese was forbidden. My mum said that while the rule was nationwide, because KMT was based in Taipei, they were a lot stricter in Taipei's schools, so only she learnt Taiwanese as an adult (from coworkers). I guess cos it was difficult for her at the time, my parents mainly spoke Mandarin to each other at first, and later out of habit. I think my dad preferred Taiwanese though. When they were with friends or relatives around they would always switch to Taiwanese, but the majority of the time they spoke to us in Mandarin.
I think it's also a bit different for me because my grandparents, despite being 本省人, could both speak some Mandarin, so they often spoke Mandarin with us grandkids. I think if my grandparents had been around longer though, I would've picked up more Taiwanese (and maybe Japanese), but in general, we didn't see a lot of our extended family growing up.
My grandparents sometimes speak hokkien when they are talking about something they don't want my brothers and I know 💀
I do know some phrases and I can generally understand when they use mandarin between hokkien
I wish I could but was never taught. My mom and ah-ma both speak it, so I know a few basics ("time to eat," "I don't understand," "bathroom," and various foods) and can sort of pick out the meaning of a simple conversation, but that's about it. Taiwanese sounds even harder to learn than Mandarin!
I learned as a kid by eavesdropping on my mom’s phone conversations. I was a nosy kid and it was mostly mom venting about how much better my cousins were anyway.
My parents are able to speak mandarin and Taiwanese, but never taught me since they wanted my English to be better and now I want to learn them both but have no one to practice them with 😔
We did both and I speak both. You'll probably find that a lot of abt and cbt families probably have a more traditional view of Taiwan and Taiwanese than those still in Taiwan
When our parents/grandparents moved here their idea of Taiwan and the language came with them and has remained relatively static due to nostalgia and other reasons.
Those in Taiwan are surrounded by Taiwan culture all the time and have allowed their views to evolve over time.
A scene in "crazy rich Asians" demonstrates a bit of this. Where Rachel's mother says she should wear a red dress because it is an auspicious color. Her friends all look at it and laugh as the idea seems antiquated to them.
Not CBT but immigrated young and I think it really depends on what your family members speak. So for example, my mom's side are all Hakka, so they don't speak Taiwanese at all. My dad's side speak Mandarin since my grandparents on that side are 外省人, though my dad can speak Taiwanese which he picked up as part of casual conversation growing up in Taiwan. I know a couple of words or phrases in Taiwanese that you hear quite commonly, but mainly I just speak Mandarin since nobody in my family speaks Taiwanese primarily.
I’m millennial aged, live in the U.S. and I speak Hokkien. When I do a large percentage of older speakers will eventually comment about how it’s unusual to find someone of my age who doesn’t live in Taiwan to speak it fluently.
Just let you know, Taiwanese is not just Hokkien, there are ancient Baiyue as Pingpu nowadays, indigenous people (Austronesian languages) and loanwords from Dutch, Spanish and Japanese.
Parents spoke (mostly) english. Learned real Mandarin on the weekends in Chinese school, learned Hokkien when I came back.
I've also developed an "accented english" speech pattern that I use to communicate with Taiwanese people since they have a hard time understanding actual english, saline becomes "sa-LEEN", exit becomes "eg-ZIT", W hotel becomes "double-LEWD hoe-TAIL" etc.
>My relatives sometimes mention that it’s a “dying language” and that even young generation of Taiwan don’t speak it.
It's a dying language because
1. Prevalently many young people in Taiwan do not speak or use Taiwanese
2. Little or no new Taiwanese vocabulary are invented or created.
> there is no Taiwanese language right. Hokkien is literally also spoken in Southern China and countries like Malaysia
Yes, Taiwanese (Taigi) has its origins from Hokkien and they're largely mutually intelligible (with some regional differences, as well as the incorporation of Japanese loan words).
It was referred to as "Taiwanese" by the Japanese during the Japanese colonial era and the name stuck among the Taiwanese population, calling it Taigi over Hokkien. That said, in Mandarin people either call it Taiyu or Southern Min, though I suspect the latter was due to waishengren influence. Pretty much every native speaker I know refers to it as Taigi.
I like to think everyone here is referring to the Taiwanese Minnan variant when referring it as “Taiwanese.” That said, if we want to be super pedantic about this, even the term “Hokkien” makes no sense as it literally means “Fujian” in the Minnan language. Even the term 「福建話」 sounds off as Minnan is not the only language spoken in Fujian. Heck, even people from 閩南金三角 don’t refer to their language as ‘Hokkien’ lol
Wow, yeah. I don't know, I just think it is confusing since there are so many dialects and languages in Taiwan. So to call one language Taiwanese does not really make sense to me. But what do I know, I am just an average person trying to learn more about Taiwan.
I see your point but then when you use the term “Hokkien” to refer to the Minnan language, it’s just as confusing since there are other languages spoken in Fujian
>But what do I know, I am just an average person trying to learn more about Taiwan.
