Linguistic differences between Taiwan and China

[adrianlondon]

Interesting article in the BBC website today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13467598

A Taiwanese visitor to mainland China was shocked to see sliced "tu dou" on a menu. The word means peanut in Taiwan - but potato in mainland China.

A Taiwanese professor ordering coffee at a Beijing cafe was asked if he wanted a "coffee companion" - China's way of saying cream.

It carries on with some more examples and then, after a brief foray into the traditional/simplified debate, mentions a dictionary which is being created to bridge the gap.

[skylee]

I can't see the difference in the word 武 highlighted in the article. What is the difference?

[Kobo-Daishi]

Dear all,

I don't see any difference between China's military and Taiwan's military. :mellow:

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

[rezaf]

I can't see the difference in the word 武 highlighted in the article. What is the difference?

Probably because the article was written by someone in Taiwan who doesn't know much about jiantizi. And probably someone else has provided the picture at the beginning.

I don't really think that Chinese students need to go to Taiwan to learn the traditional characters. I've never seen a Chinese who is interested in learning fantizi apart from those who want to learn calligraphy but anyway it shouldn't take more than a few weeks to learn them.

[The Chinese] spend a lot of money and time trying to simplify more characters each year, but the scholars want to stop the simplification”

Constance Lin

Mandarin teacher in Taiwan

Really? I thought the simplification was over a long time ago.

[skylee]

I've never seen a Chinese who is interested in learning fantizi apart from those who want to learn calligraphy

Perhaps it is time that you enlarge your circle of Chinese friends/aquaintances?

But I agree that people don't need to go to Taiwan to learn the traditional script (hey they can come to HK ), and it wouldn't take a lot of time for someone who knows simplified Chinese to learn (edit: to read) it.

PS - I think writing long hand in traditional characters would be much more difficult.

[rezaf]

Perhaps it is time that you enlarge your circle of Chinese friends/aquaintances?

I only write 繁體字 but people always tell me that in China it's considered as 吹牛.

BTW it took me a few months to learn writing most of the characters I know in fantizi, so I assume that it only takes a few weeks for a native speaker.

[xiaocai]

All of them? Well, at least I think it is fine to write 繁体字.

[rezaf]

But do you use 繁體字？

[xiaocai]

No, not really. I feel that it just doesn't "flow" very well when I try to write in 繁体字. More practice is needed.

[rezaf]

I have seen quite a few people who like 繁體字 as I go to TCM university and our teachers are supposed to be more traditional than other Chinese people but even the people in our 醫古文 department are not very good at writing Fantizi because they never need to use it for writing.

[xiaocai]

Well 古文 does not necessarily have to be written in 繁体字. I, along with many other mainland students, learnt 古文 in 简体字. And for the very fact that general teaching in mainland China by law has to conducted in 简体字, you are not likely to see too much 繁体字 in universities. To me 简体字 and 繁体字 in daily use are not that symbolic to a point of representing Chinese culture of a certain period; it is more like a simple preference: you use whichever one you are most familiar and comfortable with. And we should learn to accommodate other people's preference, and this is why we need the joint dictionary mentioned in the original post.

[Lu]

Mandarin teacher in Taiwan

Really? I thought the simplification was over a long time ago.

From what I've seen, there is a large amount of ignorance in Taiwan when it comes to linguistic issues.

[rezaf]

Well 古文 does not necessarily have to be written in 繁体字.

The teachers at the 醫古文 department actually deal with lots of original books which don't have a simplified version. From what I have seen the difficulty of our 醫古文 book is higher than the 古文 that is taught at high schools in China and even my Chinese classmates find it very confusing sometimes. The reason that our textbook is in 繁體字 is that simplified characters sometimes represent 2 or 3 繁體字 and can add to the confusion（ <_< I don't know what they were thinking, couldn't they just make one simplified character for each 繁體字？） and sometimes there are some characters that are not used in their contemporary meaning and not even in their normal guwen meaning. In these situations having the knowledge behind the correct shape of the character can help a lot at guessing the meaning.

[xiaocai]

Ah, you do have realise that reading and writing traditional characters are two different skills... I can read traditional without much problem, but don't feel very confident when it comes to writing them. So I'd prefer to always write in simplified if possible.

[skylee]

I agree with xiaocai. Reading and writing are different. I too can’t write very well in the simplified script. If I try at all it will probably be a mix of both scripts. I think the longer you have used one set of characters the harder it would be to switch to the other set, as far as writing is concerned.

[rezaf]

Ah, you do have realise that reading and writing traditional characters are two different skills... I can read traditional without much problem, but don't feel very confident when it comes to writing them. So I'd prefer to always write in simplified if possible.

Which somehow proves my point that mainland Chinese are not that interested in learning to write 繁體字 and don't go(also don't need to go) to Taiwan for learning to read or write繁體字 because the article claims:

Mainland students are beginning to come to Taiwan to learn traditional Chinese.

[xiaocai]

Well it was just my personal preference which does not represent any other mainland Chinese...

[rezaf]

But even if a mainland Chinese wants to learn 繁体字，I'm sure you agree that he won't need to go to Taiwan as learning to read is just a matter of days and learning to write a matter of weeks. At least for me it was a few months of playing with my iphone's dictionary on and off.

I used to go to a Chinese students' calligraphy club in our school and as far as I know they could write 繁体字 without ever having been to Taiwan or Hong Kong.

[xiaocai]

Well finally I have to agree with you that this report has been ignorant at certain points... But that is what I always feel whenever I read news about China on foreign media: always a bit of ignorance here and there; not all over the place, but you can certainly find in many of them. Maybe I have grown to be ignorant to their ignorance now.

As for me, traditional or simplified, it does not bother me at all. I think one should just use what they comfortable with. Many people are, as far as I know, using traditional or simplified purely out of personal preference, without any political or cultural ground. I'd be happy one day we can all stop the traditional-simplified debate and focus more on the content of writing.

[rezaf]

I prefer the traditional script because it has evolved naturally from jiaguwen and I believe there is a profound meaning and logic behind it which has been completely ignored in most of the simplified characters by the peopled who made them and as my goal is to learn the profound aspects of Chinese traditional culture (which is not easy to find in the the modern Chinese society) I haven't come this far to China to learn some wrong characters but anyway these days I feel that I might need to start using 簡體字 again in my exams because I happen to be the last one who finishes the exam every single time <_<