Tomorrow is my first day of class so I'm preparing the lesson today. Here is a picture of my text book, this book is used only in Taiwan because it uses only traditional Chinese characters. In the 1950's, in mainland China, about a thousand traditional Chinese characters were simplified to make literacy easier. In Taiwan they have stuck with the traditional characters. Anyone learning Chinese is the West will have to know the traditional characters to know historical China and will have to know the simplified characters to know modern mainland China. For Chinese, where ever they are, they prefer the character set they learned as a child.
In Taiwan, we still use the traditional characters but we have a conflict over which
'romanization' to use. For Chinese learners, whether young or very old, there has to be a way of showing the pronunciation of the Chinese character. So there are several 'alphabets' of the sounds in Chinese and so each character can be spelt out using that 'romanization'. In my book there 3 romanizations used:
- Bopomofo - The Chinese romanization from before the 1949 revolution, taught to Taiwanese school children
- Wade-Giles - The old American romanization from Yale University
- Pinyin - The Chinese romanization from the 1950s
My textbook has all 3 romanizations. But luckily I only need one, I usually read the pinyin but the others are OK too. (Tainan street sign seem to have there own romanization but the Taiwan government has said recently that it will switch to pinyin.)
It turns out, I am not in the "Beginners" class but one level above that. I am in the "Basic" class which starts at lesson 4 in Book 2 of the 5 Book series. I am studying like crazy to be ready for Monday's class.
Here is a picture of the namesake of University. He is call Koxinga or Cheng Chen Kung. I go to NCKU which is National Cheng Kung University.
The gecko has returned but no sign of the centipede. The gecko seems a little bigger than two weeks ago, but I can't be sure it's the same one. I'll try to get a better shot if he cooperates.My room came with a television but I haven't been watching it much, there are about 100 channels with CNN and BBC news stations. lots of Japanese baseball . I also got a small refrigeration in my room but I usually only keep boiled water and drinks in it. I had fruit in my room once but the flies quickly found it. I'm going to have to figure out how to eat fruit without attracting so many friends. I'm still looking for Guan Tsai Ban and vegetarian restaurants.
This is the better picture of yutiao, the "Chinese donut". It's just a long piece of dough deep fried in oil. When it's freshly made it has a crunch to it. It's quite oily, here it was served with a baggie as a handle to keep the grease off your hands.
3 comments:
In school, I learned Chinese using bo, po, mo, fuh. We did not using Pin-Yin. You know much more about learning Chinese than me. In my family, we only speak Taiwanese. My mother's Chinese was probably much less than your Chinese. In Tainan, there are probably a lot of older generation who only speak Taiwanese, no Chinese. There is another side of Taiwanese history that not too many westerner understand.
Glad that you are not beginner, but in level 2. When you come to Taiwan to visit, you can almost ready to lesson 12..You are actually much more "advance" than you thought..hahha..That is the book PinHue teaches to her students, so, when you come to Taipei again, we can give you a pop quiz ...:D
Mike, I always appreciate your explanations of Taiwanese language and history. It sounds like learning Chinese is complicated by different romanizations and characters. I never thought about that. Is Taiwanese an entirely different language than Chinese? Thanks for the update on your geiko. I hope it's fat from eating centipedes. Do the Chinese donuts taste good? They don't look that interesting. Here at home we are battling raccoons for our grapes. We won't have enough for wine this year!
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