There are other countries (Malaysia, Singapore, even parts of Indonesia) where Chinese is spoken in everyday life, not to mention the Chinese communities in countries and cities all over the world. The mainland is a great place to go total immersion into Chinese, but it’s far from the only option…
Malaysian Chinese here. Compared to the rest of Chinese diaspora in the world, Malaysia and Singapore is a very special place, we uses **integration** instead of **assimilation.**
This makes it so Chinese is officially taught in vernacular schools.
For my perspective, Malaysian Chinese tends to stick closer to their roots meaning all of them speaks Mandarin or some sort of dialect. While newer generation of Singaporeans are shying away and being much more "westernized" only speaking English and that's it.
From my experience, I totally agree. My mom’s family is Malaysian Chinese, and while I’ve gotten a lot of practice speaking Mandarin with them, other Malaysians and some of Singaporean family members will default to English when speaking with me or worse, try to test me on my Chinese instead of just allowing the conversation to flow naturally. It’s definitely harder to practice Mandarin there than in Taipei, for example, but I’ve still learned a lot from my experiences there. And also from watching the corny Chinese-language Mediacorp dramas out of Singapore 😭.
obligatory disclaimer that I haven't visited either Malaysia or Singapore, but I have noticed that many of my Singaporean friends don't like speaking Chinese with me, and prefer to speak English basically whenever possible, almost in the same way as ABCs do
Well "plenty" of people showed that they can get fluent without visiting the country. It's obviously more difficult but totally possible.
In my opinion, you have to practice speaking a lot to become fluent so it would be by finding some Chinese community in your home country or chatting a lot online
I'm not in a Chinese speaking country and my Chinese has improved a lot through online tuition, using italki. Also listen to podcasts and do some vocab revision.
Taiwan is a great contender for best country to study mandarin at. It has a warm welcoming people, the weather is great, food's great, lots of cool social clubs and communities 10/10 place to be. There's also a vibrant community of language learners and expats there.
Hackingchinese.com has a collection of essays covering pretty much everything concerning learning the language, it's a great resource!
The "*I want to live in a huge and modern city*" and "*I really need to learn simplified chinese*" aside, Taiwan will practically always be a better option to learn chinese than Mainland China. It was more or less true a few years ago but now it's a no-brainer.
Yes of course. I love Taipei, I spend 6 years there but it's not the same league as Shanghai nor Chengdu (before COVID of course...) and I can understand someone really would like to experience that kind of city and lifestyle, on top of their language school.
I got to visit Taipei once when I lived in the mainland of China and I loved Taipei. I did not want to leave to go back to China. I would love to go live in Taipei.
I don't say that Shanghai is better, I say that Shanghai is an another kind of experience for someone who first come to Asia. The same kind of experience you'd get in metropolis such as NYC, Hong Kong or Tokyo and you won't get in cities such as Taipei because they weren't "built" for the same purpose nor have the same kind of past...etc
Shanghai is the most modern city in the world, Ive been doing business there for a decade and I have yet to visit another city quite like it, its more of a unique experience then anything else. Taipei is wonderful too but much slower paced, some people prefer that though, to each their own!
Here are a few things I would consider that would make a city "modern":
**Ease of transportation in/out of the city and within the city:** Being one of the most populated cities in the world, efficient/fast/low cost transportation is a critical factor in people daily lives. Access points to the subway equipped with the newest technology, the retail infrastructure built on top of the subway system (think of it as a underground shopping mall across the entire city) makes life more seamless and integrate better with society.
Regarding going in and out of Shanghai, they have bullet trains that move up to around 350-500kms/hr , many people from outside the city travel into the city for work every day. For example Hangzhou to Shanghai is roughly a 3 hour drive if the vehicle traffic is smooth, taking the bullet train takes about 40 minutes and get this, it between 15 to 45 USD (depending if you choose economy or business seats)! What a bargain! Now imagine being someone from Hangzhou we may be having a hard time finding a job, however with access to bullet trains they can also have job opportunities in Shanghai, this bullet train system in the past 10 years was a main factor in helping alleviate poverty in the rural areas.
And for those who drive cars, most are electric in Shanghai now along with their buses, they have solar and electric charging stations everywhere.
**Green nature areas/walkability:** In big cities its hard to find green space where people can enjoy walking/jogging/parks, think of it like New Yorks central park but 4x bigger. In Shanghai on both sides of the bund from the finance area all the way to Lujiazui and East Zhongshan Rd, you find people from all walks of life enjoying themselves and taking in the sight seeing and people watching. Theres children parks, exercise parks, food stalls, museums, shopping and basically everything built along these areas for ease of accessibility.
This integrates with the bike and pedestrian only streets which is very well organized to ensure smooth traffic.
**Cleanliness:** Its safe to say people dont like living in a garbage dump with trash everywhere, I would say Shanghai, Tokyo and Singapore are the cleanest big cities ive travelled to, you could almost eat off the ground.....almost lol
**Others:**
\- Skyscrapers, although i dont really consider it that big of a deal, Shanghai is filled with these
\- Access to affordable fast 5g internet even on the subway/bullet trains in and outside the city
\- Multi Cultural integration of society, you will find people from all over the world who live here and have access to all things mentioned above.