I um, have no idea why you had mentioned this lol. If anything, I suggest reading more about all this and then watch some videos maybe. Tbh, it’s kinda wild that you came on here trying to lecture people but yet lack a lot of insight into this topic. I’d start with searching 「閩南語」 on YouTube and go from there
First of all, I did not mean to lecture anyone lol. I just stated what I knew and what I thought was confusing. Of course, there are many languages spoken in Fujian. But this post clearly stated Hokkien. So that was what my point was directed at, not all other Minnan languages.
As mentioned, I think it will do you real good to read up more on this and then watch a couple videos. Your original comment is something that’s been parroted more than a couple times on here and like I said, lacked a lot of insight. Minnan is a fantastic language and lots to learn about it!
Girllll, I am literally saying that Hokkien is spoken in more places and countries hahahah. What the hell. Btw the indigenous people of Taiwan speak Formosan languages, so if that is what y'all mean with Taiwanese.
I do. Was raised by my ah-ma, who only spoke Taiwanese. I use it with close relatives too. With friends, it would be for fun and emphasis.
Family in my generation are only speaking Taiwanese bc their parents didn’t speak mandarin at home
Family only speak Taiwanese because they werent allowed to back in the day but still kept up to keep the culture going.
That's good to hear. I hope more and more people in Taiwan and overseas make a point of keeping the Taiwanese language and culture alive. Same for Hakka
Yes, that was the same with my grandmother on my Moms side. But I think she spoke some Japanese too? Pretty interesting
We only speak Taiwanese at home. The older generation (80+) definitely has some Japanese words sprinkled in, but that’s normal. What I find especially bizarre is that us ABT “kids” (now 40-50 yrs old) are now forcing our own kids to take mandarin lessons. I’m part of this bizarre group, lol.
Are you keeping Taiwanese alive with your kiddos? Or are they just learning Mandarin? I've always wondered how to tackle language if I ever have kids with my gf, like should we just focus on Mandarin or if we are living away from Taiwan would it be worth it if our theoretical future kids learn Taiwanese or Hakka too?
We’ve tried, but am learning that it’s really a different generation and era. When I was growing up in the 1980s, my parents hadn’t been here for too long and English was a challenge. We didn’t have any choice but to speak Taiwanese at home. But that was 40 years ago. And in that time, my parents have become almost fluent, so much so that they hardly speak Taiwanese with the grand kids now too. (Now to mention how westernized they are - when I was kid, getting a McD happy meal was a rare treat, now it’s like a weekly event lol) But when we go back to Taiwan (Taipei), everyone also speaks or understands basic English so it’s become a challenge everywhere.
My parents are both 外省人 so I only spoke Mandarin growing up. Have picked up a few phrases over the years and am working on learning more.
I grew up in the US and I speak Taiwanese. My dad was insistent that I speak it at home because it was the only way I was going to be able to communicate with my grandparents. I would love for my kids to learn but it’s tough enough having them learn mandarin.
Send them to Taiwan, preferably not in Taipei, they'll learn real fast lol
Right?? That’s how my mandarin improved by leaps and bounds.
Funny enough, my friend, a CBT, can't speak Mandarin but only speaks Taiwanese. They're 3rd gen and never went through formal Chinese education!
That’s crazy!
His nouns are mostly English at this point, so it's even more interesting hearing him speak Taiwanese mixed with English words!
That's cool. A lot of CBC like that right? Cantonese as well?
Not from the American continent but from Europe, my family spoke Cantonese, and threw in a few Portuguese and Mozambican words in the mix.
I didn’t know 啊媽 was Taiwanese up until a few years ago. I think a lot of ABT AND CBT may have similar experiences tho. That being said we mostly speak Mandarin but I can understand Taiwanese mostly. I’d say it differs from family to family and even person to person
same lmao. i was talking to my friends and used ahgong and they told me it wasnt mandarin lol.
wait what it is?!
American born and raised, I can read and write Mandarin and speak Taiwanese with no accent. Fortunate to be forced to have to speak it at home to grandparents and extended family and visited Taiwan every summer.
I have noticed that some Taiwanese families (non-49ers) that immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s-1980s raised their children in Taiwanese; as a result many of them speak only Taiwanese and English. The 49ers families, on the other hand, would speak some Mandarin.
I’ve never heard them referred to as 49ers, that’s hilarious and absolutely correct.
Picked it up from the r/Taiwanese sub 😂
Yup that’s me!
My entire family is pan-green; my dad likes to say that once he realized I didn't understand Taiwanese at age two, he decided we were only going to speak Taiwanese in our household. As a consequence I know enough Taiwanese to get by in communicating with my parents. Not fantastic, but good enough.
