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Preparing your life in Taiwan

Written byNicolas Sauvageon 18 August 2009

According to

Wikipedia, Taiwan's population was estimated in 2005 at 22.9 million, most of whom are on the island of Taiwan. About 98% of the population is of Han Chinese ethnicity. About 70% of the people in Taiwan belong to the Hoklo ethnic group and speak both Standard Mandarin (officially recognized by the ROC as the National Language) and Taiwanese Minnan (commonly known as "Taiwanese"; a variant of Min Nan spoken in Fujian province). Standard Mandarin is the primary language of instruction in schools.

Taiwan is a great place to learn Mandarin Chinese, even though English is widely spoken, and speaking some Chinese will definitively help you.

Below are some useful links that could be useful to learn Chinese for preparing your trip/stay in Taiwan.

ChinesPod.com

Probably the best source of podcasts to learn Chinese on the web.

Skritter.com

Definitively the best place to learn how to write Chinese characters.

ChineseTeachers.com

Definitively the best place to have 1-1 Chinese lessons with qualified Chinese teachers.

Nciku.com

Definitively the best online English-Chinese dictionary.

We do our best to provide accurate and up to date information. However, if you have noticed any inaccuracies in this article, please let us know in the comments section below.

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Comments

  • recoveringtaiwanoholic
    recoveringtaiwanoholic13 years ago(Modified)
    Ethnicity is a little more complicated than that. When the Minnan people came to Taiwan several hundred years ago, it was mostly male workers. For a few decades there were Spanish and Dutch sailors and colonialists hanging around too. So no doubt they mixed with the aboriginal populations fairly quickly making the genepool quite a healthy mix. Certainly not "pure" Chinese!

See also

All of Taiwan's guide articles