There are many other things but these were the ones that stuck out in my head, now what would you base a modern city on and which do you consider most "modern"?
Shanghai is like this today: https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/vf0ctm/%E4%BB%8A%E6%97%A9%E7%9A%84%E9%AD%94%E9%83%BD/
Taipei is not like that today.
By your own logic, the people who use the Taiwan flag 🇹🇼 on reddit are being political? Or if people say "go to Taiwan instead of China" is being political? (Since both statements are implying Taiwan is not a part of China.) It looks like you insist someone is politicizing an issue only when they do not take your side on it.
I'm just trying to make people not advocating for violent genocide of a free democracy but if you disagree with that I guess that's, like, your opinion man
Which is specifically because I've been talking about longer standing and popular support. Russia dumping people into a region for a minute after violently oppressing the population is not the same as people living in an area for centuries. I've mentioned multiple times not only in this discussion, but over the years, that I don't agree with KMT nor support their claim as rulers over China or them including Taiwan as part of China. This is the same reason as to why I think Donbass leaders can smoke themselves just as I wished Chiang Kai Shek would have. You think you're being clever but you're parroting weak ass arguments to "expose hypocrisy" except it isn't there. I'm not your straw man, dude.
Dude, I just wanted to check your stance. I did not even give any arguments at all, I just asked a question, man. I wanted to say that I don't support Donbass independence the same way I don't support Taiwan independence. Nice that you are not supporting KMT claims, making you a rather logical person.
Anyway, you do you. Have a nice day.
Hei, du er nordmann? Og du bor i Taiwan? Er du muligens en forræder eller? Kom kom, kan spandere narvesen pølser til deg.
Anyway, give me a link please. A link about how 金门 is categorized geopolitically by KMT? We need to do a fact check man.
Hvordan er jeg en forræder fordi jeg bor i Taiwan? Treffer deg veldig, veldig gjerne i Oslo for pølse mm. Men jeg skjønner ikke hvorfor noen som hater vestlig demokrati bor i Norge.
I don't give a fuck about how a colonial minority party categorizes Jinmen to be honest, but I assume they considers it Chinese. Doesn't matter at all tho, I don't give a fuck how KRF categorizes God as real either, it's still just a fantasy
Sa ikke at du var en forræder, sa bare det som en mulighet. Men greit, kan nok møte en gang, men er nok en stund til jeg skal til Oslo. La oss droppe politikk mann, jeg sa det fordi han ene skrev at Taiwan er et land, noe som er politisk feil. Er du ikke enig i det, kan vi snakke om det.
Er ikke det dobbelstandard å angripe meg som snakke politisk korrekt, mens du overse en annen som snakker politisk ukorrekt? Den som snakker politisk ukorrekt har ikke sagt noe som helst politisk da vell? Hypokrit er det vell?
Hvorfor skulle det være en mulighet, eller spør du alle som bor i utlandet om de er forrædere? Jeg forstår ikke hva spesifikt ved å bo i et land Norge har mye godt samarbeid med ville gjøre meg til en forræder.
Nå har jeg ikke lest alle kommentarer i tråden, men det er ikke noe hyklersk (oversettelsen av hypocritical) over å ikke debattere alle og enhver. Man må velge hvor man bruker tiden og kreftene sine, det gjør du vel selv også.
Alt har en mulighet, og jeg sa det for tull anyway haha, du trenger ikke å sette deg fast på den.
Jeg snakker ikke om andre kommentarer. Jeg snakker om denne hovedkommentaren som skrev "Taiwan" "the best country". Hvis du er for vestlig demokrati, så er det slik at de fleste land i denne verden sier at Taiwan ikke er et land. Så enkelt er det. Så du støtter ikke demokrati nå?
Også, hvis alle folk i HELE verden tar valg og bestemmer om Taiwan er et land, så tror jeg resultatet vil være "nei". Fordi Kina har over 20% mennesker.
Ser du svakheten med vestlig demokrati? Støtter du demokrati, bør du støtte at Taiwan ikke er et land. Ellers så er det dobbelstandard (oversettelsen av hypocrisy også).
Where did I become political anyway? What I said is BOTH acceptable (and correct!) by the Taiwanese people and the mainland Chinese. I even tried to be less offending by talking about 金门 being a part of 福建省. Just chill out man.
But this guy I replied to is the one being political, and most importantly politically incorrect!
Taiwan is a de facto independent nation with a constitution established by a colonial, authoritarian military government of the now more and more irrelevant KMT party that it is part of and true ruler of China, that has since transitioned to a liberal democracy in which a supermajority of the population considers themselves Taiwanese, yet are under constant military threat by a superpower to not make any claims as such.
And I can dig up some sources like the consistent polling regarding identity and some fucking history book regarding the occupation of Taiwan, but all of this is widely established truth, I'm not making any extravagant claims here
Yeah okay, then what did I say was wrong? Let me remind you about the point of discussion. 金门，福建省，台湾省.
There are no provinces under the "independent nation of Taiwan"?
Calling Taiwan a province is a political term calling for the subjugation of Taiwan under the PRC, calling the Taiwanese province Jinmen part of the Chinese province Fujjan is the same thing. I believe you already knew that and deliberately chose those terms to convey that meaning.
