An Audio-Visual Garden of Weeds

Fun fact: the original title was "an audio-visual weed garden" but that would have raised questions not answered by the post.

Outside my window I have a weird little garden. Two under-pruned and overgrown money trees, a bougainvillea, lemon balm started from a cutting that fell onto my casement from an upstairs neighbor and is now taking over my house. Hipster-approved succulents because I can keep those alive. A snake plant because they're difficult to kill.

And weeds: I'll sometimes leave out pots of unplanted soil and see what blows in. On one side I have a big ol' fern because a fern seed decided to grow there. On the other edge, I have an unruly crown-of-thorns, again just a weary traveling seed that likes my windowsill enough to stick around.

I don't have any specific goal for this window or these weeds, for whom I am now an adoptive plant mom. I figure that if a random plant is going to choose my window as a good place to grow, it's probably going to be very easy to grow. As a black thumb, that works out great for me. 

I'll let you decide what this has to do with language learning, but in my own weedy head, there is a connection. 

Soon after I wrote my last post on learning Armenian and Taiwanese at the same time, I signed up with the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) free online beginner Armenian class. Brendan joked that I could fuse both languages into some sort of new tongue, and that one language would be more efficient to study, but I thought taking an online course would be easier. 

While imperfect -- there was a lot of Audiolingual style drilling, some of the language and grammar points went by far too quickly with inadequate practice, the tests were far easier than the content, and I hardly had to speak at all -- it was something I had to do every week, which pushed me to commit to studying. It improved my letter recognition quite a bit. It was highly audio-based: pictures, yes, but mostly listening to other people speak Armenian and choosing appropriate words, pictures, or sentence completion items. There were online meetings, but it turns out that Yerevan time is not very convenient for me in Taipei. I still scored 100%, because again, the tests were too easy. 

Հայերեն շատ դժվար է, բայց ես լավ ուսանող էի:

For much of my class, however, I wondered one thing.

Why isn't there a free online Taiwanese course? Why aren't there several at different levels?

I could imagine the descendants of Taiwanese who immigrated abroad might have some interest in that, if they didn't learn the language at home, or didn't learn it very well. Foreigners who live in Taiwan or those around the world married to Taiwanese might also find it of interest. Perhaps not many will go on to seriously study the language to gain high-level proficiency, but perhaps that isn't the point.

It's doubtful that the AGBU expects everyone who takes its free courses to go on and become fluent speakers of Armenian. Most of my cohort were, like me, diaspora with an interest in the language of their ancestors that they did not speak. Will some association that parallels the AGBU in Taiwan ever decide to offer this for anyone who wants to sign up?

It wouldn't result in a cohort of fluent speakers, but it might help with awareness that Mandarin is not the only language in Taiwan, and in fact is the newest language to be introduced (forced) here. It would promote Taiwanese identity as something separate from Chinese identity, and help clarify that Taiwanese is not a "dialect" of Mandarin; it is a language, mutually unintelligible with Mandarin.

This would serve slightly different purposes to the AGBU courses: nobody except perhaps Azerbaijan is going around saying Armenians are not a distinct group of people with their own history and culture. I don't mean that in an ethno-nationalist way; whatever you think about borders, it's just true. AGBU is trying to connect սփյուռքահայ like me with their roots. While anyone is welcome to join, they don't seem to necessarily expect that non-Armenians will do so in great numbers.

A free Taiwanese course could have this goal as well, but also attract non-Taiwanese (like me!), spreading cultural awareness beyond Taiwanese communities here and abroad. Again, to offer a first step for people who are beginning to realize that Mandarin is not the end-all and be-all of language in Taiwan, and is certainly not the only option. And it would probably be more effective than ICRT's We Love Hakka for the Hakka language!

It would be amazing if other languages of Taiwan could start this up too. A free Hakka course? Cool. A free Amis For Beginners course? I would take that, honestly. I'd sign up for Atayal, Paiwan, or any of the others, as well. Language preservation efforts are underfoot in those communities already; I'll let the experts speak about whether or not that would be feasible or useful. 

I suspect most foreigners who come to Taiwan would still learn Mandarin, because it is a lingua franca, at least in Taipei. And many don't quite have the anti-CCP sentiment that I do; they likely figure Mandarin will be more useful globally than Taiwanese. And they're not wrong! But wouldn't it be great to give people more of a choice and get that minority who isn't learning a language purely for its utility? 

Beyond that, I just think Taiwanese sounds better. Goa khòa* Tâi-gí bō sim-míh ho-kóng, m-ku chīn ho-thia*! Words like koai* (to close) and cha-hng (yesterday) are fun to say because they're almost entirely pronounced in the nose. It's also much better than Mandarin at short replies. I don't know how to write these, but the ho, heh and hei-a are much more fun than “是的” and "好"! And I'd much rather say chhong-sía than 幹嘛. It packs more of a punch.