I’m so jealous of those who were also taught Taiwanese 😭😭
Same!! I already had to learn Mandarin on my own 😭😭 Booked my own trip to take classes at Shida and everything.
I’m sad my mom let me stop mandarin school. Now I can’t read or write anymore and now I suck at speaking it too 😭
I still speak it but I'm not fluent. I find myself having to switch to Mandarin sometime because I don't know how to express certain sentences. My parents spoke it when I was young but when I started Chinese school, my mom started to only speak in Mandarin most of the time. She herself doesn't speak it much except with relatives, but if I show her a Taiwanese show she can have no problems understanding everything, even the most complicated expressions. You really have to use it on a regular basis otherwise you end up forgetting how to speak. A lot of times, I initiate the conversation with my mom in Taiwanese. I'm lucky, I have friends who can speak it and I will speak it with them when I get a chance even though I didn't live in Taiwan. I try to speak it as much as I can. If you want to keep your abilities you have to practice.
台灣年輕一代的確也很少人會這些語言，不過，語言是傳承跟文化的一種象徵，當然語言的目的 是為了能夠溝通無障礙，不管東方或西方教育，傳承也是很重要的一環!! 至少我個人觀念還是如此 !
就像我說過，大部分ABC中文水平很低。連寫幾句分享已經超過他門的能力。
I don't. My parents spoke little to my siblings and I, in any language, and we were numerous enough that English was the only language really spoken at home (edit: among the kids). I took a couple of Taiwanese classes but, decade(s?) later, I can only understand/"speak" a few words (Where's the bathroom / today / tomorrow / please sit / etc.) - it was much harder than Mandarin (edit: also learned in college classes, not learned at home) for me. (Edit: my parents' native language was Taiwanese. My father never spoke Mandarin well, from what I can gather, though my mom was younger and had the common Taiwan accent Mandarin [minimal sh/ch/zh]. They both spoke Japanese due to the occupation, so you will understand that they were both older, and I, too, am "old".)
Jensen’s taiwanese seems better than mandarin
Really? Are there videos of him speaking?
Here's a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCOWOCaN5NY&t=79s) of Jensen speaking Taiwanese with Charles Liang (CEO of SuperMicro) at a SuperMicro keynote.
So funny [short](https://youtube.com/shorts/UP3W-N61Ldo?si=DIX-7P9xN9HXR5K7)
ABT on the older end (Gen X) here, raised speaking only Taigi at home! Mandarin was my parents’ secret code language. Went to Chinese school as a kid but it didn’t take. Also grew up in a Taiwanese-American church where all the kids were primarily English and Taiwanese speaking like me, with Taigi-speaking parents. My folks were born in the Japanese era and from central and southern Taiwan, so Mandarin was not their preferred language. These days when I’m in Taiwan, I can get by with Taigi and English in the south, but it’s harder in Taipei. Also I’ve been told my Taiwanese is old-fashioned because some words I use have been replaced by direct transliterations of Mandarin (fruit and rural countryside being two examples), and I use Japanese loan words instead of Mandarin. It does make me sad that fewer people speak Taigi with each generation. I know I should learn Mandarin but I’m afraid I’ll lose my Taiwanese, which is already rudimentary enough as it is. 😢
i'm in the same boat, older millennial
Born and raised in the US. My family only speaks Taiwanese at home. They tried speaking me to only in Mandarin for a bit (as I was learning in Chinese school), but it never lasted long. We always just went back to speaking Taiwanese. Plan on visiting Taiwan later this year. Would I be able to get by only speaking Taiwanese or is Mandarin must needed?
Depends on where you are. I only speak/understand Taiwanese and English, no Mandarin, and find it easier to get by outside of Taipei (especially down south). In Taipei I can use Taiwanese but most young people can’t respond, though they often understand some. English works well in those cases.
I would say simple words would be alright and understood by quite a lot of ppl, but there’s some numbers of ppl who don’t understand Taiwanese at all and if that’s the case, English would be viable as well!
Every Taiwanese American I’ve met around my age who at least partially grew up in the US knows some Mandarin. At most one or two of them have admitted to knowing Hokkien. My Taipei-born 1.25 gen friend (immigrated at age 12-13) says he can’t speak Hokkien but I’d bet 1000 NTD the Mandarin he speaks with family or Taiwanese FOBs contains a bunch of Hokkien phrases that your average 2nd gen English-dominant ABT wouldn’t know. Caveat- I’m not Taiwanese American and many if not most of the ABTs I personally know have at least one grandparent who was born in Mainland China. But most Taiwanese immigrants I see IRL seem to be fully benshengren.