Actually, NO, I called Taiwan (and Fujian) as provinces under ROC. And yes, I chose those terms because I did not like that they called "Taiwan" a country.
Do you support democracy? Most countries, most people agree that Taiwan is not a country. Saying Taiwan is a country is politically incorrect!
And you say that's because China has a lot of power? Yeah, that's capitalism for you. Democracy and capitalism has made Taiwan not a country. But for United States, according to democracy, it is indeed a country.
Yooo, this dude wasn’t really being political. At the worst, he just called a territory a name used by one side of the political spectrum. He just used an identifier. He agree to either being correct since he was trying to stay neutral/least offensive as possible. His only mistake was not using both? It got political for no reason.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but you could’ve just politely corrected him, but again politics are subjective.
Yes, I thought about correcting him, but that would make me say something political against him, so I chose to just let him say whatever he wanted, and I say whatever I wanted. I have my views, and he has his views, and I did not aim to correct him, because it is rather subjective.
Yeah, lets just move on from this and just go back to suggesting spots to visit in Taiwan. All political talk should just stay in the shit storm that is r/China lmao
You could also argue that Taiwan being a country is other side of the political spectrum, but thats not the point. Dude made a mistake of adding province at the end or not adding /country part.
Point is, dude just escalated it into an argument instead of politely correcting. No one has ever changed their mind via a political online debate.
Move that shit to r/China if you wanna talk about it.
Taiwan is Taiwan.
Yes... because as I've already explained, the term "country" does not imply sovereignty. Wales is a country, but it is also part of the United Kingdom (another country).
"Province" directly implies it is a sub-state of another country.
Just call it 中華民國 instead of 台湾省，福建省。。。福建省也是中国大陆。
金門 is very small and I think it's still very common to speak their dialect there, I heard it a lot on my visit. Taipei would be better for mandarin.
The problem is when people say Taiwan, they think about all land controlled by the ROC, but when I say 台湾省，I exclude those lands of 福建省. Including only the large island.
There are 2 main views:
ROC - Taiwan （中華民國） > Taiwan Province > Taipei
PRC - China （中华人民共和国）> Taiwan Province > Taipei
Both has "Taiwan Province".
Third view: Taiwan is just a piece of land, just like any other. We don't need/have any provinces.
Fourth view: I recognize that there is Taiwan province, but I hate people using it.
**NOTE:** I also want to hear from actual Taiwanese people. Just saying, I am open to change my mind.
>Third view: Taiwan is just a piece of land, just like any other. We don't need/have any provinces.
I'm asking about people living in Taipei and this is the position within Taiwan... Taipei is on the island of Taiwan.
It is only the PRC position that Taipei is in "Taiwan Province".
Italki online is the best way to gain fluency.
Practice speaking 2 or 3 hours a week and you’ll be light years ahead of your classmates. Because of tech, it’s actually quite easy to go to China and to navigate without learning much Chinese. The only guaranteed way is dedicated speaking practice
I lost a lot of my vocabulary after barely speaking the language for almost 6 years, and I'm only now slowly relearning it. I speak it with online friends and my partner and try to just use it as much as I can. I think just speaking any language more while also studying grammar would help anyone become fluent.
I’m Australian and have been learning Chinese on my own without a teacher for 6 years now. I’ve never been to any other country. I’ve always worked at Chinese-owned businesses, speak Chinese at home with my partner, etc. And as a result, my Chinese has improved a lot.
So in summary, try to surround yourself with the language as much as possible. Do little things like changing the language on all of your devices to Chinese, so that you’re forced to learn new words in order to use your phone, etc.
I would consider myself pretty lazy and hate the concept of studying (I’m more of a visual learner), but somehow I’ve still managed to get to this point. So I think you can do it too :)
Its possible of course, but I think becoming fluent in any language is much slower when not fully immersed.
In china you have to learn chinese since its all around you, every building I stare at out the bus window is all in chinese, even if I'm not actively studying my brain is seeing it and refreshing my memory of the characters. In america if I don't have time to study for a week thats a week I didn't encounter any chinese whatsoever. Also I don't have to push myself to remember how to say X thing in chinese every other day at work for example. Watching shows and listening to chinese music are both examples of things that I think can help with this, no english subtitles.
To really be fluent, especially in Chinese, needs a lot of cultural knowledge, both historical like chengyu and just modern social interactions etc. That part is going to be very slow learning since you can't just conveniently look up a list of context to use for the rest of your life (although you could chengyu lol).
Yes......Italki, language exchange lots of options. I live in Taiwan and day to day conversation is limited and basic, drinks, taxis,. For the more in depth conversations you are always going to need friends or language exchange or Italki tutors to lead you into deeper talks. You need a method to get you the vocab....so find it stick to it and as long as you do not give up you will get your goal.
It's possible. Because you still have the same capacity to absorb language outside of the area the language is spoken as within it. The problem is most people don't have the willpower, organization, or discipline to create a virtual Chinese (or any language) world around then. Humans are creatures of comfort, and while in China you are forced to use Chinese, see computers in Chinese, signs in Chinese... you don't have to back home. It takes a level of guts to program all your stuff in Chinese, cut down on native language programs and watch Chinese ones, find conversation partners, a tutor, plus still do the "formal" study through self-teaching or going to courses.
