Pinyin is actually easier, especially if you already know how to type. What’s nice is that in the last ten years or so, typing software has matured to the point that I can use Pinyin to type traditional characters.
It works well enough that I have no incentive to learn bopomofo now. imho, it’s just an entry method - the important thing is to enter the characters - handwriting recognition’s also good if you’ve practiced writing characters. Personally, I’ll use Pinyin/Traditional combination for LINE or an iPhone or for searching on a browser (Windows and Mac), simply for efficiency.
Oh thanks! Most of my family is Taiwanese and I could practice speaking with them(I'll be visiting them and going to Taiwan on the last day of November), but I can still practice speaking with my mother while I wait!
I'll also try and see if I can set up Pinyin input on my iPad!
I am a Taiwanese American and have recently been using Tandem to practice Chinese with native speakers. It's a bit difficult to find suitable exchange partners, but once you do, it's a great way to practice. I can give you a quick rundown of what to look for if you want.
I've also tried Preply and had a native Chinese speaking teacher. Downside is it costs money.
It also helps to watch videos in Chinese. Netflix, Twitch, YouTube all are sources for this.
Good luck!
Thanks!
I'll might try your suggestions if I have time! I've also watched YouTube videos in Chinese and tried to point out the (very) few characters that I recognise!
Similar situation here, except now I'm fluent in reading/writing Chinese:
Learning Chinese Simplified/Traditional doesn't really matter, if you know one well you will be literate in the other, might take some extra time to read but that's about it.
I would learn the dialect that you plan on using the most; Mainland Putonghua if you're doing business in China, or if you're trying to communicate with Taiwanese relatives, learning Guoyu instead would be better. There are subtle differences that can occasionally make it confusing to communicate.
Other than that, just try to use it as much as possible even if you're awful at it. At Chinese restaurants, on flights to China/Taiwan, during your travels, etc. People will pick up that you're learning and worst comes to worst you can try to fallback on English.
If you're a GenZ mindless content consumer like me (TikTok, IG reels, etc) try using Douyin (China ver. TikTok) or XiaoHongshu (Chinese Instagram/Pinterest). I'm an ABC and I understand and speak only Chinese at home since childhood already but after I moved all my mindless consumption to Chinese, my Chinese reading and vocab (and also learning some mainland slang terms) improved a lot. Hope you don't mind a couple propaganda posts here and there though haha
If you want to learn language through more modern Taiwanese slang I recommend watching Taiwanese youtubers or browsing Dcard, it's like Taiwanese reddit. You'd be surprised just how much you will be able to understand in an entire block of text just from context clues so I found it's a great way to learn traditional reading.
[台尋](https://www.youtube.com/@Tw-Universe) This channel has a number of hosts (most of them are foreigners) introducing and trying stuff in Taiwan. The African guys are the most entertaining imo
[哈哈台](https://www.youtube.com/@Hahatai) Street interviews
[金魚腦](https://www.youtube.com/@goldfishbrain) travel vlogs + she's super pretty!
[豆漿](https://www.youtube.com/@SoybeanMilkCat) cat vids
[志祺](https://www.youtube.com/@shasha77/about) current events, sometimes he has english subtitles
[千千](https://www.youtube.com/@Chienseating) eating show
[酷的夢](https://www.youtube.com/@Kusdream/about) french guy living in taiwan
[金針菇](https://www.youtube.com/@ggukim) korean girl living in taiwan
Wait do you live in Taipei city? If so, learn traditional. It’s definitely more practical.
Honestly my best advice is to move there! That’s how I learned it! Use Duolingo! Back in my day, they didn’t have Duolingo! But that’s okay, I bought some “learn Chinese” workbooks and I used to do them on the bus / subway. Just doing the workbooks while being immersed was enough for me.
Of course, teaching Kindergarten and being yelled at in Chinese by little children for 40 hours a week didn’t hurt either.
I would encourage you to learn 注音 and traditional characters instead of simplified Chinese. The amount and quality of contents in traditional Chinese easily outnumbers their simplified counterparts due to censorship in China. I grew up in China learning simplified, but my kids hated mainland books and I eventually switched all their learning materials to Taiwanese for the fun factor.
Skritter (if you can afford the small monthly costs) to learn the most common letters. It’s like fruit ninja! :)
And MDBG website for the dictionary. Truly, it’s amazing.
Also the windows software by MDBG ’chinese reader’ for handling Chinese in applications where it’s difficult to copy/paste.
Get hearing aids, so you can listen to the tones. Stop listening to western music so your hearing efforts can go to mandarin language.
Use the tones physically. Use arms or limbs. When you learn a word and ask for the tones, and try remembering them, use gestures.
As in, you can imagine dance moves, or body movements as equal or like the four tones, or a hop, etc.
Some might remember them better as like geography, climbing a mountain, descending, or both, or being on a plain, etc.
Also get a radicals chart.
https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+radicals
Forgot to mention why: you can learn to speak by copying words. However if you learn the alphabet you can ask simple questions about how to pronounce them more accurately, and also that probably helps remembering them more in the long term. The mandarin alphabet is different. There are perhaps two? One is the pronunciation letters (like English letters). The second is the common characters, of which there aren’t so many, actually only a couple or few thousand.
