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.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u666e\u901a\u8a71) to Mandarin Chinese as spoken in Taiwan (guoyu \u570b\u8a9e). I am sure some of these are wrong, and I am happy to take suggestions to add more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I cannot guarantee that I will spare you any embarrassment, but at least you’ll know why you are embarrassed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Updated\/expanded 1\/12\/24 — they keep coming…<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,50],"tags":[55,163],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-china","tag-chinese","tag-language-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbfreedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/th> Beijing<\/th> Taiwan<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Trash<\/td> \u5783\u573e \uff08pronounced: laji)<\/td> \u5783\u573e (pronounced: lese)<\/td><\/tr> Public Transit<\/td> \u516c\u4ea4\u8eca<\/td> \u516c\u8eca<\/td><\/tr> Subway\/Metro<\/td> \u5730\u9435<\/td> \u6377\u904b<\/td><\/tr> Hotel<\/td> \u9152\u5e97<\/td> \u98ef\u5e97 (saying \u9152\u5e97 means something much seedier than a normal hotel, which I found out the hard way when I told everyone I was staying in a \u9152\u5e97 for the first few nights when I arrived)<\/td><\/tr> You\u2019re Welcome (No Worries)<\/td> \u4e0d\u7528<\/td> \u4e0d\u6703<\/td><\/tr> New (place name)<\/td> \u65b0 (as in New Zealand, \u65b0\u897f\u862d)<\/td> \u7d10 (\u7d10\u897f\u862d)<\/td><\/tr> Eat In<\/td> \u5728\u9019\u5403<\/td> \u5167\u7528<\/td><\/tr> Pick a name<\/td> \u8d77\u540d (pronounced qi-mingrrrrrrr)<\/td> \u53d6\u540d <\/td><\/tr> Taxi<\/td> \u51fa\u79df\u8eca (rental car)<\/td> \u8a08\u7a0b\u8eca (meter car)<\/td><\/tr> Bicycle<\/td> \u81ea\u884c\u8eca (self-driven vehicle)<\/td> \u8173\u8e0f\u8eca (foot-stamping vehicle)<\/td><\/tr> Butter<\/td> \u9ec3\u6cb9<\/td> \u5976\u6cb9<\/td><\/tr> Phone signal<\/td> \u4fe1\u865f<\/td> \u8a0a\u865f<\/td><\/tr> Farmhouse for tourists<\/td> \u8fb2\u5bb6\u6a02<\/td> \u571f\u96de\u57ce<\/td><\/tr> Draft beer<\/td> \u624e\u5564<\/td> \u751f\u5564<\/td><\/tr> Stir fry with random stuff you have around<\/td> \u96a8\u4fbf\u7092<\/td> \u9ed1\u767d\u5207<\/td><\/tr> Village<\/td> \u6751<\/td> \u90a8<\/td><\/tr> Pretty good<\/td> \u633a\u597d\u7684<\/td> \u883b\u597d\u7684 \uff08You can\u2019t say \u633a…\u7684 in Taiwan, they think it\u2019s weird)<\/td><\/tr> Percentage<\/td> \u6210\/\u767e\u5206\u4e4b<\/td> \u8db4 \uff08According to Wikipedia: “\u8db4 p\u0101<\/em> as “percent” originates from Japanese \u30d1\u30fc\u30bb\u30f3\u30c8 p\u0101sento<\/em>. This usage is also unique to Guoyu”)<\/em><\/td><\/tr> Good morning\/good night<\/td> \u65e9\u4e0a\u597d\/\u665a\u4e0a\u597d<\/td> \u65e9\u5b89\/\u665a\u5b89<\/td><\/tr> Profile picture<\/td> \u982d\u50cf<\/td> \u5927\u982d\u8cbc<\/td><\/tr> Video<\/td> \u8996\u983b<\/td> \u5f71\u7247<\/td><\/tr> Charging pack<\/td> \u5145\u96fb\u5bf6<\/td> \u884c\u52d5\u96fb\u6e90<\/td><\/tr> Scrolling on the phone<\/td> \u73a9\u624b\u6a5f<\/td> \u6ed1\u624b\u6a5f (no matter what phrasing you use, people do a lot of it in both places)<\/td><\/tr> Software app<\/td> \u8edf\u4ef6<\/td> \u8edf\u9ad4<\/td><\/tr> Avocado<\/td> \u725b\u6cb9\u679c<\/td> \u916a\u68a8<\/td><\/tr> Potato<\/td> \u571f\u8c46<\/td> \u99ac\u9234\u85af (\u571f\u8c46, or dirt-bean, means peanut in Taiwan. To be fair, they are both dirt-beans, of a sort)<\/td><\/tr> Basil<\/td> \u7f85\u52d2<\/td> \u4e5d\u5c64\u5854<\/td><\/tr> Undergraduate<\/td> \u672c\u79d1<\/td> \u5927\u5b78<\/td><\/tr> Kindergarten<\/td> \u5e7c\u5152\u5712<\/td> \u5e7c\u7a1a\u5712<\/td><\/tr> Rollercoaster<\/td> \u904e\u5c71\u8eca (passing-through-the-mountains car)<\/td> \u96f2\u9704\u98db\u8eca (flying-through-the-clouds car)<\/td><\/tr> Italian pasta<\/td> \u610f\u9eb5<\/td> \u7fa9\u5927\u5229\u9eb5 (\u610f\u9eb5 somehow means an egg noodle dish from southern China, not Italian pasta)<\/td><\/tr> Authentically local<\/td> \u5730\u9053<\/td> \u9053\u5730 (reverse, reverse!)<\/td><\/tr> Project<\/td> \u9805\u76ee<\/td> \u5c08\u6848<\/td><\/tr> Laptop<\/td> \u96fb\u8166<\/td> \u7b46\u96fb<\/td><\/tr> Electric scooter<\/td> \u96fb\u52d5\u8eca (electric-powered vehicle)<\/td> Gogoro (a brand name)<\/td><\/tr> Electric-powered car<\/td> \u65b0\u80fd\u6e90\u6c7d\u8eca (new energy car)<\/td> \u96fb\u52d5\u8eca (electric-powered vehicle)<\/td><\/tr> Forearm<\/td> \u80f3\u818a<\/td> \u524d\u81c2<\/td><\/tr> Broccoli<\/td> \u897f\u862d\u82b1<\/td> \u82b1\u6930\u83dc<\/td><\/tr> Instant noodles<\/td> \u65b9\u4fbf\u9762 \uff08convenient noodles)<\/td> \u6ce1\u9eb5 (soaked noodles)<\/td><\/tr> Salmon<\/td> \u4e09\u6587\u9b5a<\/td> \u9bad\u9b5a<\/td><\/tr> To hire<\/td> \u62db\u8058<\/td> \u8aa0\u5fb5<\/td><\/tr> Tissues<\/td> \u7eb8\u5dfe or \u9910\u7eb8<\/td> \u885b\u751f\u7d19 \uff08this 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)<\/td><\/tr> Snail<\/td> \u8717\u725b(pronounced wo niu)<\/td> \u8778\u725b (pronounced gua niu)<\/td><\/tr> Ping pong<\/td> \u4e52\u4e53\u7403 (ping pong)<\/td> \u684c\u7403 (table tennis)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n