Until the 1980s the Kuomintang administration heavily promoted the use of Standard Mandarin and discouraged the use of Taiwanese and other vernaculars, even portraying them as inferior. Mandarin was the only sanctioned Chinese variety for use in the media. This produced a backlash in the 1990s. Although some supporters of Taiwan independence tend to be opposed to standard Mandarin in favor of Taiwanese, efforts to replace standard Mandarin either with Taiwanese or with a multi-lingual standard have not been successful. Today, Mandarin is taught by immersion starting in elementary school. After the second grade, the entire educational system is in Mandarin, except for local language classes that have been taught for a few hours each week starting in the mid-1990s.
Taiwanese Mandarin (as with Singlish and many other situations of a creole speech community) is spoken at different levels according to the social class and situation of the speakers. Formal occasions call for the acrolectal level of Guoyu (Standard Mandarin). Less formal situations often result in the basilect form, which has more uniquely Taiwanese features. Bilingual speakers often code-switch between Mandarin and Taiwanese, sometimes in the same sentence.
Mandarin is spoken fluently by almost the entire Taiwanese population, except for some elderly people who were educated under Japanese rule. In the capital Taipei, where there is a high concentration of Mainlanders whose native variety is not Taiwanese, Mandarin is used in greater frequency and fluency than other parts of Taiwan.
There are two categories of pronunciation differences. The first is of characters that have an official pronunciation that differs from Putonghua (普通话 Pǔtōnghuà), primarily in the form of differences in tone, rather than in vowels or consonants. The second is more general, with differences being unofficial and arising through Taiwanese Hokkien influence on Guoyu (國語 Guóyǔ).
the syllable written as pinyin: eng before b, f, m, p and w is pronounced as [ʊŋ] in all tones.
Isochrony is considerably more syllable-timed than in other Mandarin dialects (including Putonghua), which are stress-timed. Consequently, the "neutral tone" (輕聲) does not occur as often.
In basilectal Taiwanese Mandarin, sounds that do not occur in Taiwanese are replaced by sounds from Mandarin. These variations from Standard Mandarin are similar to the variations of Mandarin spoken in southern China. Using the Hanyu Pinyin system, the following sound changes take place (going from Putonghua to Taiwanese Mandarin followed with an example):
The standard Mandarin construct 有…沒有 (have or not have) is not as commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin as in standard Mandarin. For example, the sentence "Do you have a car?" is as follows:
Taiwanese Mandarin: 你有沒有汽車? (lit. "you have or not have a car?")
PRC Mandarin: 你有汽车沒有? (lit. "you have a car or not have?")
For non-recurring events, the construction involving 有 is used where the sentence final particle 了 would normally be applied to denote perfect. For instance, Taiwanese Mandarin more commonly uses "你有看醫生嗎?" to mean "Have you seen a doctor?" whereas Putonghua uses "你看醫生了嗎?". This is due to the influence of Hokkien grammar, which uses 有ū in a similar fashion. For recurring or certain events however, both Taiwanese and Mainland Mandarin use the latter, as in "你吃飯了嗎?", meaning "Have you eaten?"
Another example of Hokkien grammar's influence on Taiwanese Mandarin is the use of 會 as "to be" verbs before adjectives, in addition to the usual meanings "would" or "will". For instance:
Taiwanese Mandarin: 你會冷嗎? (lit. "you are cold INT?")
Taiwanese Mandarin: 我會冷 (lit. "I am cold.")
Taiwanese Mandarin: 我不會冷 (lit. "I not am cold.")
This reflects Hokkien syntax, as shown below:
Hokkien: 你會寒袂? (lit. "you are cold, not?")
Hokkien: 我會寒 (lit. "I am cold.")
Hokkien: 我袂寒 (lit. "I not cold.")
In Putonghua, sentences would more likely be rendered as follows:
Putonghua: 你冷不冷? (lit. "you cold, not cold?"), or 你冷嗎? (lit. "you cold INT?").
Vocabulary differences can be divided into several categories – particles, different usage of the same term, loan words, technological words, idioms, and words specific to living in Taiwan. Because of the limited transfer of information between mainland China and Taiwan after the Chinese civil war, many items that were invented after this split have different names in Guoyu and Putonghua. Additionally, many terms were adopted from Japanese both as a result of its close proximity (Okinawa) as well as Taiwan's status as a Japanese territory in the first half of the 20th century.