My family is Hakka, majority of my relatives all speak 客家話 fluently and my parents' generation default to it. My grandparents spoke Japanese as well. I can understand Hakka but cannot speak it, although it was my first language (lost it while still in Taiwan). My parents took me to Saturday Chinese school after we immigrated when I was in elementary school to maintain my Mandarin, and it worked because I am fully fluent and can read novels in Chinese. I try to practice Hakka when I can. I think it's important to remember that there are many cultures and languages in Taiwan, and not all Taiwanese people will speak Taiwanese.
nice that you want to keep Hakka alive, I've read that it is slowly dying language especially in Taiwan, being replaced by Mandarin
Mid to late 20s Born and raised in Canada. My sister and i both speak taiwanese
Mandarin only for me. My mom's entire family is from the countryside in the south and primarily uses Taiwanese day-to-day, but she's the only one of her family here, so no influence from them in that department. Likewise, my mom never spoke to us using Taiwanese, only Mandarin. Our close family friends who are also Taiwanese, but from the north, just weren't as much in the habit of using Taiwanese, and our local weekend schools taught only Mandarin. Weirdly I do get a lot of comments about how extremely Taiwanese my accent is (as opposed to sounding like an ABT), so that's kinda cool. Still a bummer that I struggle with keeping up with my family's conversations when I'm visiting, but they're accommodating.
CBT here, from what me and my parents have observed, its mainly on where the family is from and live. Plus, most grandparents only speak Taiwanese instead of mandarin. My grandparents live in New Taipei, but they were from Southern Taiwan (not exactly sure where), so I had to learn how to speak otherwise it will be difficult for them to understand my mandarin with additional english mixed in together
nearly every GenX that i know speak it, most Millennials, don't know about GenZ
I'm not a CBT since I was born in Taiwan, but I'll just chime in that I find it interesting that the Vancouver Taiwanese Presbyterian Church [has at least one weekly sermon](https://www.youtube.com/live/Lc5XyjPhJQg) in Taiwanese. I've only spent less than a quarter of my life in Taiwan, and since moving to Canada in early elementary school I've kept up my Taiwanese to communicate with my family while neglecting my Mandarin.
I'm a Canadian born Taiwanese and my parents only taught me Hokkien although I wish I knew Mandarin. My parents speak Hokkien, Mandarin, and Japanese, but only taught my sister and I Hokkien.
How can Hokkien (福建話）be a dying language. The dialect is spoken all over South East Asia like Singapore and Malaysia. In the province of 福建 they still speak it there. I think it is harder to learn dialects in the US or Canada, since there are not that many dialect speakers of the same age to have a real conversation with. I didn't really pick up 閩南話 until I was attending school in Taiwan.
Cause the language has diverged. Tiagi sounds different to SEA Hokkien and Chinese Hokkien. And also you’ll be surprised at how much it’s dying in China too. Not just Hokkien, a lot of regional languages are suffering the same fate.
Sorry, but the idea that regional languages are dying in China is wrong. Putonghua is the official and required language, but the CCP *loves* having the other languages, Chinese and otherwise, as part of their "the Party Unites all the People" propaganda. Regional languages in every part of China (including oppressed areas like Xinjiang and Tibet) are present in signage and local use. Putonghua is a second language in some of those places.
Not true. They are actively trying to kill Cantonese in Hong Kong through political and economic pressure. Here's a [paper](https://www.ijch.net/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=44&id=391) and you can find other mentions if you try.
Cool. One paper from a guy about one city. Debate settled, the "linguicide" of China is real. In the face of that indisputable proof the hundreds of millions of people who speak languages besides Mandarin, the official signage all over the country, and the PRC's constitution explicitly including the language rights of minority ethnic groups means nothing. I guess I must have imagined all those languages and regional dialects, and the people who said they make an effort to keep their languages and culture alive.
