Table of Contents
What language do the people in Taiwan speak?
People in Taiwan both speak Mandarin, Taiwanese and some speak minority Formosan languages.
What language is mostly spoken in Taiwan?
The language most spoken in Taiwan is Taiwanese mandarin. It was introduced after 1945 when R.O.C. took over the island from Japan rule.
Taiwan uses Traditional Chinese Characters to write Mandarin.
Is Taiwanese a language?
Yes, Taiwanese is a language. Taiwansese or officially Taiwanese Hokkien is spoken by 80% of Taiwanese people. It originates from Fujian Porvince and is spoken by many people. However younger generations speak more Mandarin than Taiwanese these days.
Which other languages are spoken in Taiwan?
After WWII, for a long time during Martial Law other languages than Mandarin were not allowed. It only recently changed since 2000.
Since then the government tries to protect and keep alive the local languages. But Mandarin is the dominant language.
Local languages
Besides Taiwanese Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien another 6.6% of Taiwanese people speak Taiwanese Hakka and about 1.4% speaks one of the many Formosan tribe Languages.
Formosan languages: Amis, Atayal, Bunun, Kanakanavu, Kavalan, Paiwan, Putuma, Rukai, Saaroa, Saisiyat, Sakizaya, Seediq, Thao, Truku Tsou and Tai.
Can Taiwanese speak english well?
In my experience most younger generations can speak english. However sometimes they seem shy to speak it. Especially in Tapei and most tourist places you can easy find someone english speaking. In smaller towns or Elder generations often only chinese is spoken. However everyone is very kind and with sign language you can come a long way. 🙂
Can Taiwanese speak Japanese?
During Japanese colonial times Taiwanese people got all classes taught in Japanese at school. So especially the elder generations are very good at Japanese. Younger generations learn Japanese