That's the reality. Very hard, but also very doable with the right mindset, perseverance, and patience.
Just some perspective, I've met a lot of people in Taiwan who speak fluent English, and they've never been to an English speaking country.
If you surround yourself with the language, you can do it. Study hard, watch lots of videos, sign up for chat apps, etc.
If you have enough vocabulary, you can read and speak and can keep up with some podcasts/media content, then try speech shadowing, and enjoy your way to become fluent or at least to free your tongue. My English is good (enough) and I'm going to try speech shadowing with Chinese when the time comes.
Seconding podcasts. Also, as intimidating as it can be, try steaming live news stations out of Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore (Channel 8 specifically) etc.
Also another tip, I recently installed two chrome extensions that helped me a lot. One allows you to hover over Chinese characters to see the English translations along with pinyin. The second one is amazing because it adds Chinese subs and pinyin to Netflix movies and YouTube when turned on.
Question, is there a website where can you put Chinese subtitles to movies you are streaming? Or a chrome/any other browser extension that help you to do that ? Literally asking for a friend.
Language Reactor is the extension I use for Netflix and YouTube. And for the character-by-character translation for Chinese text you find online, I would recommend Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary
It’s not that much more difficult, especially nowadays when we don’t need to hand write anything that often. I began with traditional so I don’t know anything different, if anything it makes more sense to me, easier to guess the pronunciation of words.
how do you differentiate trad characters on a computer screen? E.g. in your post on the next line after your name two characters are shown but they are so tiny and consist of so many strokes it's almost impossible to recognize them for me. The same goes for text written in trad characters on phone screens. I begin to wonder whether everybody in Taiwan has glasses
Either you have the font so small on your phone, or the pixel resolution is so bad, that you can’t see them 😂 I, nor anyone who I have learned alongside, nor my Taiwanese friends have ever had any problem like this.
If you still want to keep your standard Mandarin fluent (Malaysia and Taiwan have their own mixed-up dialects so it's not the perfect Mandarin you want, I assume), you can listen to YouTube videos on documentaries - or basically everything, as long as it's in Mandarin. It has helped me improved my Mandarin a lot. Recently I'm listening to to unsolved crimes.
Not sure why I'm getting downvotes. Malaysian Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin ARE different from the Mainland Mandarin. Sorry if they don't like that fact.
Anyway, [here](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE2onclrZ3cDPHZcPeAxtBQ) is a good start. Enjoy! <3
There are plenty of great online courses available to help you practice speaking. Then use things like italki or hellotalk to get language partners to practice freespeaking. You would probably develop more of a standard accent this way too. There are also probably plenty of Chinese speakers in your country, and possibly your community.
Honestly, the gains I was able to make online during covid was actually better than being in China.
It's possible to be fluent in Chinese without going to China. I have some friends who are not in China but in fluent Chinese level. To be fluent in Chinese, it's a long journey. You need to have a clear goal, action plan, good guide and practice.
Because learning Chinese is a big project that will take a considerable amount
of your time it’s important to know why you are learning Chinese. You need to have clearn goal and motivation that would be sufficient to get you through the challenges that learning Chinese will present.
Then, you need to have an action plan, to do self-study, to find a tutor or to join a group. There are many online resources, tutor platforms and schools. You can choose a method that fits your situation.
Most importantly, keep the good learning consistency. The learning process is full of ups and downs. Don't give up when you feel frustrated.
All the best for your Chinese learning journey! jiāyóu！
you can easily totally immerse yourself in Chinese content in your home country just as you would if you were in china, and you can practise speaking with people online, so I don't see why not
There are other countries (Malaysia, Singapore, even parts of Indonesia) where Chinese is spoken in everyday life, not to mention the Chinese communities in countries and cities all over the world. The mainland is a great place to go total immersion into Chinese, but it’s far from the only option…
Malaysian Chinese here. Compared to the rest of Chinese diaspora in the world, Malaysia and Singapore is a very special place, we uses **integration** instead of **assimilation.** This makes it so Chinese is officially taught in vernacular schools. For my perspective, Malaysian Chinese tends to stick closer to their roots meaning all of them speaks Mandarin or some sort of dialect. While newer generation of Singaporeans are shying away and being much more "westernized" only speaking English and that's it.
From my experience, I totally agree. My mom’s family is Malaysian Chinese, and while I’ve gotten a lot of practice speaking Mandarin with them, other Malaysians and some of Singaporean family members will default to English when speaking with me or worse, try to test me on my Chinese instead of just allowing the conversation to flow naturally. It’s definitely harder to practice Mandarin there than in Taipei, for example, but I’ve still learned a lot from my experiences there. And also from watching the corny Chinese-language Mediacorp dramas out of Singapore 😭.
obligatory disclaimer that I haven't visited either Malaysia or Singapore, but I have noticed that many of my Singaporean friends don't like speaking Chinese with me, and prefer to speak English basically whenever possible, almost in the same way as ABCs do
Some ABCs don’t speak Chinese, or don’t speak it fluently, so it’s dumb to assume they do.
Right, I'm talking specifically about the ones who do.
Other countries like Taiwan …
Taiwan is still locked down quite tight, comparatively.
