I spend much of my life embarrassing myself in one form or another, but there is nothing quite so embarrassing as going to a place and thinking you speak the language only to draw blank stares. When I showed up in Taiwan earlier this year, I thought I spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese — only to learn that people in Taiwan have different words for just about everything. It was not the harsh, guttural, and “r”-inflected accent that gave away the fact that I learned all of my Chinese in Beijing; instead, it was the fact that I used the wrong word for everything. (The accent probably didn’t help, though.)
Language skills are very malleable, and my accent quickly veered toward the more mellifluous intonations of Taiwan. Expanding my vocabulary took a bit more effort. I gave up trying to order specific types of fish at sushi restaurants (all the fish words seem to be different in Taiwan, and, let’s be honest, I want the chef’s assortment anyway). I came to understand that the reason I could never find a trash can in Taipei was not only because there are basically no trash cans in Taipei, but also because I wasn’t using the right word for garbage. (It’s the same word, but pronounced differently. The difference in pronunciation does not explain the lack of trash cans, however.)
I spent much of the next four months chronicling every time people raised their eyebrows at me and said, “We don’t use that word here” or “What the heck are you saying?” I developed the following handy (but nowhere near comprehensive) dictionary to translate Mandarin Chinese as spoken in Beijing (putonghua 普通話) to Mandarin Chinese as spoken in Taiwan (guoyu 國語). I am sure some of these are wrong, and I am happy to take suggestions to add more.
I cannot guarantee that I will spare you any embarrassment, but at least you’ll know why you are embarrassed.
Updated/expanded 1/12/24 — they keep coming…
| Beijing | Taiwan | |
|---|---|---|
| Trash | 垃圾 （pronounced: laji) | 垃圾 (pronounced: lese) |
| Public Transit | 公交車 | 公車 |
| Subway/Metro | 地鐵 | 捷運 |
| Hotel | 酒店 | 飯店 (saying 酒店 means something much seedier than a normal hotel, which I found out the hard way when I told everyone I was staying in a 酒店 for the first few nights when I arrived) |
| You’re Welcome (No Worries) | 不用 | 不會 |
| New (place name) | 新 (as in New Zealand, 新西蘭) | 紐 (紐西蘭) |
| Eat In | 在這吃 | 內用 |
| Pick a name | 起名 (pronounced qi-mingrrrrrrr) | 取名 |
| Taxi | 出租車 (rental car) | 計程車 (meter car) |
| Bicycle | 自行車 (self-driven vehicle) | 腳踏車 (foot-stamping vehicle) |
| Butter | 黃油 | 奶油 |
| Phone signal | 信號 | 訊號 |
| Farmhouse for tourists | 農家樂 | 土雞城 |
| Draft beer | 扎啤 | 生啤 |
| Stir fry with random stuff you have around | 隨便炒 | 黑白切 |
| Village | 村 | 邨 |
| Pretty good | 挺好的 | 蠻好的 （You can’t say 挺…的 in Taiwan, they think it’s weird) |
| Percentage | 成/百分之 | 趴 （According to Wikipedia: “趴 pā as “percent” originates from Japanese パーセント pāsento. This usage is also unique to Guoyu”) |
| Good morning/good night | 早上好/晚上好 | 早安/晚安 |
| Profile picture | 頭像 | 大頭貼 |
| Video | 視頻 | 影片 |
| Charging pack | 充電寶 | 行動電源 |
| Scrolling on the phone | 玩手機 | 滑手機 (no matter what phrasing you use, people do a lot of it in both places) |
| Software app | 軟件 | 軟體 |
| Avocado | 牛油果 | 酪梨 |
| Potato | 土豆 | 馬鈴薯 (土豆, or dirt-bean, means peanut in Taiwan. To be fair, they are both dirt-beans, of a sort) |
| Basil | 羅勒 | 九層塔 |
| Undergraduate | 本科 | 大學 |
| Kindergarten | 幼兒園 | 幼稚園 |
| Rollercoaster | 過山車 (passing-through-the-mountains car) | 雲霄飛車 (flying-through-the-clouds car) |
| Italian pasta | 意麵 | 義大利麵 (意麵 somehow means an egg noodle dish from southern China, not Italian pasta) |
| Authentically local | 地道 | 道地 (reverse, reverse!) |
| Project | 項目 | 專案 |
| Laptop | 電腦 | 筆電 |
| Electric scooter | 電動車 (electric-powered vehicle) | Gogoro (a brand name) |
| Electric-powered car | 新能源汽車 (new energy car) | 電動車 (electric-powered vehicle) |
| Forearm | 胳膊 | 前臂 |
| Broccoli | 西蘭花 | 花椰菜 |
| Instant noodles | 方便面 （convenient noodles) | 泡麵 (soaked noodles) |
| Salmon | 三文魚 | 鮭魚 |
| To hire | 招聘 | 誠徵 |
| Tissues | 纸巾 or 餐纸 | 衛生紙 （this means toilet paper in China, and it means all tissue related products in Taiwan. The lack of specificity here does not work in Taiwan’s favor) |
| Snail | 蜗牛(pronounced wo niu) | 蝸牛 (pronounced gua niu) |
| Ping pong | 乒乓球 (ping pong) | 桌球 (table tennis) |