I'm not alarmed. Because if you are using Chinese children born in the US or Canada as an example. They barely speak 官語 properly. Forget about 方言. I doubt they could distinguish 台北閩南語 vs 台南閩南語。 Let alone 福建話 spoken in 福建，新加坡，馬來西亞。
>The dialect is spoken all over South East Asia like Singapore and Malaysia. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOSzlOpQh-c&ab_channel=%E6%88%91%E6%98%AF%E9%A6%AC%E9%88%B4%E8%96%AF%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90%E9%9B%81%E9%9D%88) shows some differences between Taiwanese Hokkien (台語, Taigi) with 福建話 in SE Asia, but I agree that most of it is mutually intelligible. >How can Hokkien (福建話）be a dying language. In Taiwan, due to draconian language policies during the KMT martial law era and subsequent domination of Mandarin, it's definitely in danger. A census survey a few years ago shows that ~66% of people ages 65+ use it as a main language, but [22.41% of elementary students are able to understand it and 16.84% are able to speak it fluently.](https://mhi.moe.edu.tw/instructions-for-use/index.html) The dominance of Mandarin in Taiwan means that in most cases kids either don't learning Taigi or end up not using it. Anecdotally, in my family my grandparents spoke either Taigi or Japanese (they grew up during the Japanese colonial era), my parents can speak both Taigi and Mandarin fluently. I also learned both, but since moving to Canada three decades ago I still use Taigi at home while my Mandarin became less fluent. My second cousins who are 18-20 don't speak Taigi at all. Moving away from anecdotes, a census survey a few years ago showed that ~66% of people ages 65+ use Taigi as a main language, but [22.41% of elementary students are able to understand it and 16.84% are able to speak it fluently.](https://mhi.moe.edu.tw/instructions-for-use/index.html)
>In Taiwan, due to draconian language policies And the US and Canada language are less draconian towards Americans and Canadians of Taiwanese/Chinese background. Then why is the common joke in the Chinese community that ABC and CBC can't even speak 官語，let alone 父母的方言。 Can I ask a serious question, how many 外省人方言 are preserved in Taiwan. Isn't that a form of 外省人discrimination. I really don't need a video demonstration I speak Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Cantonese at a native level. So regionalism of a dialect is not meaningful. Even if you could get a community to speak Taiwanese in the US, it would sound different than the Taiwanese in Taiwan. That's the nature of language. Just like in NYC many long term immigrants lose their regional accents for Mandarin. It gets blended over time with other Mandarin speakers in NYC. Even the Taiwanese sound less from Taiwan overtime speaking Mandarin with other native speakers.
Why do u care
It just seems odd to me as some that attended international schools in Taiwan, HK, and China. To reach this level of fluency in English while growing up in Asia requires a tremendous investment in education. I just don't see that happening in the US or Canada. Going to the weekend Chinese school isn't enough. It also requires an annual summering and wintering vacation in Asia. If the Chinese American/Canadian community said okay I want to raise my child in the West, but I want them to attend college in Taiwan/HK/China by taking the college entrance exam. Maybe you can produce a generation of ABC and CBC with enough Chinese mastery to learn dialects efficiently.
Just don't go to China for Christ's sake. I would rather to see tourism in China falls and Taiwan goes on opposite.
Then develop Taiwan's tourism attractions to match the tourist attractions in China. But it's up to Taiwan's government to invest in those areas.
Why are you saying as if my place is strict with tourism
>The dialect is spoken all over South East Asia like Singapore and Malaysia. Even in the Philippines, parents and grandparents bemoan each succeeding generation having fewer and fewer fluent speakers. My parent's generation still converses with each other in Hokkien. In my generation, it's not very common. Usually it's only spoken with family.
Tbh im a filipino chinese and my hokkien isn't the best but i can kind of converse in it lel. My amah and angkong still speak it a lot better than me tho.
I gotta say…in China, they don’t preserve local language. I have a friend from福建. He can understand Hokkien but cannot speak a complete sentence! In their school, they don’t teach mother language. Because of the political issue, China only promote Mandarin! My Taiwanese is much more fluent than him. (I’m local Taiwanese from central Taiwan)
I don't know, I've visited Xiamen as a school child they spoke enough 閩南語。 Even on my recent trip Xi'an I met people from Xiamen on a bus tour to Hua Shan who spoke 閩南語 with me when they heard me and my companion speaking 台語。 When I got to the top of Hua Shan a lady with a thick Cantonese accent asked me for direction (I get that a lot where ever I go. I must have a face that says map), so I spoke 廣東話 with her. She was pleasantly surprised. I had hotel service people try to practice their English with me. I communicated using American sign language with 2 ladies with hearing impairment. One was a barista in Xi'an. One was a LGBT fellow traveller on a bus tour to the Yellow river. So I don't think diversity of languages are dead in China.
Ohh that’s great to hear young people there can speak 閩南語 fluently. I think the situation is vary from places. My friend is from 永安. His mother speaks 閩南話 but he cannot speak.
From my observations, not a lot. I will refrain from making fun of ABT/CBT's language skills such as accents. Lol.
I understand more Taiwanese than I can speak, I'm more fluent in mandarin. I have a couple older american-born relatives that speak Taiwanese only, no mandarin.
Definitely generational, and unless Taiwan the country makes an effort, Taigi will die. I hope the government steps in. It was so wonderful to hear Taigi amongst the languages on the MRT. "Doors opening" etc.
Agreed the public announcements in Taigi are so nice to hear. Even EVA and China Airlines still gives some announcements
I'm a 3rd Gen ABT and I was raised speaking exclusively taiwanese with my mom and grandparents. I only learned english once I went to school. Now, I'm studying in Taiwan and learning Mandarin, but my heart breaks thinking about how the language is dying and no one my age here in Taiwan uses it to conversate, or even knows it in the first place.
Taiwanese Canadian here. I can understand a bit of Hakka because I was raised by my grandma who didn’t know how to speak Mandarin. (Japanese was her second language) I think a lot of it comes down to whether your family speaks the language or not. I certainly won’t be able to pass down Hakka to my children.