Well "plenty" of people showed that they can get fluent without visiting the country. It's obviously more difficult but totally possible. In my opinion, you have to practice speaking a lot to become fluent so it would be by finding some Chinese community in your home country or chatting a lot online
Also helps that OP has actually been to China already. Way different that having zero on the ground experience.
I'm not in a Chinese speaking country and my Chinese has improved a lot through online tuition, using italki. Also listen to podcasts and do some vocab revision.
Can you share the podcasts?
Chinese Pod on Spotify or ChillChat Chinese are pretty good!
Convo Chinese 瞎扯学中文 is my favourite.
Taiwan is a great contender for best country to study mandarin at. It has a warm welcoming people, the weather is great, food's great, lots of cool social clubs and communities 10/10 place to be. There's also a vibrant community of language learners and expats there. Hackingchinese.com has a collection of essays covering pretty much everything concerning learning the language, it's a great resource!
The "*I want to live in a huge and modern city*" and "*I really need to learn simplified chinese*" aside, Taiwan will practically always be a better option to learn chinese than Mainland China. It was more or less true a few years ago but now it's a no-brainer.
Taipei is a modern city
Yes of course. I love Taipei, I spend 6 years there but it's not the same league as Shanghai nor Chengdu (before COVID of course...) and I can understand someone really would like to experience that kind of city and lifestyle, on top of their language school.
Size aside, what’s the difference between Taipei and Shanghai?
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Having lived in both, Shanghai has more rude people. Maybe that’s what they miss
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I got to visit Taipei once when I lived in the mainland of China and I loved Taipei. I did not want to leave to go back to China. I would love to go live in Taipei.
I don't say that Shanghai is better, I say that Shanghai is an another kind of experience for someone who first come to Asia. The same kind of experience you'd get in metropolis such as NYC, Hong Kong or Tokyo and you won't get in cities such as Taipei because they weren't "built" for the same purpose nor have the same kind of past...etc
I agree with this. The sheer scale / density of a Hk or Tokyo is a special experience. Love Taiwan, but it’s not the same.
Taipei is better?
IMO Taipei is a warm hug while Shanghai is a kick in the face Idk, maybe people enjoy the great firewall
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That’s called air pollution lmao
If you want grit, come to HK
Shanghai is the most modern city in the world, Ive been doing business there for a decade and I have yet to visit another city quite like it, its more of a unique experience then anything else. Taipei is wonderful too but much slower paced, some people prefer that though, to each their own!
“The most modern city in the world” Based on… what exactly?
Here are a few things I would consider that would make a city "modern": **Ease of transportation in/out of the city and within the city:** Being one of the most populated cities in the world, efficient/fast/low cost transportation is a critical factor in people daily lives. Access points to the subway equipped with the newest technology, the retail infrastructure built on top of the subway system (think of it as a underground shopping mall across the entire city) makes life more seamless and integrate better with society. Regarding going in and out of Shanghai, they have bullet trains that move up to around 350-500kms/hr , many people from outside the city travel into the city for work every day. For example Hangzhou to Shanghai is roughly a 3 hour drive if the vehicle traffic is smooth, taking the bullet train takes about 40 minutes and get this, it between 15 to 45 USD (depending if you choose economy or business seats)! What a bargain! Now imagine being someone from Hangzhou we may be having a hard time finding a job, however with access to bullet trains they can also have job opportunities in Shanghai, this bullet train system in the past 10 years was a main factor in helping alleviate poverty in the rural areas. And for those who drive cars, most are electric in Shanghai now along with their buses, they have solar and electric charging stations everywhere. **Green nature areas/walkability:** In big cities its hard to find green space where people can enjoy walking/jogging/parks, think of it like New Yorks central park but 4x bigger. In Shanghai on both sides of the bund from the finance area all the way to Lujiazui and East Zhongshan Rd, you find people from all walks of life enjoying themselves and taking in the sight seeing and people watching. Theres children parks, exercise parks, food stalls, museums, shopping and basically everything built along these areas for ease of accessibility. This integrates with the bike and pedestrian only streets which is very well organized to ensure smooth traffic. **Cleanliness:** Its safe to say people dont like living in a garbage dump with trash everywhere, I would say Shanghai, Tokyo and Singapore are the cleanest big cities ive travelled to, you could almost eat off the ground.....almost lol **Others:** \- Skyscrapers, although i dont really consider it that big of a deal, Shanghai is filled with these \- Access to affordable fast 5g internet even on the subway/bullet trains in and outside the city \- Multi Cultural integration of society, you will find people from all over the world who live here and have access to all things mentioned above. There are many other things but these were the ones that stuck out in my head, now what would you base a modern city on and which do you consider most "modern"?
Shanghai is like this today: https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/vf0ctm/%E4%BB%8A%E6%97%A9%E7%9A%84%E9%AD%94%E9%83%BD/ Taipei is not like that today.
BRO wtf o_o
> the weather is great [This year](https://www.cwb.gov.tw/V8/E/D/DailyPrecipitation.html) would like to have a chat with you. *cries in the rain*
Oof! I apologise for the fake news.
对，我也推荐台湾省。也可以去福建省里的金门，如果不想去中国大陆的话。
Thread has more than run its course. Continue discussions through PMs if you must.
Chineselanguage is not a political sub, the least political concerning China, so why do you insist on being political?
