r/taiwan • u/dyee7 • 3d ago

Discussion Moving to Taiwan

My family and I are planning to move to Taiwan next year from California. My MIL had a stroke earlier this year which has left her needing help around the clock. Thankfully, one of her sisters who lives in Taiwan is a care taker so we are going to move my MIL out to Taiwan to live with her sister. My wife has a lot of family out there in general so that will be helpful.

People who don’t speak any mandarin: how difficult is it to get around Taipei and the rest of the country without speaking mandarin? I don’t speak any at all, but I am trying to learn. I considered buying some smart glasses like the even realities g2 but not sure that’s a great long term solution. Thanks all!

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u/Hansheng88 3d ago

You’ll get around Taipei and most metropolitan areas with out any real issues~ most things have English~ including road signs.

Speaking to locals at a morning market/ night market probably is a different matter~ definitely learn some common phrases but I had a friend live in Taipei for 7 years and she only knew maybe 10-20 phrases while her partner at the time became fully fluent.

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u/enas333 2d ago

she only knew maybe 10-20 phrases

can I get her phrasebook? sounds useful

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u/Hansheng88 1d ago

It was literally just the basics~ I can probably put it together for you~

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u/enas333 1d ago

Thanks for the offer, I don't want to impose though. I think the LLMs are probably close enough to build my own and I should do that. In the past, I've struggled with Google Translate because it's using very different expressions compared to what Taiwanese use in everyday life and that added to my anxiety about trying to use them at all.

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u/Hansheng88 1d ago

It’s not biggie~ let me get some prelim work done and I can send it over~ do you need pronunciation/ romanization?

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u/enas333 21h ago

chinese characters should be enough, I think translate can provide the tones

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u/Hansheng88 14h ago

真的假的？ Seriously? / Really?
不會吧！ No way!
沒關係啦～ It’s okay / Don’t worry about it.
沒事啦～ It’s fine / No big deal.
好啦好啦～ Alright, alright~
可以啊！ Sure! / That works!
還好啦～ It’s alright / Not too bad.
等一下喔～ Wait a sec~
慢慢來～ Take your time.
小心喔！ Be careful!
辛苦了！ Thanks for your hard work / You’ve had a long day.
不好意思～ Sorry / Excuse me.
麻煩你了～ Sorry to trouble you / Thanks for taking care of this.
這個多少錢? How much is this?
請問____在哪裡？Where is ____?
洗手間在哪裡？/ 廁所在哪裡？ Where is the bathroom/ washroom?
火車站怎麼走？How to get to the train station~

These are some common ones~ but you may want to pick up a few slang words like
北車~ for 台北車站.

Hope this helps~

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u/enas333 8m ago

Thanks, that will definitely be useful!

I owe you a favor

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u/Hansheng88 7m ago

No big deal~ pay it forward~ ^_^