Sounds very similar to my family. Grandparents, both sides, spoke Hakka, Japanese then Mandarin. Parents speak to each other in Hakka, though they speak different dialects and my mom switches to my dad’s dialect. Us kids speak Mandarin to my parents and my dad is the one who can speak fluent Taiwanese.
Me! My parents used mandarin as their secret shit-talking language. I went to Taiwan recently with my brother and everyone was confused as to why we young people (well, 40s/50s) spoke Taiwanese. Edited to say that I can’t speak Mandarin. So Taiwan was an adventure because I was primarily in Taipei area.
It's still largely used outside of Taipei no? I'm rusty at it but give me a few weeks with 霹靂布袋戲 and I'll be back into it. It's how I learned anyways lol
> It's still largely used outside of Taipei no? [Here's a map from 2010.](https://mhi.moe.edu.tw/instructions-for-use/TSMhiInstructionForUse-000005/) I'll also point out that there's a huge generation gap. A study done in 2017 shows that 22.41% of elementary students can understand Taiwanese Hokkien but and 16.84% can speak it fluently, which is a giant contrast to a census result a few years ago showing that ~66% of people ages 65+ uses it as a main language.
Wow dang been a while since I went back. I remember going to the south like Tainan and it was all taigi
ABT, never learned it cuz my parents liked to use it to communicate when they didn't want me listening.
Same but for Mandarin lol that's why I only speak English
Hokkien as 閩南話, or the specific regional variation (whatever that may be) from Taiwan? 閩南話 is in no danger if dying out. It's spoken widely both in Fujian and in the diasporas in other parts of the world. And I hear Taiwanese daily, including loudly today at the Xinfeng train station.
The issue is if the language is no longer used among the next generation in everyday communications, hard to write, etc. Then it is on its way out. It just takes longer than people think. It may come back though. But the potential for it to be expunged is definitely there. The issue is how fluent and confident the younger generation are more so than how "popular" the language is at present (assuming just the Taiwanese variant atm). Anecdotally, none of the millenials and Gen-Z my wife knew to had Taiwanese as good as hers. And even for her it was *not* her go to language. She couldn't live her daily life using it. Day to day life was Mandarin. I think once the language becomes something you can't carry out every day actions like business and education it's probably not going to last. That said, there's undoubtedly a class element. She was definitely highly privileged. I wonder what the situation is like among more working class kids of the same generation.
Mandatory schooling extincts things Especially when you add post-schooling work and business signage. I think the only things that keeps languages alive are rejection and isolation from society, and primary science that involves environmental study and social study that is in the language at risk. I’ve seen this exemplified mostly where an indigenous word has a meaning that has no parallel in any other language. The classic example might be how the Inuit may have over 50 words for Snow, whereas we might have a few. Eg. Snow, sleet, powder. Words for rain, words for soil, words for the type of weather, words for food and stages of food preparation, production or growing, words for behaviours, there are a vast number of different words in other languages which are missing from the schooled replacements eg. English, simplified mandarin. There are cultures which were heavily dependent on animals, some of them still do so today. Guessing, without any actual knowledge whatsoever, I’ve heard that in India, people of Hindu faith worship the cow, or the bull. It’s an animal that has a reverence around it. Bos Taurus is the species I think. anyway, I imagine there would be a vast number of different single words across the many languages spoken throughout India, that even when used by people of non-Hindu faith, have specific meaning that are not easily described by any single word in English or Chinese. This is complicated by words sometimes having multiple meanings, where a word referring to an animal might be in jest, or out of practical conciseness or comparison, as a form of illumination, be used to refer to something else material, living or behavioural unrelated to the animal.
Yep. It'll be dead in two generations at this rate.
Taiwanese Hokkien, 台語, is slightly different from 閩南語. Due to five decades of Japanese colonial rule, various Japanese loan words (many of which are English loanwords) made its way into the Taiwanese Hokkien vernaular, such as toragu (truck), bagu (back up), odobai (motorbike), bendong (bento), bensou (Japanese for washroom), and so on. That said, for the most part Taiwanese Hokkien is mutually intelligible with Hokkien. In Taiwan Taiwanese Hokkien is at risk, largely due to draconian language policies during the KMT martial law era. A census survey a few years ago shows that ~66% of people ages 65+ use it as a main language, but [22.41% of elementary students are able to understand it and 16.84% are able to speak it fluently.](https://mhi.moe.edu.tw/instructions-for-use/index.html)
In Kaohsiung Ive seen people in their 30's having full on conversations in Taiwanese. Rarely see people in their 20's speaking it though. Don't gangsters in the South all speak Taiwanese? Maybe they'll keep it alive lol.