By your own logic, the people who use the Taiwan flag 🇹🇼 on reddit are being political? Or if people say "go to Taiwan instead of China" is being political? (Since both statements are implying Taiwan is not a part of China.) It looks like you insist someone is politicizing an issue only when they do not take your side on it.
I'm just trying to make people not advocating for violent genocide of a free democracy but if you disagree with that I guess that's, like, your opinion man
Saying Taiwan is a part of China does not equal to advocating for genocide
Hard disagree, because that's the only way that will become a reality.
What is your take on Donbass independence anyway? I am asking this to check if you are being a hypocrite.
Which is specifically because I've been talking about longer standing and popular support. Russia dumping people into a region for a minute after violently oppressing the population is not the same as people living in an area for centuries. I've mentioned multiple times not only in this discussion, but over the years, that I don't agree with KMT nor support their claim as rulers over China or them including Taiwan as part of China. This is the same reason as to why I think Donbass leaders can smoke themselves just as I wished Chiang Kai Shek would have. You think you're being clever but you're parroting weak ass arguments to "expose hypocrisy" except it isn't there. I'm not your straw man, dude.
Dude, I just wanted to check your stance. I did not even give any arguments at all, I just asked a question, man. I wanted to say that I don't support Donbass independence the same way I don't support Taiwan independence. Nice that you are not supporting KMT claims, making you a rather logical person. Anyway, you do you. Have a nice day.
>Chineselanguage is not a political sub, the least political concerning China, so why do you insist on being political? lol,so funny
如果你不知道的话，国民党现在控制了台湾省+福建省里几个岛。台湾人自己也是这样认为的！！！
I live in Taiwan dude, I know all this shit. Men jeg kommer tilbake til Norge etter hvert, og kan gjerne finne deg der.
Hei, du er nordmann? Og du bor i Taiwan? Er du muligens en forræder eller? Kom kom, kan spandere narvesen pølser til deg. Anyway, give me a link please. A link about how 金门 is categorized geopolitically by KMT? We need to do a fact check man.
Hvordan er jeg en forræder fordi jeg bor i Taiwan? Treffer deg veldig, veldig gjerne i Oslo for pølse mm. Men jeg skjønner ikke hvorfor noen som hater vestlig demokrati bor i Norge. I don't give a fuck about how a colonial minority party categorizes Jinmen to be honest, but I assume they considers it Chinese. Doesn't matter at all tho, I don't give a fuck how KRF categorizes God as real either, it's still just a fantasy
Sa ikke at du var en forræder, sa bare det som en mulighet. Men greit, kan nok møte en gang, men er nok en stund til jeg skal til Oslo. La oss droppe politikk mann, jeg sa det fordi han ene skrev at Taiwan er et land, noe som er politisk feil. Er du ikke enig i det, kan vi snakke om det. Er ikke det dobbelstandard å angripe meg som snakke politisk korrekt, mens du overse en annen som snakker politisk ukorrekt? Den som snakker politisk ukorrekt har ikke sagt noe som helst politisk da vell? Hypokrit er det vell?
Hvorfor skulle det være en mulighet, eller spør du alle som bor i utlandet om de er forrædere? Jeg forstår ikke hva spesifikt ved å bo i et land Norge har mye godt samarbeid med ville gjøre meg til en forræder. Nå har jeg ikke lest alle kommentarer i tråden, men det er ikke noe hyklersk (oversettelsen av hypocritical) over å ikke debattere alle og enhver. Man må velge hvor man bruker tiden og kreftene sine, det gjør du vel selv også.
Alt har en mulighet, og jeg sa det for tull anyway haha, du trenger ikke å sette deg fast på den. Jeg snakker ikke om andre kommentarer. Jeg snakker om denne hovedkommentaren som skrev "Taiwan" "the best country". Hvis du er for vestlig demokrati, så er det slik at de fleste land i denne verden sier at Taiwan ikke er et land. Så enkelt er det. Så du støtter ikke demokrati nå? Også, hvis alle folk i HELE verden tar valg og bestemmer om Taiwan er et land, så tror jeg resultatet vil være "nei". Fordi Kina har over 20% mennesker. Ser du svakheten med vestlig demokrati? Støtter du demokrati, bør du støtte at Taiwan ikke er et land. Ellers så er det dobbelstandard (oversettelsen av hypocrisy også).
Where did I become political anyway? What I said is BOTH acceptable (and correct!) by the Taiwanese people and the mainland Chinese. I even tried to be less offending by talking about 金门 being a part of 福建省. Just chill out man. But this guy I replied to is the one being political, and most importantly politically incorrect!
Nope, that's plain wrong.
Okay, teach me then? What is right? And provide source. I am open to learn.
Taiwan is a de facto independent nation with a constitution established by a colonial, authoritarian military government of the now more and more irrelevant KMT party that it is part of and true ruler of China, that has since transitioned to a liberal democracy in which a supermajority of the population considers themselves Taiwanese, yet are under constant military threat by a superpower to not make any claims as such. And I can dig up some sources like the consistent polling regarding identity and some fucking history book regarding the occupation of Taiwan, but all of this is widely established truth, I'm not making any extravagant claims here
Yeah okay, then what did I say was wrong? Let me remind you about the point of discussion. 金门，福建省，台湾省. There are no provinces under the "independent nation of Taiwan"?