Honestly, for Taiwanese, the hardest part was finding a teacher. I started when I did because that was when a freelance teacher was recommended to me. Some of the Mandarin centers offer Taiwanese -- a friend of mine took a course at TMI, but they aren't widely advertised and I can't vouch for their methods.

In fact, a big problem with both Armenian and Taiwanese is that teaching methods are quite outdated. TESOL has been going on for years about communicative approaches -- this is a broad set of methodological principles that can involve Natural Approach, immersion, lexis-based or task-based methods -- and Mandarin seems to have just now figured out that communicative approaches work better over time than drills and tests. You may remember (?) that I quit Shi-da's Mandarin Training Center many years ago, mostly for this reason. I simply could not with those old Practical Audio-visual Chinese textbooks, lack of authentic speaking practice and demented over-testing. Nevermind their blue bent, and  that I got sick of the heavy lean towards standard PRC Mandarin. 

But my Armenian textbook, which I'm working through now that my course is over, is still a fully grammar-based notional syllabus that only hints at certain functional uses for the language. The design makes it readable, it doesn't overload with new vocabulary, it explains grammar fairly clearly, and has review built-in. But fundamentally you're still doing exercises and translations before creating your own sentences. The dialogues are inane ("How are you today?" "I'm not good." "I am good. And where is the French Embassy?") but it still hasn't taught me useful things for actually visiting Armenia like, say, "how much is it?" or "I'd like lahmaçun, sarma and a Coke Zero, please". 

My Taiwanese textbook is even worse, made bearable only by my lovely teacher, who adds as much actual language practice as she can and only tests rarely. It was typed out, likely by hand, sometime in perhaps the 1980s and doesn't appear to have been updated. It's Maryknoll, created by Christians to teach missionaries, and as such it does weird things like teach you the words for minister, priest, nun and monk before you ever learn how to address a woman (the minister's wife, however, makes an appearance early on. Lots of wives in this book, not many single women who aren't nuns).

There are essentially no comprehension tasks; it's composed almost entirely of a dialogue (some weirder than others), extensive vocabulary notes, and then some grammar notes. There are a few translation exercises at the end of most units. My comprehension is tested only because my teacher tests it. The book never does. 

The actual materials are really no better (and are in some ways worse) than the old Practical Audio-visual Chinese books that I hated so much, but I'm more motivated to learn Taiwanese -- yes, it's political -- and I like my teacher more. She doesn't go around like my old MTC teacher being all "我們中國人"! In fact, I think she'd rather drop dead than say anything of the sort.

Though the whole "we Chinese" business was my MTC teacher's right to say -- we can all identify how we please -- that's not how I feel about Taiwan, and to me that's not a helpful way to gain a closer perspective into Taiwanese culture, society and language. 

Other materials exist: my friend who took a Taiwanese course at TMI used 生活台語 and called it "okay". Chieh-ting Yeh (a friend of mine) and Alice Yeh wrote Harvard Taiwanese 101. Phillip Lin's highly inconcise Taiwanese Grammar: A Concise Reference is a solid reference material. 

Not a lot beyond my Eastern Armenian coursebook exists for Armenian. Reviews call it "innovative", and I was touched that when you buy it, the author mails you a copy herself from Yerevan. But really, it's just the best of a very limited field of otherwise terrible textbooks. 

Neither textbook, Armenian or Taiwanese, seems to have much in the way of visual aids. For Taiwanese, it's a good thing I speak Mandarin, as my teacher won't use English, because the book will pretty much never support you with pictures. On the upside, learning Taiwanese has been the biggest boost to my Mandarin in years. Have you tried to learn a third language through your second language? It's a real trip.  You get better at both. It helps that my teacher is a fierce gossip, offering all of her political opinions and deets on her annoying neighbors.

The result of these two modes of study -- one online weekly with a teacher, and one almost entirely at home or in a cafe by myself -- have led to two very different areas of proficiency in each language. My Armenian writing is so much better because all I really do is write. I have a much bigger lexicon because it's easier to look up whatever I want to know. With Taiwanese it's always a question of whether and how a tone changes, and whether it's rendered in some obscure character I can't really read, or Pėh-ōe-jī. I'm more limited to whatever is covered in the unit. 

And the current Taiwanese unit, by the way? "Would you like a smoke?" "No thanks, I don't smoke." "If you won't smoke, then please have a banana!" 

But with Armenian, I can hardly speak. I know what it should sound like from growing up hearing it, but I don't have anyone to practice with, and I won't for awhile. The grammar is complex enough (it has cases! Like Latin! Murder me, please!) that I have to stop and think before I create even a sentence. Taiwanese as fairly smooth grammar, so it tumbles out more easily. It helps that I can use it on a mostly daily basis.

My Taiwanese lexicon is much smaller, but I'm a far more proficient speaker. And yes, I know how to ask how much something costs, and I'll likely understand the answer. 