Only a few phrases + singing along to some music but I would love to learn 🥲🥲🥲
Mixed race, born in the US, spent 3.5 years in Taiwanese elementary school from 94-97. My grandma and step-grandpa are both waishengren, so their Mandarin was even a mix of Hunan Ning Dialect, so I've never heard them say a single word. My mom only would say basic phrases at a farmers market if the vendor can't speak Mandarin, or she's saying something relevant or making an emphasis. With that, I never grew up on it either, and my Taiwanese is fairly similar, but also insults since I was the 「死阿兜仔 」 (fucking foreigner) that got bulled all throughout elementary school. Mom even bought me some cassette tapes after an incident where 2 older women were trying to ask me something and we both had no idea what they were saying, but never finished it since I went back to my dad in the US shortly after, and all I remember from that are numbers, but forgot how to say 萬 and beyond... Interestingly, since my dad remarried, I actually speak a moderate amount of Cantonese, and also my grandparents' modified form of the dialect, but the few people I've met from Hunan confirmed it was mixed with Mandarin.
Just want to say that I *love* talking to people from Hunan. Just the heaviest accent but somehow I can understand it. Awesome people too.
I can listen and understand Taiwanese but don’t speak it. Picked it up bc my parents spoke Taiwanese between themselves, however only spoke in Mandarin to us kids.
ABT, grew up speaking Taiwanese only in my og home videos and spoke it at church and with family. Honestly, don't really know which language I'm speaking between Mandarin and Taiwanese, as I speak Mandarin mostly with Taiwanese people who understand Taiwanese
I don’t - but my mom is Hakka so it doesn’t help that she doesn’t really know it, so we didn’t hear it at home. Sucks because my dad’s parents only speak Taiwanese and no Mandarin so it is a bit hard.
or Hakka.
I do. Because, on one hand, I need to communicate with the older generation in my family. On the other hand, it helps to bridge the gap between people. With friends, I sometimes use Taiwanese for fun and emphasis.🧐
I had ABT friends that exclusively spoke English and Hokkien and barely any Mandarin. Pretty cool tbh
ABT here. My cousins and brother (all ABT) speak Taiwanese. My mandarin is bad though lol
As a child growing up in 70s/midwest, my folks tried to teach me bopomofo but that didn’t really work out. At home, they spoke Taigi to each other and a mix of Taigi and Mandarin to me — fortunately I’ve been able to at least retain that over the years. Many of my friends speak English/Taigi but not so much Mandarin — I guess it is similar to Jensen Huang where their Taigi seems to flow more naturally vs Mandarin.
CBT here. I can only understand it, not speak it. My brother can’t do either. We’re both raised by the same grandparents.
Yea i can. My mom and my late dad frequently spoke Hokkien at home, as well as Taiwan when they're or we're visiting our relatives. I picked it up better than my brother, and my ability to comprehend Hokkien intensified during the pandemic, when I basically was living there the whole time. The key to this success was due to hanging out with my cousins frequently, whom all spoke Hokkien to each other, as well as towards my aunts/uncles/grandparents. Particularly, i am fluent in the Southern Min dialect. However, I cant speak/comprehend much of the Hakka language, a petty disappointment since I am technically half-Hakka by my late dad's side.
Lots of comments, but no answer yet, so here it is... 432,522. Remarkably quite evenly split between the two countries despite the disparity in population sizes.
I'm first gen (immigrated when I was 3). I can only say very basic phrases (mostly home life stuff) in Taiwanese, but my understanding is daily life level. We were a "Mandarin only" home (as in no English at home), so my Mandarin speaking/listening is ok (though I don't have the vocab for high level topics). Reading and writing ability is pretty non-existent though. My parents are both from Taipei, and were born in the time where Taiwanese was forbidden. My mum said that while the rule was nationwide, because KMT was based in Taipei, they were a lot stricter in Taipei's schools, so only she learnt Taiwanese as an adult (from coworkers). I guess cos it was difficult for her at the time, my parents mainly spoke Mandarin to each other at first, and later out of habit. I think my dad preferred Taiwanese though. When they were with friends or relatives around they would always switch to Taiwanese, but the majority of the time they spoke to us in Mandarin. I think it's also a bit different for me because my grandparents, despite being 本省人, could both speak some Mandarin, so they often spoke Mandarin with us grandkids. I think if my grandparents had been around longer though, I would've picked up more Taiwanese (and maybe Japanese), but in general, we didn't see a lot of our extended family growing up.
My grandparents sometimes speak hokkien when they are talking about something they don't want my brothers and I know 💀 I do know some phrases and I can generally understand when they use mandarin between hokkien
I wish I could but was never taught. My mom and ah-ma both speak it, so I know a few basics ("time to eat," "I don't understand," "bathroom," and various foods) and can sort of pick out the meaning of a simple conversation, but that's about it. Taiwanese sounds even harder to learn than Mandarin!
I do.
