Hello! I am very interested in learning Chinese! But the type of Chinese I would like to learn is the Traditional Chinese taught in Taiwan. Seeing that many of the other popular languages split (Like Spain Spanish and Mexican Spanish) I was hoping that eventually we may see a Taiwan Mandarin and China Mandarin. I have asked numerous times if we can look forward to eventually getting a Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan) but have never gotten a response. So I make this thread in hopes to develop some awareness in the interest for this kind of course and for people to discuss what they would want in this kind of course.
I personally would like to give my first suggestion and say that I would hope that a Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan) teaches Bopomofo. It may make things a little more difficult for learners at first, but by the end, if they could use Bopomofo for all of the reading portions that don’t use Hanzi (Where they use Pinyin in the other Chinese course) then I think it would be extremely beneficial to anyone planning to move to Taiwan. I also think it can help with learning the sounds better. But thats a slightly controversial opinion. I would also like to see some Taiwan specific phrases if there is any. Not just a direct Simplified to Traditional Conversion.
@Xefjord ~ I live in Taiwan and use Memrise. Like you, I feel the heavy bias towards Simplified Mandarin courses on Memrise.There are some Traditional courses available, as well as BoPoMoFo ones. I won’t plug my own offerings in both of those areas, but suffice it to say, if you direct your search in the Languages\Chinese\Chinese (Traditional) category, you might find what you are looking for. I hope this helps.
I assume you mean Chinese Traditional characters. Taiwan is not the only area that uses this set. If you are referring to Taiwan in particular, you should also be aware that we have some differences in pronunciations and character spellings so it is not simply just a 1:1 conversion of Simplified to Traditional.
We also don’t really use pinyin here (except on maps and street signs). BoPoMoFo is basically just to learn how to pronounce sounds clearly and once you learn the sounds, speaking is easier. For the most part we just read/write/speak the characters directly as Mandarin - a MUCH more efficient way to learn (IMHO). Of course, if you are a foreigner, then you would translate them into your second language, but that would be about it. No pinyin. That’s probably not an easy pill for many pinyin-based learners to swallow. If Memrise offered a Traditional course, I assume they would still rely on pinyin.
But I like (and agree with) your suggestion. Maybe some day Memrise will offer something other than what they currently do with Mandarin, since they have done so with other languages (i.e. Spanish, Portuguese, and even English). One can always hope.