An Expatriate in Taiwan

Tag: Taiwanese

  • Small victories

    One of the greatest and most underrated joys of learning a new language is have small victories. All too often, big victories are emphasized – especially here in Taiwan and especially when learning English is the topic. However, I find so much more satisfaction in small victories. Learning new [hanzi]漢字[/hanzi] and recognizing them on tv,…

  • Someone wants us to have kids

    In Taiwan, it is common to eat sweet foods on and after your wedding day. It is thought that eating sweet food will help the newlywed couple have a baby boy. The reason is a Taiwanese proverb: [hanzi]吃甜甜，生兒子[/hanzi]。 ([pinyin]chi1 tian2tian2, sheng1 er2zi4[/pinyin]) It doesn’t sound as good in Mandarin, but it rhymes in Taiwanese ([pinyin]jia…

  • Speaking in numbers

    Laowai Chinese recently made a post about numbers in everyday Chinese language in mainland China. I thought I would take the concept and apply it to Taiwan. Most of these are used when instant messaging friends or sending text messages. A few of them, like 4, 6, and 8 are pretty well integrated to everyday…

  • Beat It…. in Taiwanese!

    Miss Expatriate showed me this video the other day. It’s a Taiwanese version of Michael Jackson’s Beat It. Obviously, it doesn’t have quite the same meaning and the beat it slightly different too, but you can definitely notice the similarity. If anyone’s learning Taiwanese, I’m sure you’ll find this entertaining.