If you read my previous article: What Language Do They Speak in Taiwan?, you know that Mandarin is the language of Taiwan in the same way that English is the language of Ireland (as opposed to Irish Gaelic). When it comes to the practicalities of everyday life, these are the languages you need to know to get by.

Let’s say you don’t care about all that, though.

You already know a thing or two about Taiwan. You know that the Taiwanese language is an important symbol of the Taiwanese national identity, as well as for distinguishing Taiwan from China as a national and cultural entity. (If you don’t know what the Taiwanese language is, do make sure to check out that previous article.)

You long for the days before the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War, fled to Taiwan, and imposed Mandarin on the Taiwanese-speaking populace a la the National Language Movement (國語運動) — stigmatizing Taiwanese and outright banning it in schools on a national level — forcing students to either speak Mandarin exclusively or don the dunce cap. You just wish Taiwan retained Taiwanese the same way that Hong Kong has retained Cantonese.

Maybe you’ve even spoken to older folks who were in Taiwan before the KMT’s retreat, who don’t speak Mandarin well to this day, and resent being treated as uneducated or lesser for speaking the tongue they grew up with — much less being pressured to adopt the speech of yet another foreign occupier (the most recent having been Japan, from 1895 – 1945, during which time the locals were pressured to speak Japanese).

Maybe you’ve seen the twinkle that appears in competent Taiwanese-speakers eyes when a foreigner — or even a local who just doesn’t speak it that well — expresses an interest in the seemingly most local of the local languages.

So what if you refuse to learn Mandarin and insist on only learning Taiwanese? What will this mean in the context of everyday life?

Obstacle #1: Lack of Connection

Practical inconveniences aside, the greatest hurdle will be that of human connection; because unless you’re a senior citizen, only speaking Taiwanese will create a language barrier between you and most of your peers.

As I mentioned in the previous article, it is generally held that about 70% of people in Taiwan speak Taiwanese and 30% don’t. But in my experience, much fewer than 70% speak the language fluently in most regions.

There’s evidence for this, too. According to a 2023 Storm Media article, 66.3% of Taiwanese people use Mandarin as their primary means of communication compared to only 31.7% who use Taiwanese. And I would suggest that this means we’re turning this number on its head — going from 70% of speakers and 30% of non-speakers to something more like 30% of native-level speakers and 70% amateurs and non-speakers. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find statistics for more specific distributions of fluency.

To make matters worse, the older generation have their wrinkled fingers on the scale. According to a News Lens article from 2021, while 65.9% of people 65 years and older primarily speak Taiwanese, 83.7% of 25 – 34 year olds primarily speak Mandarin, as do 88.5% of 15 – 24 year olds and 92.1% of 6 – 14 year olds. And I don’t think I’m being pessimistic when I say that these kids aren’t just waiting until they’re 65 to learn Taiwanese — so these numbers are only going to get worse.

Now, you may think these numbers are beside the point; you just want to know what percentage of people you can communicate with in Taiwanese. Fair enough! But the fact remains that as of now, in Taiwan, if you want to talk to anyone under 35 years of age, 80% of the time this will mean speaking to people in their second language at best, and in a language they don’t speak or understand at all at worst.

Obstacle #2: Illiteracy

And if you think not being able to communicate fluently with most of the population is a problem, consider also that not knowing Mandarin will essentially make you illiterate.

There is no standardized writing system for Taiwanese, after all. Sure, missionaries have translated the Bible to Taiwanese with the latin alphabet, but this is far from widely adopted — and I personally hope it never is, as it has the aesthetic appeal of a Stalinist commie block.

Of course, there’s a much more elegant solution in the form of Taiwanese Hanzi (台閩漢字). But while Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (教育部) have assigned official Chinese Characters (Hanzi) to the Taiwanese syllables they deem their counterparts, you aren’t going to find many books or street signs that actually use this system, much less other people. Most likely, learning Taiwanese Hanzi will give you little more than a secret code with which to communicate with other enthusiasts in niche online communities — though I’m not saying that can’t be fun!

