February 3, 2019 Taking on Taiwan: Learning the Lingo Ah, Mandarin Chinese. I’m sure many of you know that it is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, for speakers of alphabet based languages, that is. Here in Taiwan, Traditional Mandarin Chinese is spoken. It is nearly the same as Simplified Chinese when you hear it spoken, but taking a look at the characters, you notice the difference. Traditional Mandarin Chinese has more strokes and more complexity to it. Taiwan has kept the traditional writing alive despite China’s transition to a simple version of the original language.
September 19, 2018 Where (And How) to Learn Languages Abroad About a year ago, I began seeing a tutor to learn a fair bit of Mandarin. The whole situation lasted about five months, before things were cut off and we both went separate ways. In that time, I made it through two and a half textbooks. So I like to tell people I learned what I like to call “survival Chinese”. I can order food, drinks, read numbers and basic signs, and ask for help for specific things. I recognize about 40% of what is said, and from what I do know how to say, I say it correctly. Only 50% of the time. Like I said, survival Chinese. I’m proud of it, even if I didn’t get as far as I originally intended to at the beginning of it all.