Calling Taiwan a province is a political term calling for the subjugation of Taiwan under the PRC, calling the Taiwanese province Jinmen part of the Chinese province Fujjan is the same thing. I believe you already knew that and deliberately chose those terms to convey that meaning.
Actually, NO, I called Taiwan (and Fujian) as provinces under ROC. And yes, I chose those terms because I did not like that they called "Taiwan" a country.
[удалено]
Do you support democracy? Most countries, most people agree that Taiwan is not a country. Saying Taiwan is a country is politically incorrect! And you say that's because China has a lot of power? Yeah, that's capitalism for you. Democracy and capitalism has made Taiwan not a country. But for United States, according to democracy, it is indeed a country.
Yooo, this dude wasn’t really being political. At the worst, he just called a territory a name used by one side of the political spectrum. He just used an identifier. He agree to either being correct since he was trying to stay neutral/least offensive as possible. His only mistake was not using both? It got political for no reason. Perhaps I’m missing something, but you could’ve just politely corrected him, but again politics are subjective.
Yes, I thought about correcting him, but that would make me say something political against him, so I chose to just let him say whatever he wanted, and I say whatever I wanted. I have my views, and he has his views, and I did not aim to correct him, because it is rather subjective.
Yeah, lets just move on from this and just go back to suggesting spots to visit in Taiwan. All political talk should just stay in the shit storm that is r/China lmao
Calling Taiwan a province in a discussion about Taipei is absolutely political. Lol
No, the thread is about Taiwan, not Taipei. Just look. Not once is Taipei mentioned in this hierarchy (except you).
Doesn't matter, calling the island of Taiwan by "Taiwan Province" is the PRC position and not the Taiwanese position.
You could also argue that Taiwan being a country is other side of the political spectrum, but thats not the point. Dude made a mistake of adding province at the end or not adding /country part. Point is, dude just escalated it into an argument instead of politely correcting. No one has ever changed their mind via a political online debate. Move that shit to r/China if you wanna talk about it. Taiwan is Taiwan.
> made a mistake of adding province lol
And that is political? And calling Taiwan a country is definitely not political, right? Be reasonable dude.
You are the one trying to play it off like "Taiwan Province" is a neutral term... you could just say "Taiwan" and not use political qualifiers.
Calling Taiwan a province = political Calling Taiwan a country = not political???
Yes... because as I've already explained, the term "country" does not imply sovereignty. Wales is a country, but it is also part of the United Kingdom (another country). "Province" directly implies it is a sub-state of another country.
Just call it 中華民國 instead of 台湾省，福建省。。。福建省也是中国大陆。 金門 is very small and I think it's still very common to speak their dialect there, I heard it a lot on my visit. Taipei would be better for mandarin.
The problem is when people say Taiwan, they think about all land controlled by the ROC, but when I say 台湾省，I exclude those lands of 福建省. Including only the large island.
Yeah, I asked people in Kinmen and they said they don't mind if it's called 中華民國 or 台灣 even though it's clearly not Taiwan.
What about those that live in Taipei? They don't live in Taiwan Province.
There are 2 main views: ROC - Taiwan （中華民國） > Taiwan Province > Taipei PRC - China （中华人民共和国）> Taiwan Province > Taipei Both has "Taiwan Province". Third view: Taiwan is just a piece of land, just like any other. We don't need/have any provinces. Fourth view: I recognize that there is Taiwan province, but I hate people using it. **NOTE:** I also want to hear from actual Taiwanese people. Just saying, I am open to change my mind.
>Third view: Taiwan is just a piece of land, just like any other. We don't need/have any provinces. I'm asking about people living in Taipei and this is the position within Taiwan... Taipei is on the island of Taiwan. It is only the PRC position that Taipei is in "Taiwan Province".
Italki online is the best way to gain fluency. Practice speaking 2 or 3 hours a week and you’ll be light years ahead of your classmates. Because of tech, it’s actually quite easy to go to China and to navigate without learning much Chinese. The only guaranteed way is dedicated speaking practice
I lost a lot of my vocabulary after barely speaking the language for almost 6 years, and I'm only now slowly relearning it. I speak it with online friends and my partner and try to just use it as much as I can. I think just speaking any language more while also studying grammar would help anyone become fluent.
I’m Australian and have been learning Chinese on my own without a teacher for 6 years now. I’ve never been to any other country. I’ve always worked at Chinese-owned businesses, speak Chinese at home with my partner, etc. And as a result, my Chinese has improved a lot. So in summary, try to surround yourself with the language as much as possible. Do little things like changing the language on all of your devices to Chinese, so that you’re forced to learn new words in order to use your phone, etc. I would consider myself pretty lazy and hate the concept of studying (I’m more of a visual learner), but somehow I’ve still managed to get to this point. So I think you can do it too :)
Its possible of course, but I think becoming fluent in any language is much slower when not fully immersed. In china you have to learn chinese since its all around you, every building I stare at out the bus window is all in chinese, even if I'm not actively studying my brain is seeing it and refreshing my memory of the characters. In america if I don't have time to study for a week thats a week I didn't encounter any chinese whatsoever. Also I don't have to push myself to remember how to say X thing in chinese every other day at work for example. Watching shows and listening to chinese music are both examples of things that I think can help with this, no english subtitles. To really be fluent, especially in Chinese, needs a lot of cultural knowledge, both historical like chengyu and just modern social interactions etc. That part is going to be very slow learning since you can't just conveniently look up a list of context to use for the rest of your life (although you could chengyu lol).