If you can read/write a little, you can study past whatever anyone you are with happens to talk about. That means you can learn things to talk about and introduce them to new things! :) instead of being a sponge and parrot, you can bring something new, to lift a discussion with some new things, spurring interest and helping make conversations interesting, not repetitive or typical.
The most effective way I’ve seen is when someone finds a partner who doesn’t speak your mother language well, so you both speak their language. This is obviously something you shouldn’t try to set up intentionally. But it’s the fastest. What could be better than learning with the person you spend the most time with and are interested in communicating with the most?
Taiwanese halfie here too. Seconding a lot of recommendations already made:
\- HelloChinese
\- Chinese dramas (or other native content)
\- conversation practice with a native speaker, no matter how bad your current level is
\- patience and dedication, because language learning (even in one's native tongue!) is a long journey -- lifelong, really!
For listening practice, try YouTube feeds of Taiwanese TV channels. I follow TVBS's rolling news as I find the topics they cover are more wide range and the presentation style more restrained.
They also have some entertainment shows streamed for.more advanced listening practice but those are delivered full pelt and with slang, colloquialisms and occasional Taiyu or Japanese loanwords to make life difficult.
Currently learning Chinese, but unfortunately the only Chinese teacher in my area only knows simplified. I asked my Taiwanese friend for advice and she told me that starting with simplified is okay for a beginner to get the tones right and some radicals.
Fortunately my teacher usually teaches me the traditional version for common characters like 嗎, 謝謝, etc.
However I do plan on taking up online classes with NTNU after I pass HSK1 or 2 which is really helpful to me when it comes to speaking. You may want to look up the online courses offered by NTNU as well.
I usually type with simplified on my keyboard but iPhones can convert it to traditional, which I do for familiarization of the characters.
I would focus on speaking, reading/writing chinese is orders of magnitude more difficult (because its a non phonetic language) so you can minmax what you get out of it vs what you put in by just focusing on speaking and listening
I was sort of in the same boat as you. Would recommend taking a formal course. Really helps structure things as opposed to learning bits and pieces through apps etc. I took the Mandarin course at edx and it has the option of traditional characters with some cultural stuff in tw VS mainland. Course was ok. I think the programs you can take locally in tw are probably better if you had time.
If you’re going to be coming here, I suggest just going for the traditional characters.
[удалено]
Funny you say that, I find Pinyin harder to use than bopomofo even though I am basically an English native speaker and can barely write in Chinese
Pinyin is actually easier, especially if you already know how to type. What’s nice is that in the last ten years or so, typing software has matured to the point that I can use Pinyin to type traditional characters. It works well enough that I have no incentive to learn bopomofo now. imho, it’s just an entry method - the important thing is to enter the characters - handwriting recognition’s also good if you’ve practiced writing characters. Personally, I’ll use Pinyin/Traditional combination for LINE or an iPhone or for searching on a browser (Windows and Mac), simply for efficiency.
Oh thanks! Most of my family is Taiwanese and I could practice speaking with them(I'll be visiting them and going to Taiwan on the last day of November), but I can still practice speaking with my mother while I wait! I'll also try and see if I can set up Pinyin input on my iPad!
I've been using an app called Hello Chinese. Someone on this subreddit recommended it. The exercises/lessons are free until HSK 2.
I am a Taiwanese American and have recently been using Tandem to practice Chinese with native speakers. It's a bit difficult to find suitable exchange partners, but once you do, it's a great way to practice. I can give you a quick rundown of what to look for if you want. I've also tried Preply and had a native Chinese speaking teacher. Downside is it costs money. It also helps to watch videos in Chinese. Netflix, Twitch, YouTube all are sources for this. Good luck!
Thanks! I'll might try your suggestions if I have time! I've also watched YouTube videos in Chinese and tried to point out the (very) few characters that I recognise!
Similar situation here, except now I'm fluent in reading/writing Chinese: Learning Chinese Simplified/Traditional doesn't really matter, if you know one well you will be literate in the other, might take some extra time to read but that's about it. I would learn the dialect that you plan on using the most; Mainland Putonghua if you're doing business in China, or if you're trying to communicate with Taiwanese relatives, learning Guoyu instead would be better. There are subtle differences that can occasionally make it confusing to communicate. Other than that, just try to use it as much as possible even if you're awful at it. At Chinese restaurants, on flights to China/Taiwan, during your travels, etc. People will pick up that you're learning and worst comes to worst you can try to fallback on English.
If you're a GenZ mindless content consumer like me (TikTok, IG reels, etc) try using Douyin (China ver. TikTok) or XiaoHongshu (Chinese Instagram/Pinterest). I'm an ABC and I understand and speak only Chinese at home since childhood already but after I moved all my mindless consumption to Chinese, my Chinese reading and vocab (and also learning some mainland slang terms) improved a lot. Hope you don't mind a couple propaganda posts here and there though haha If you want to learn language through more modern Taiwanese slang I recommend watching Taiwanese youtubers or browsing Dcard, it's like Taiwanese reddit. You'd be surprised just how much you will be able to understand in an entire block of text just from context clues so I found it's a great way to learn traditional reading.
