bit of a long one today, found an interesting article on the taiwanese accent written by 小熊 on zhihu and thought i'd translate some! (not a direct translation, pulled in some info from other sources & my own comments on it as well)
what is the taiwanese accent?
first, there's a distinction to be made between taiwanese mandarin and a taiwanese accent. taiwanese mandarin combines hokkien and japanese, has less “standard” pronunciation, and is most often used by the older generation; for example:
“你要不要氣高雄玩?” -- 去 [qù] -> 氣 [qì]
“素這樣子噢?” -- 是 [shì] -> 素 [sù]
“這就素台灣狗蟻啦” -- 口音 [kǒuyin] -> 狗蟻 [gǒuyǐ]
otoh, the taiwanese accent is the way of speaking that many find warm/sweet (many tv series will have at least One Female Character playing up this accent to act cute). the accent has the following characteristics:
(1) linking sounds (連音)
people will frequently combine two words into a single breath, like:
“真的假的” -> “zhenn假的”
“不要這樣子啦” -> “不要 jiàng子啦”
“那樣很討厭耶” -> "niàng很討厭耶"
(2) less obvious retroflex (不明顯的捲舌)
because hokkien does not have retroflex sounds, tw accent falls somewhere in the middle of curling and not curling the tongue, making “zh, ch, sh” (and r) sound like “z, c, s”:
“你要不要癡?” -- 吃 [chī] -> 疵 [cī]
“四不四!” -- 是 [shī] -> 四 [sī]
“额且啊⋯⋯” -- 而 [ér] -> 額 [é]
taiwanese do not use 兒化 (i.e. adding "兒” to the ends of words like 一點兒, 好玩兒)
(3) no distinction between “ang, eng, ing” and “an, en, in”
"這個婉路真的很難用耶" -- 網 [wǎng] -> 婉 [wǎn]
“蒸的啦,不是假的” -- 真 [zhēn] -> 蒸 [zhēng]
"幫我喂鯨魚” -- 金 [jin] -> 鯨 [jing]
---
difference in speaking styles
in addition to differences in pronunciation, there are also differences in speaking habits. in particular, taiwanese like to use:
(1) reduplication
people will commonly repeat words -- IKEA Taiwan memed this back in 2022 by putting up a bunch of posters with duplicated words to describe the items, since IKEA's chinese name uses duplicates too (宜家家居).
“這個包包真好看”
"要乖乖的快去睡覺覺噢”
(2) final particles (喔,啊, 啦, 嘛)
hokkien uses modal particles at the end of sentences much more frequently than mandarin, so the tw accent also adopts this way of speaking. mainlanders might find it to be overly emotional lol
"好冷”,“特別冷” -> "好冷噢~~”, “天啊~這麽這麽冷拉"
(3) raised and trailing sounds
while mainlanders tend to lower the ending sound of a sentence, taiwanese tend to make the last sound louder/longer
(4) please 請, thank you 謝謝, sorry 對不起, excuse me 不好意思
netizens, and even BBC Travel have noticed that taiwanese tend to apologize a lot with 不好意思, which i guess makes taiwan (+ japan) like the canada of the east...basically, politeness is very important!
the hokkien equivalent of this, which is also used very frequently, is 歹势 [pai sei], which you say twice in succession to mean sorry or ask for forgiveness (saying it only once means "unlucky"). you can hear it used at the beginning of eggplantegg's waves wandering.
(5) 和
和 is pronounced hàn in Taiwan, as opposed to hé
(6) huh? 蛤?
蛤? = huh? what did you say? hokkien equivalent = 什麼?[sah-mih]
Amy's mom and my mom home both are very near by, so we come and go between my studio and both mom home around these days. lol Of course blah blah blah talking non stop XD Women ah terrible as parrots. 😘 but I think we're very lovely parrots.🦜🦜 Hi ha!!! 😁 Lan~*
(ps. 我們吃了我這個和尚最愛的"香菇豆腐素食麵"和抹茶拿鐵以及生巧克力。😋Yum! We had that monk of my favorite "Mushroom Tofu Vegetarian Noodles" 🤣 and matcha latte and raw chocolate.🤸♀️🤸🤸♂️)
Qian Zhongshu was a renowned 20th century Chinese literary scholar and writer, known for his wit and erudition.
He is best known for his satirical novel Fortress Besieged. His works of nonfiction are characterized by large amount of quotations in both Chinese and Western languages such as English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin. He also played an important role in digitizing Chinese classics late in his life. 💕