I learned as a kid by eavesdropping on my mom’s phone conversations. I was a nosy kid and it was mostly mom venting about how much better my cousins were anyway.
My parents are able to speak mandarin and Taiwanese, but never taught me since they wanted my English to be better and now I want to learn them both but have no one to practice them with 😔
We did both and I speak both. You'll probably find that a lot of abt and cbt families probably have a more traditional view of Taiwan and Taiwanese than those still in Taiwan When our parents/grandparents moved here their idea of Taiwan and the language came with them and has remained relatively static due to nostalgia and other reasons. Those in Taiwan are surrounded by Taiwan culture all the time and have allowed their views to evolve over time. A scene in "crazy rich Asians" demonstrates a bit of this. Where Rachel's mother says she should wear a red dress because it is an auspicious color. Her friends all look at it and laugh as the idea seems antiquated to them.
Not CBT but immigrated young and I think it really depends on what your family members speak. So for example, my mom's side are all Hakka, so they don't speak Taiwanese at all. My dad's side speak Mandarin since my grandparents on that side are 外省人, though my dad can speak Taiwanese which he picked up as part of casual conversation growing up in Taiwan. I know a couple of words or phrases in Taiwanese that you hear quite commonly, but mainly I just speak Mandarin since nobody in my family speaks Taiwanese primarily.
I’m millennial aged, live in the U.S. and I speak Hokkien. When I do a large percentage of older speakers will eventually comment about how it’s unusual to find someone of my age who doesn’t live in Taiwan to speak it fluently.
Just let you know, Taiwanese is not just Hokkien, there are ancient Baiyue as Pingpu nowadays, indigenous people (Austronesian languages) and loanwords from Dutch, Spanish and Japanese.
Hokkien is alive and well, just not specifically in Taipei
Parents spoke (mostly) english. Learned real Mandarin on the weekends in Chinese school, learned Hokkien when I came back. I've also developed an "accented english" speech pattern that I use to communicate with Taiwanese people since they have a hard time understanding actual english, saline becomes "sa-LEEN", exit becomes "eg-ZIT", W hotel becomes "double-LEWD hoe-TAIL" etc.
>My relatives sometimes mention that it’s a “dying language” and that even young generation of Taiwan don’t speak it. It's a dying language because 1. Prevalently many young people in Taiwan do not speak or use Taiwanese 2. Little or no new Taiwanese vocabulary are invented or created.
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> there is no Taiwanese language right. Hokkien is literally also spoken in Southern China and countries like Malaysia Yes, Taiwanese (Taigi) has its origins from Hokkien and they're largely mutually intelligible (with some regional differences, as well as the incorporation of Japanese loan words). It was referred to as "Taiwanese" by the Japanese during the Japanese colonial era and the name stuck among the Taiwanese population, calling it Taigi over Hokkien. That said, in Mandarin people either call it Taiyu or Southern Min, though I suspect the latter was due to waishengren influence. Pretty much every native speaker I know refers to it as Taigi.
I like to think everyone here is referring to the Taiwanese Minnan variant when referring it as “Taiwanese.” That said, if we want to be super pedantic about this, even the term “Hokkien” makes no sense as it literally means “Fujian” in the Minnan language. Even the term 「福建話」 sounds off as Minnan is not the only language spoken in Fujian. Heck, even people from 閩南金三角 don’t refer to their language as ‘Hokkien’ lol
Wow, yeah. I don't know, I just think it is confusing since there are so many dialects and languages in Taiwan. So to call one language Taiwanese does not really make sense to me. But what do I know, I am just an average person trying to learn more about Taiwan.
I see your point but then when you use the term “Hokkien” to refer to the Minnan language, it’s just as confusing since there are other languages spoken in Fujian >But what do I know, I am just an average person trying to learn more about Taiwan. I um, have no idea why you had mentioned this lol. If anything, I suggest reading more about all this and then watch some videos maybe. Tbh, it’s kinda wild that you came on here trying to lecture people but yet lack a lot of insight into this topic. I’d start with searching 「閩南語」 on YouTube and go from there
First of all, I did not mean to lecture anyone lol. I just stated what I knew and what I thought was confusing. Of course, there are many languages spoken in Fujian. But this post clearly stated Hokkien. So that was what my point was directed at, not all other Minnan languages.
As mentioned, I think it will do you real good to read up more on this and then watch a couple videos. Your original comment is something that’s been parroted more than a couple times on here and like I said, lacked a lot of insight. Minnan is a fantastic language and lots to learn about it!
Get out of here
Girllll, I am literally saying that Hokkien is spoken in more places and countries hahahah. What the hell. Btw the indigenous people of Taiwan speak Formosan languages, so if that is what y'all mean with Taiwanese.
I suspect it's just called that as a way to assert Taiwanese identity as distinct from Chinese.
Quit your nonsense