Spoken Taiwanese Mandarin uses a number of Taiwan specific (but not exclusive) final particles, such as 囉 (luō), 嘛(ma), 喔 (ō), 耶 (yē), 咧 (lie), 齁 (hō), 咩 (mei), 唷 (yō), etc.
Some terms have different meanings in Taiwan and mainland China, which can sometimes lead to misunderstandings between speakers of different sides of the Taiwan Strait. Often there are alternative, unambiguous terms which can be understood by both sides.
Term
Meaning in Taiwan
Meaning in mainland China
Remarks
土豆 tǔdòu
peanut
potato
Unambiguous terms:
花生 (peanut)
馬鈴薯/马铃薯 (potato).
搞
gǎo
to carry out something insidious, to screw/fuck (vulgar)
to do, to perform a task
As such, it is a verb that is rarely seen in any official or formal setting in Taiwan, whereas it is widely used in mainland China even by its top officials in official settings.
In Taiwan, taxis are called 計程車 / 计程车 (jìchéngchē), which is used less frequently in mainland China. However, many taxis in Taiwan have 個人出租汽車 written on them.
Loan words may differ largely between Putonghua and Taiwanese Mandarin, as different characters or methods may be chosen for transliteration (phonetical or semantical), even the number of characters may different. For example, U.S. President Barack Obama's surname is called 奥巴馬Àobāmǎ in Putonghua and 歐巴馬 or 歐巴瑪 Ōubāmǎ in Guoyu. Also, in Taiwanese Mandarin, rhotacization (erhua) is generally avoided.
The term (麻吉májí) borrowed from the English term "match", is used to describe items or people which complement each other well. Note that this term has become popular in mainland China as well.
The English term "hamburger" has been adopted in many Chinese-speaking communities. In Taiwan, the preferred form is 漢堡 (hànbǎo) rather than the mainland Chinese 漢堡包 (hànbǎobāo).
The terms "阿公agōng" and "阿嬤amà" are more commonly heard than the standard Mandarin terms 爺爺yéye (paternal grandfather), 外公wàigōng (maternal grandfather), 奶奶nǎinai (paternal grandmother) and 外婆wàipó (maternal grandmother).
Some local foods usually are referred to using their Hokkien names. These include:
弁当 in Japanese was borrowed from a Classical Chinese term using different characters but reintroduced to Taiwan via Mandarin as 便當 via different characters via 便 instead of 弁 because 便 means "convenient" which certainly is what a bento box is. In China, they used the semantic approach.
motor scooter/(slang) someone or something extremely annoying or irritating (though the slang meaning is often written 機扯)(means "locomotive" in mainland China)[20]
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^Often written using the Mandarin equivalent 刨冰, but pronounced using the Taiwanese Hokkien word.
^Google hits from the China Times (中時電子報) and Liberty Times (自由時報) are included.
^This can be a tricky one, because 見笑 means "to be laughed at" in Standard Mandarin. Context will tell you which meaning should be inferred.
^Many people in Taiwan will use the Mandarin pronunciation (guīmáo).
^the writing 凍蒜 (lit. freeze garlic) probably originated in 1997, when the price of garlic was overly raised, and people called for the government to gain control of the price.
^Most people in Taiwan will use the Taiwanese pronunciation (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: o·-jí-sáng; [ɔ˧ʑi˥saŋ˥˧])
^The first character 閣 is usually omitted when placed behind the surname. For example, the former premier was Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌). Since his surname is 蘇, he was referred to in the press as 蘇揆.
^The numbers are a bit misleading in this case because in the PRC, 公车 also refers to government owned vehicles.
^Young people in Taiwan also use this word to refer to someone or something extremely annoying or irritating.
Kubler, Cornelius C. (1981). The development of Mandarin in Taiwan: A case study of language contact (Ph. D.). New York: Cornell University. OCLC11978673.
Kuo, Yun-Hsuan (2005). New dialect formation: The case of Taiwanese Mandarin (Ph.D.). Colchester: Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex. OCLC61123947.
Lu, Huang Cheng (2011). Tâi-gí sû-tián 簡明台語詞典 [A Dictionary of Taiwanese] (in Chinese). Taipei: 文水藝文事業有限公司. ISBN 9789868696648.