Our Differences


Characters

(tw): traditional 正體字

(cn): simplified 簡体字



Phonetic Symbols

(tw): Zhuyin 注音

(cn): Pinyin 拼音



Accents and usages

Recognizably different



Examples

Body: 身體 (tw) / 身体 (cn)

新竹: Hsinchu (tw) /

Xinzhu (cn)




Our Similarities

(We’re both Mandarins!)


Taiwanese President (00-08), for independence from China (DPP)



Taiwanese President (08-12), for reunification with China (KMT)


(We’re both presidents!)

Major Influences on Taiwanese Mandarin


  1. 1.Mandarin (1945-now): A Chinese dialect originated near Beijing / Official language

  2. 2.Minnan and Hakka (1600s-now): Chinese dialects in Southeast China / Dialects

  3. 3.Japanese (1895-1945): the language used in Japan / Official language

  4. 4.Indigenous languages (before 1600s-now): Dialects from Southeast Asia

  5. 5.Other influences: Dutch, Spanish, English, etc.

 
 

Taiwanese Mandarin and Chinese Mandarin are similar but slightly different. 台式中文和中式中文相似但略有不同。

The situation is similar to the one between American English and British English. 這與美式英文和英式英文的情況相似。

In Taiwan and Hong Kong, people use the traditional characters; in China, simplified characters are widely used. 在台灣和香港，人們使用正體字；在中國則是大多使用簡体字。

People in Taiwan generally use the Zhuyin system to mark the pronunciation; people in China mostly use the Pinyin system. 台灣人多半使用注音符號來標注音標，中國人普遍使用漢語拼音。

And it’s quite easy to recognize the differences between the accents and usages of Taiwanese and Chinese Mandarin. 台式中文和中式中文在腔調和用法上的差異很容易就能夠辨識出來。

Because of the structural dominance in population and political power, Chinese Mandarin is much more popular than Taiwanese Mandarin. 由於人口和權力結構上的強勢，中式中文遠比台式中文受歡迎。

 

Mandarin in Taiwan and China