When I first came to Taiwan and began learning Chinese, I wondered why I could understand when locals spoke Chinese to me, but I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying to each other when I tried to listen in.
I soon came to realize that there was more than one form of Chinese spoken in Taiwan. This led me to wonder which form I should be learning.
Taiwanese vs Mandarin
Many people know that Mandarin Chinese is an official language in Taiwan. Some may assume that Taiwanese refers to Mandarin, but it’s actually a separate subset of the language. In fact there are three distinct versions of Chinese spoken in Taiwan, all of which are official languages and listed here in order of usage.
- Mandarin (國語) – is the main language taught in schools and spoken across Taiwan. It would be rare to find anyone in Taiwan who doesn’t speak any Mandarin at all, so this is definitely what you want to be learning. It is also useful outside of Taiwan, being a national language of China and Singapore. Indeed it is the most spoken language in the world with over 800 million native speakers.
- Hokkien, also known as Minnan (閩南話) or Taiwanese (台語), and spoken in the Fujian province of China, is spoken by about 70% of the Taiwanese population. It is more prevalent as you go south in Taiwan.
- Hakka (客家語)- also spoken in parts of southern China, is a native language for around 15% of local Taiwanese.
Most expats in Taiwan learn some level of Mandarin Chinese to get by in day to day living. Learning a few key phrases of Taiwanese though would help you stand out among locals.
Here are a few key phrases and expressions in Mandarin and Taiwanese to help you recognize the difference.
| English | Mandarin (Characters) | Mandarin Pinyin | Taiwanese |
| Hello | 你好 | nǐ hǎo | lí hó |
| How are you? | 你好嗎? | nǐ hǎo ma? | lí hó bô? |
| Have you eaten? | 吃飯了嗎? | chīfàn le ma? | chia̍h pá bô? |
| Sorry / excuse me | 對不起 | duìbuqǐ | pháinn-sè |
| Thank you | 謝謝 | xièxie | to-siā |
| Don’t understand | 聽不懂 | tīngbudǒng | thiaⁿ-bô |
| Goodbye | 再見 | zàijiàn | chài-kiàn |
Things to notice above:
- Not all characters in Mandarin map one to one with Taiwanese equivalents. There are alternate expressions used in Taiwanese that wouldn’t be used in Mandarin and vice versa.
- The phonetic text used to show the Taiwanese is different from pinyin and follows different pronunciation rules
- There are up to 8 tones used in Taiwanese vs 4 in Mandarin
Here is a page listing more Taiwanese expressions if you’re interested.