Customer Reviews

Spoken Taiwanese

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

It's hard to find books on learning Taiwanese but I like this one a lot. I never knew Taiwanese but I think I learned a lot from the way the material is presented. Each chapter goes through basic phrases in everyday life from eating out, visiting a small rural village, and meeting friends. This is perhaps the best I've seen on Taiwanese (Tainan dialect) because the the pronunciations from romanized words are easy compare to other Taiwanese books. The words are considered to be not modern (perhaps 1940's,1960's words are used), but the difference between that and modern Taiwanese isn't significant. Here's a recommendation: buy the audio cassettes (for listening) from the company and buy the Spoken Amoy Hokkien book (for grammatical reference). Buying these would significantly improve your Taiwanese instead of just having the book.

This textbook is a great introduction to the Taiwanese language. It is unfortunate that this book has gotten a bad reputation because of misunderstandings of it's usage. As a few other reviewers pointed out this book is meant to be used with Spoken Amoy Hokkien (2 Volume Set). Spoken Amoy has all of the relevant grammar that makes Spoken Taiwanese understandable and usable.

That out of the way, the lessons in the book are good, and the audio (though a little dated in sound) is clear and audible. The speaker (yes, there is only one speaker on the tape) seems fast, but then again it is best to listen to people the speak at a conversational level early, rather then at a slow and artificial speed. The lessons texts seem a little dense at the start, but it levels out latter on. The text is dated to the mid-80's but is still mostly relevant (I would imagine). All in all a great way to learn Taiwanese, especially seeing as there are few such texts on the English market.

The only thing I would have loved to seen is the use of Chinese characters in the text (for either Amoy or Taiwanese [or both preferably]), thus the 4 stars instead of 5. But seeing as this is still a great introduction to spoken Taiwanese, and seeing as picking up spoken Taiwanese (as is the case with any dialect of Chinese) is much easier then picking up the written form, this is still a great textbook.

As far as the age issue of the text, please see my review of Spoken Amoy Hokkien here on Amazon.

I grew up with my parents speaking Taiwanese, but it's really a tongue-twisting, infuriating language, more difficult than Cantonese. I'm glad I bought this book, however, because 1) it's very hard to find books that teach Taiwanese, and 2) it contains most things you need to know to get around in Taiwanese (thank god you can always get by with Mandarin in Taiwan). The reason why I didn't give it 5 stars is because I still think the spelling (or pinyin) could've written differently for a better pronunciation. I figured most of it out with the help of a few Taiwanese-speaking friends. Note also that the usage of words differs from person to person in Taiwan. You should totally buy this book if you're intending to stay for a long time in Taiwan and are very interested in the country. If not, I recommend taking a Mandarin-course. Much more useful and you'll be able to manage in most parts of China as well.

1) This is an ancient reprint. The typeface used is very poor and the reproduction is often not dark or large enough.
2) Only using a Romanization makes this book almost useless when working with a native speaker. Without reinforcing Chinese characters at every opportunity, the student is wasting their time.
3) No explanation of pronounciation and tone system makes the book of ZERO value when trying to learn on your own. (I suppose if you already spoke Taiwanese, the book would have some value, but... why would you buy it if you already spoke Taiwanese?)
4) There is no organization of grammar.
5) Worst: I have no idea if Kejia Hua (Hokkien) is that similar to Taiwanese. This book is a "conversion" of a Hokkien book. Had the title clearly indicated as such, I certainly would not have bought this.
6) Only positive: paper is suitable bonfire or latrine use.
7) Consummer fraud any way you slice it... maybe ok at a yard sale of $0.25, but no more...