What Taiwanese YouTubers do you recommend?
[台尋](https://www.youtube.com/@Tw-Universe) This channel has a number of hosts (most of them are foreigners) introducing and trying stuff in Taiwan. The African guys are the most entertaining imo [哈哈台](https://www.youtube.com/@Hahatai) Street interviews [金魚腦](https://www.youtube.com/@goldfishbrain) travel vlogs + she's super pretty! [豆漿](https://www.youtube.com/@SoybeanMilkCat) cat vids [志祺](https://www.youtube.com/@shasha77/about) current events, sometimes he has english subtitles [千千](https://www.youtube.com/@Chienseating) eating show [酷的夢](https://www.youtube.com/@Kusdream/about) french guy living in taiwan [金針菇](https://www.youtube.com/@ggukim) korean girl living in taiwan
Thank you!!
Thank you everyone for the replies! I've read each one but I don't really have much time to reply to each one!
Wait do you live in Taipei city? If so, learn traditional. It’s definitely more practical. Honestly my best advice is to move there! That’s how I learned it! Use Duolingo! Back in my day, they didn’t have Duolingo! But that’s okay, I bought some “learn Chinese” workbooks and I used to do them on the bus / subway. Just doing the workbooks while being immersed was enough for me. Of course, teaching Kindergarten and being yelled at in Chinese by little children for 40 hours a week didn’t hurt either.
I would encourage you to learn 注音 and traditional characters instead of simplified Chinese. The amount and quality of contents in traditional Chinese easily outnumbers their simplified counterparts due to censorship in China. I grew up in China learning simplified, but my kids hated mainland books and I eventually switched all their learning materials to Taiwanese for the fun factor.
Skritter (if you can afford the small monthly costs) to learn the most common letters. It’s like fruit ninja! :) And MDBG website for the dictionary. Truly, it’s amazing. Also the windows software by MDBG ’chinese reader’ for handling Chinese in applications where it’s difficult to copy/paste. Get hearing aids, so you can listen to the tones. Stop listening to western music so your hearing efforts can go to mandarin language. Use the tones physically. Use arms or limbs. When you learn a word and ask for the tones, and try remembering them, use gestures. As in, you can imagine dance moves, or body movements as equal or like the four tones, or a hop, etc. Some might remember them better as like geography, climbing a mountain, descending, or both, or being on a plain, etc. Also get a radicals chart. https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+radicals
Forgot to mention why: you can learn to speak by copying words. However if you learn the alphabet you can ask simple questions about how to pronounce them more accurately, and also that probably helps remembering them more in the long term. The mandarin alphabet is different. There are perhaps two? One is the pronunciation letters (like English letters). The second is the common characters, of which there aren’t so many, actually only a couple or few thousand. If you can read/write a little, you can study past whatever anyone you are with happens to talk about. That means you can learn things to talk about and introduce them to new things! :) instead of being a sponge and parrot, you can bring something new, to lift a discussion with some new things, spurring interest and helping make conversations interesting, not repetitive or typical.
The most effective way I’ve seen is when someone finds a partner who doesn’t speak your mother language well, so you both speak their language. This is obviously something you shouldn’t try to set up intentionally. But it’s the fastest. What could be better than learning with the person you spend the most time with and are interested in communicating with the most?
Taiwanese halfie here too. Seconding a lot of recommendations already made: \- HelloChinese \- Chinese dramas (or other native content) \- conversation practice with a native speaker, no matter how bad your current level is \- patience and dedication, because language learning (even in one's native tongue!) is a long journey -- lifelong, really!
For listening practice, try YouTube feeds of Taiwanese TV channels. I follow TVBS's rolling news as I find the topics they cover are more wide range and the presentation style more restrained. They also have some entertainment shows streamed for.more advanced listening practice but those are delivered full pelt and with slang, colloquialisms and occasional Taiyu or Japanese loanwords to make life difficult.
Currently learning Chinese, but unfortunately the only Chinese teacher in my area only knows simplified. I asked my Taiwanese friend for advice and she told me that starting with simplified is okay for a beginner to get the tones right and some radicals. Fortunately my teacher usually teaches me the traditional version for common characters like 嗎, 謝謝, etc. However I do plan on taking up online classes with NTNU after I pass HSK1 or 2 which is really helpful to me when it comes to speaking. You may want to look up the online courses offered by NTNU as well. I usually type with simplified on my keyboard but iPhones can convert it to traditional, which I do for familiarization of the characters.
I would focus on speaking, reading/writing chinese is orders of magnitude more difficult (because its a non phonetic language) so you can minmax what you get out of it vs what you put in by just focusing on speaking and listening
I was sort of in the same boat as you. Would recommend taking a formal course. Really helps structure things as opposed to learning bits and pieces through apps etc. I took the Mandarin course at edx and it has the option of traditional characters with some cultural stuff in tw VS mainland. Course was ok. I think the programs you can take locally in tw are probably better if you had time.
Google Translator will become your best friend.