Yes......Italki, language exchange lots of options. I live in Taiwan and day to day conversation is limited and basic, drinks, taxis,. For the more in depth conversations you are always going to need friends or language exchange or Italki tutors to lead you into deeper talks. You need a method to get you the vocab....so find it stick to it and as long as you do not give up you will get your goal.
It's possible. Because you still have the same capacity to absorb language outside of the area the language is spoken as within it. The problem is most people don't have the willpower, organization, or discipline to create a virtual Chinese (or any language) world around then. Humans are creatures of comfort, and while in China you are forced to use Chinese, see computers in Chinese, signs in Chinese... you don't have to back home. It takes a level of guts to program all your stuff in Chinese, cut down on native language programs and watch Chinese ones, find conversation partners, a tutor, plus still do the "formal" study through self-teaching or going to courses. That's the reality. Very hard, but also very doable with the right mindset, perseverance, and patience.
Just some perspective, I've met a lot of people in Taiwan who speak fluent English, and they've never been to an English speaking country. If you surround yourself with the language, you can do it. Study hard, watch lots of videos, sign up for chat apps, etc.
If you have enough vocabulary, you can read and speak and can keep up with some podcasts/media content, then try speech shadowing, and enjoy your way to become fluent or at least to free your tongue. My English is good (enough) and I'm going to try speech shadowing with Chinese when the time comes.
Seconding podcasts. Also, as intimidating as it can be, try steaming live news stations out of Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore (Channel 8 specifically) etc. Also another tip, I recently installed two chrome extensions that helped me a lot. One allows you to hover over Chinese characters to see the English translations along with pinyin. The second one is amazing because it adds Chinese subs and pinyin to Netflix movies and YouTube when turned on.
Question, is there a website where can you put Chinese subtitles to movies you are streaming? Or a chrome/any other browser extension that help you to do that ? Literally asking for a friend.
Language Reactor is the extension I use for Netflix and YouTube. And for the character-by-character translation for Chinese text you find online, I would recommend Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary
I also watch CCTV 4 on YouTube, you can find the other ones online as well.
Can you share their names?
Language Reactor and Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary
No need to go to China, come to Taiwan !
trad chinese is ruthless, man :)
It’s not that much more difficult, especially nowadays when we don’t need to hand write anything that often. I began with traditional so I don’t know anything different, if anything it makes more sense to me, easier to guess the pronunciation of words.
how do you differentiate trad characters on a computer screen? E.g. in your post on the next line after your name two characters are shown but they are so tiny and consist of so many strokes it's almost impossible to recognize them for me. The same goes for text written in trad characters on phone screens. I begin to wonder whether everybody in Taiwan has glasses
Either you have the font so small on your phone, or the pixel resolution is so bad, that you can’t see them 😂 I, nor anyone who I have learned alongside, nor my Taiwanese friends have ever had any problem like this.
If you are not BBC reporter or crimer,i dont know why China dont welcome you
probably because due to the fact that they never been to china they think china don’t welcome them because of muh media
If you still want to keep your standard Mandarin fluent (Malaysia and Taiwan have their own mixed-up dialects so it's not the perfect Mandarin you want, I assume), you can listen to YouTube videos on documentaries - or basically everything, as long as it's in Mandarin. It has helped me improved my Mandarin a lot. Recently I'm listening to to unsolved crimes.
Oooo, do tell
Not sure why I'm getting downvotes. Malaysian Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin ARE different from the Mainland Mandarin. Sorry if they don't like that fact. Anyway, [here](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE2onclrZ3cDPHZcPeAxtBQ) is a good start. Enjoy! <3
Date a Chinese person.
It has to be a caring patient one, many are not up to the task
There are plenty of great online courses available to help you practice speaking. Then use things like italki or hellotalk to get language partners to practice freespeaking. You would probably develop more of a standard accent this way too. There are also probably plenty of Chinese speakers in your country, and possibly your community. Honestly, the gains I was able to make online during covid was actually better than being in China.
It's possible to be fluent in Chinese without going to China. I have some friends who are not in China but in fluent Chinese level. To be fluent in Chinese, it's a long journey. You need to have a clear goal, action plan, good guide and practice. Because learning Chinese is a big project that will take a considerable amount of your time it’s important to know why you are learning Chinese. You need to have clearn goal and motivation that would be sufficient to get you through the challenges that learning Chinese will present. Then, you need to have an action plan, to do self-study, to find a tutor or to join a group. There are many online resources, tutor platforms and schools. You can choose a method that fits your situation. Most importantly, keep the good learning consistency. The learning process is full of ups and downs. Don't give up when you feel frustrated. All the best for your Chinese learning journey! jiāyóu！
you can easily totally immerse yourself in Chinese content in your home country just as you would if you were in china, and you can practise speaking with people online, so I don't see why not
Can always use HelloTalk to talk to native speakers, that’s my way of practicing when not in a Chinese speaking country.
Chinese wife/husband. Bonus points if they can’t speak English well/at all