Spoken Taiwanese [Paperback]

Nicholas C. Bodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1980 | ISBN-10: 0879504609 | ISBN-13: 978-0879504601

Dialogues rewritten from Spoken Amoy Hokkien by Wu Su-chu. Based on standard Taiwan, to be used with notes and grammatical discussions of Spoken Amoy Hokkien.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Spoken Language Services (May 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879504609
• ISBN-13: 978-0879504601
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,698,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst book language book I've ever seen!, July 10, 2000

By 

Wang, Chao-Hong (Hualien Taiwan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spoken Taiwanese (Paperback)

I totally disagree with the other reviewers. I bought the book on the strength of their positive comments. Big mistake. This book has no explanation of pronuciation, tones, grammar, or language usage. Example:

"Have you eaten yet Mr Iu? Iu sian si ciaq-pa bue"

How would you know the pronunciation of these words? How does the romanized system work? What is the the grammar structure? You won't find any answers in this book. In Taiwanese they say Iu Mr. the other way round to English and usually put the name at the beginning of most sentences. Again different to English, where don't always use peoples names. Also, have you eaten yet is equivalent to the English, "how are you doing?" or "how are you?". It's not an invitation or suggestion to get some food. There is no valuable info like that in this book.

To cap it all, the language it uses is very old fashioned and different to how most people use Min nan hua in Taiwan today.

Sadly, I agree with the reviewers on one point. There are almost no Taiwanese language books available :O(

I taught myself to speak and read Chinese successfully, but I won't be able to make any progress in Taiwanese with book like this.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Response to the Nay Sayers:, July 4, 2003

By 

Ash Henson (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spoken Taiwanese (Paperback)

the reviewers who trashed this book were correct in that it doesn't provide enough explanation, but they're also pretty much complaining that a screw-driver makes a bad hammer. This book is a re-writing of dialogues from Spoken Amoy Hokkien which is a great book and goes into great grammatical detail. So, if you buy this as a supplement to Spoken Amoy Hokkien (as it was meant to be) then there's plenty of grammatical explanation.
I've used the Spoken Cantonese courses (both I and II) and they are great. I plan on buying the Spoken Language course for each
new language I learn. The thing is, without the cassettes you'll get nowhere. It's impossible for a Westerner to learn any tonal language without listening to native speakers. If you expect to understand the pronunciation by just buying a book, it's your expectations that are messed up not the book. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that it isn't explicitly stated on the outside of the book (because it is stated in the forward) that the text is a supplement.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing Book, November 11, 2001

By 

Jim Lwason (CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spoken Taiwanese (Paperback)

I totally agree with Chris Gasper. For a foreigner attempting to learn Taiwanese, this book is not at all helpful, since the romanized system used within the book is (1) not defined, and so it is unclear how the pronunciation system functions, (2) does not explain the complex tonal system used in Taiwanese, and (3) is not entirely consistent throughout the book. Even native speakers of modern Taiwanese have had much difficulty understanding the proposed pronunciation system and have conveyed that it is incorrect. Though this book is targeting conversational Taiwanese, it lacks a useful opening chapter with some very basic vocabulary including the number system, common pronouns, common verbs, time of day system, etc. Rather, this information is scattered throughout the book, and is only touched upon if a sample sentence happens to make use of any of the above.

The foreword suggests this book may have been written in support of a class, which may be likely, since it is impossible for a foreigner to learn Taiwanese on his/her own solely with the use of this book. Disappointing as it may be, given that this is one of the few books available on the Taiwanese language, this book will not be of much assistance in learning the language.