And learning Taiwanese Hanzi won’t necessarily allow you to decode information written in Mandarin Hanzi, either. Yes, the two more or less use the same set of characters, but the languages just don’t map on to each other one-to-one (just as they don’t between Mandarin and Cantonese). The consequence of this is that even when both languages generally agree on all the meanings a character can represent (of which there can be many), unless you’ve actually learned the other language, you will only be able to guess the significance of its unique character combinations — and sometimes your guesses will be wrong.

The Best Place to Live to Learn Taiwanese

But perhaps I still haven’t discouraged you. You’re fine relying on mostly oral communication, and even prepared to join the Taiwanese Hanzi movement. It may even be a lark, trying to decipher Mandarin writing based on what you’ve studied of Taiwanese Hanzi. Mandarin speakers often rely on the very same tactic to decipher the Kanji parts of Japanese writing when on vacation in Japan, after all.

Where should you go? One of the most important aspects of learning a language is having an immersive environment, after all. So where should you make your new home for maximum Taiwanese immersion?

My intuitive answer would be Khaosiung (高雄), as Taiwanese tends to be more widely spoken in the south, and Khaosiung is like our southern capital — the largest urban area in the thick of Taiwanese-burbia.

To my surprise, however, according to the News Lens article cited above, only 43.2% of Khaosiung folks speak Taiwanese as their primary language, putting the city in 10th place out of 22 cities and counties (there is overlap among some of these; for example, Chiayi County and Chiayi City are listed separately despite the fact the latter is within the former).

Instead, it is the more rural areas — not cities, but the broader areas classified as counties — where Taiwanese shines brightest, with Chiayi County in 1st at 66.8% Taiwanese-dominance (only 48.2% in Chiayi City within Chiayi County, though), Yunlin County in 2nd at 63.3%, and Changhua County in 3rd at 60.2%.

If you’re familiar with Taiwanese geography, a light-hearted grimace may now appear on your face. No offense to our friends in the southern belt between Taichung and Tainan, but this is a bit of a no-mans land in the eyes of many city folk. Some may be as audacious as to use the Mandarin phrase: “鳥不生蛋，狗不拉屎 ” — meaning its a place where “birds don’t lay eggs and dogs don’t shit.” Still, these are basically cities — just very small and somewhat isolated ones; and that can pose a whole other host of challenges.

So you might have to give up metropolitan life and hang out with a lot of old folks if you seek maximum immersion in Taiwanese— though Khaosiung and Tainan (50.4%) are still decent options if you can’t make that sacrifice. Or you might try the beautiful (though touristy) beaches of Kenting, which are a part of Pintung County, coming in 4th at 51.6% Taiwanese-dominance — still not a big city, but at least a rural area with a chill tropical vibe.

Either way, remember that you can’t just go wherever you like and expect everywhere to be more or less the same. Up north in Taipei, for example, only 15.4% of citizens primarily speak Taiwanese (and according to my friend from Kenting, speaking Taiwanese in the capital can even attract disdainful looks); in Taoyuan, it’s 12.5%; and in Hsinchu County, its less than 4% (though this is because 11.5% speak Hakka). Even centrally-located Taichung, just a stone’s throw from bronze medal Changhua, is only 32.3% Taiwanese-dominant. And if you move somewhere below 30% still, your immersion is going to be lacking.

Conclusion

If you want to try to get by in Taiwan knowing only Taiwanese, you definitely have your work cut out for you. But then again, you can’t really know what will happen unless you try. As far as I know, no foreigner has ever seriously tried learning Taiwanese without learning Mandarin first (though for better or worse, plenty have proven you can get by not learning any local language and just hanging out with other expats all the time).

And if that’s too impractical, you can always learn Mandarin and Taiwanese side-by-side, using Mandarin to deal with the practicalities of everyday life and build a foundation for literacy, and just using Taiwanese for socializing with those closest to you — not so unlike the locals who speak Taiwanese in home and Mandarin at school and work.

In any event, there’s no one true answer to what makes a person really Taiwanese. And while the preservation of the Taiwanese language is a worthy cause, those who grew up speaking Mandarin or were raised by non-Taiwanese-speaking parents should never be counted out.

So just do whatever works best for you — and, most importantly, enjoy your language learning journey. Above all, remember: While knowing a language may seem like a superpower, what you learn from the screw-ups that come with the struggle is priceless.

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