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Min Nan resources | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5287 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 1 of 15 23 April 2010 at 12:01am | IP Logged |
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I've always been puzzled at the fact that while resources even for many of the world's minority languages are available, resources for Min Nan, the main language of Taiwan, are pretty much nowhere to be found.
I've found a "Spoken Amoy Hokkien" by Nicholas Bodman so far, but that's very expensive and seems to only teach the Romanized script (apparently Min Nan has many of its unique Chinese characters not found in other dialects). Are there other good materials to use? They don't have to be necessarily in English - if they are in Korean or Spanish (highly unlikely) or any of my target languages, I would appreciate it. Just trying to track down the resources for later use. Edited by chucknorrisman on 23 April 2010 at 12:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6916 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 2 of 15 23 April 2010 at 1:12pm | IP Logged |
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The big one that keeps on coming up whenever I look into it is the Mary Knoll stuff. But I agree, not much around and I've even asked Taiwanese friends to help me out with finding things and they have come up with next to nothing as well.
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 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6218 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 15 23 April 2010 at 1:52pm | IP Logged |
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I just did a quick search of the university library in Singapore, and there seems to be a decent number of books. The ones that I have actually leafed through in person though were pretty old and if I remember correctly, romanized. I'll take a closer look the next time I happen to be near there.
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| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5535 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 4 of 15 24 April 2010 at 1:41am | IP Logged |
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I have the spoken language services Spoken Amoy Hokkien books which I use in
conjunction with Spoken Taiwanese book which consists of the dialog in the former rewritten to suit Taiwanese. Although it's romanized, most of Min Nan, at least the Taiwanese I've seen tends to be romanized, at least partially anyways. Though it's somewhat expensive (~$50 for the books) it's not like Pimsleur/Rosetta stone expensive. So not ridiculous and it's very good, though a bit dated, think older FSI minus the drills. What's nice is it's heavy on the linguistic explanation (if that sort of the thing appeals to you). And aside from the hard to find Maryknoll series it's about the only game in town in terms of English-materials. If you're interested in procuring the audio for Spoken Taiwanese, PM me and I can point you in the right direction. There are also many (12 sets of 6 = 72) lessons online with audio in Taiwanese Min Nan here which have characters (and several different romanization systems plus zhuyin). They are, however directed at children but are nice just for the quantity and, importantly audio. There's also a short mandarin-taiwanese phrase-booky book floating around uz- translations somewhere I think. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6541 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 5 of 15 24 April 2010 at 2:54am | IP Logged |
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Just found an interesting website that lists some of the material available:
http://tailingua.com/resources/books/ They mention the Maryknoll Taiwanese books, which are supposed to be the best books you can buy, even better than the Bodman books. They were written for missionaries who would work in Taiwan, so they have a Catholic bias, but apparently they have a lot of good material to work through, too. They can be found here: http://mklanguage.homestead.com/Bk_List_Lang_2010_Feb_3_html _no_price.htm I found a few books when I was in Taiwan that had audio, but I don't know if you'd be able to find them on the Internet to order them. edit: I take that back. I found at least one online bookstore that has Taiwanese books for order: http://www.silkbook.com/search_result.asp?now_page=8&SearchT ext=%A5x%BBy&SearchOption=1 I have 一分鐘台語，即學即用台語會話，外國人學台 語 and Harvard Taiwanese 101. The first two are available at the above website. I rather like 一分鐘台語 because it has 4 CDs of material, but it basically feeds you sentences without explaining the grammar and only has Mandarin glosses. The lack of grammar instruction seemed typical for most language books in Chinese that I saw in Taiwan. 即學即用台語會話 has only 2 CDs and spends the first part just listing words, especially words for family relations. I plan on using it as a supplement for 一分鐘台語 when I finish that. 外國人學台語 and Harvard Taiwanese 101 both have the advantage of having English glosses, but 外國人學台語 is way too short--only six lessons and one CD. They're good introductory lessons but it doesn't go anywhere deep enough into the language to be useful. Then there's Harvard Taiwanese 101. It is a frustrating book. It kind of loses the plot after the first couple of lessons. It follows the budding relationship of a guy and a Taiwanese girl, and it seems more concerned about having the two make (bad) jokes with each other than actually teaching the language. The more I tried to use the book, the more annoyed with it I became, especially when I realized it wasn't really teaching useful words or sentences. It puts in pages with grammar practice but no explanation in any language. It gives pages with audio to practice tone sandhi, but no explanation. The English translations are quirky at best and sometimes just weird. If your Chinese is good enough to use Chinese resources, they are better than this book because it doesn't really do a good job teaching the language. Which is ironic, because included at the end of HT101 is a copy of a paper the author did outlining the weakness of all the other Taiwanese instruction books that he had access to. Edited by Raincrowlee on 24 April 2010 at 2:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ichiro Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6048 days ago 111 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, French Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Malay | Message 6 of 15 26 April 2010 at 2:56pm | IP Logged |
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I didn't know there was any of this stuff available! I'm very interested.
The only items I know about are a couple of language-learner books in Japanese, which you can find on Japanese Amazon - はじめての台湾語 ISBN 978-4756906656 CDエクスプレス 台湾語 ISBN 978-4560003534 I've got CDエクスプレス 台湾語 - twenty short dialogs, all fully recorded, plus explanatory grammar notes. In the introduction there's a full explanation of the tone sandhi. The Romanisation is the standard confusing POJ romanisation, but as a plus point it does record the dialogs in characters. There's enough material in the book to get a taste of the language but not enough really to learn it. Oh well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5179 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 7 of 15 26 April 2010 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you Ichiro-san, I am going to place an order for the CDエクスプレス 台湾語 on amazon.co.jp now! Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 26 April 2010 at 3:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ichiro Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6048 days ago 111 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, French Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Malay | Message 8 of 15 27 April 2010 at 5:20am | IP Logged |
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Hi Noriyuki. I got my copy in Singapore at the Kinokuniya in Takashimaya on Orchard Road; but it was at the outrageous markup price of $60, so it's probably better to wait for the Amazon delivery. It depends how hungry you are.
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