The main issue as I navigate my two baby languages is lack of extensive reading. I'm not exactly a Krashenite; I don't believe that extensive reading and listening are the only keys to fluency. But they are one very important key to fluency, and one I'll also admit I've fallen down on vis-à-vis Mandarin. In Taiwanese it's just a lack of literature I can read. My Armenian reading is much better,  but nowhere near the ability to actually read what interests me -- a key issue with the idea that extensive reading for pleasure is the only meaningful way to gain fluency. What if you can't yet read what you would normally read for pleasure? It's the eternal question of adult beginners who aren't engaged by materials for children but can't yet read, say, a novel. 

As I wrote the last time I covered this subject, I fill that void with music. It does work; I can look up lyrics so I know what is being said, and gain a clear idea of how the language sounds and flows together. It's not enough, but it'll do for now. It's a good thing I genuinely like the sound of Fire EX, because they comprise most of my Taiwanese listening practice now, with Ladaniva doing a lot of heavy lifting for Armenian. 

All of this leads me down a winding, weedy path of where to go next, and why. Like a pot of dirt left out to the elements, I don't have specific goals for either language. Whatever grows there, grows. I'm learning one language for heritage reasons, the other mostly for political and cultural ones. Or rather, both are political, if you take the view that choosing to learn a language at all, especially not for utilitarian reasons, is a fundamentally political act. If I wanted to learn a language that would be helpful in Armenia but more broadly useful, I'd have chosen Russian. Any foreigner in Taiwan can tell you that the language of greatest utility is Mandarin. I've decided I don't care. 

Even my Taiwanese friends will sometimes say they aren't concerned with whether their children learn Taiwanese because it's "not useful". It is, though! What about befriending your elderly neighbors? Getting people to like you in the south? Sealing a sale or contract where relationships matter? Making a clear point about the cultural and historical distinctness of Taiwan? Not necessarily wanting to be understood by Mandarin speakers? Those are all technically uses.

One language I might be able to use in daily life soon (I've already started incorporating it), the other may never be used that way. For Taiwanese, I may never achieve full fluency, but I might be able to use it in a majority of my daily interactions, and it does make a point. Maybe that point is this white lady is crazy. Maybe it's hey, there are foreigners in Taiwan who care about the country beyond a place to live well and make money. Maybe. After all, my Taiwanese teacher has said all of her students are foreigners. None are local Taiwanese. She charges a bit more than a typical tutor, and still has clients. Clearly, the interest is there. 

For Armenian, who knows. I find myself at a խաչմերուկ -- an intersection. There are a lot of weird things about this language that I want to better understand. Which bits seem to have non-Indo-European origins. Words like խնձոր (khndzor, or apple) came from somewhere, and no one knows exactly what the Hayasa/Urartu/Ararat people spoke. Why does every other language in the region call a couch a sofa, divan, settee or canapé, but Armenian calls it a բազմոց (bazmots)?  

Here's what I envision: perhaps never full fluency, but online classes once I get my dental situation sorted out (don't even ask). Then, a savings account. Approximately ten to fifteen thousand dollars. In...let's say...2025? I hop a flight to Yerevan, rent a short-term apartment, sign up for language classes and a conversation partner, and go live my life in Armenian for three months. If I save, I can probably afford three months, no? There are all sorts of things I missed the last time I went to Armenia, including the extremely old and fascinating dragon stones, cuneiform tablets, petroglyphs and weedy, overgrown fortresses.

I have a hankering for the unspeakably ancient, and now I can do that հայերենով --  in Armenian. 

Brendan's already on board with this, and would come to see me off. After all, he liked Armenia too. 

The Two-Tongued Pretender

 

"Բարեւ Ձեզ սիրելի կամավորներ: Շատ ուրախ եմ նսրից հանդիպել ձեզ,"  Anna says. She goes by Anna, not Dr. Sahakyan. 

I understand and nod. I'm not a volunteer, not in Peace Corps, and not in Armenia, but the language course videos are online, so why not? 

"Այսօր մենք սովորելումենք ինչպես հարցնել ճանապարհը:"

Now I freak out -- I don't understand this at all. The first twelve videos were introduced in English, but the actual volunteers learning Armenian with Anna have materials and live online sessions, which I do not have. I suppose by the time they get to this point, their service has begun and they're far ahead of me. I figure out what she just said using logic, educated guesses, an Armenian keyboard and Google Translate.

At least my pronunciation seems fine, because I'm able to recall and imitate what my grandfather's generation sounded like when they met for the holidays and had throaty, velar conversations from which I was completely excluded. But I don't really know. There's no one to check if my ը is schwa-y enough or my խ sufficiently tubercular.

The video ends and I set a reminder to transfer my messy notes to the neater record I keep. I reach to the right and grab my Taiwanese textbook. We've had a few lessons, all of which have focused on mastering pronunciation. I expected the tones to be difficult, but they're not (yet). It reminds me of all the musical training I'd otherwise forgotten, and anyway it's a similar principle to Mandarin, just...more of it, and harder. 

It's the the k and g that get me: I can't hear the difference, so each is inconsistently produced. haven't learned a single actual word that I can remember, but I dutifully listen to the recordings and parrot along. Someone's going to check, and Ms. Deng has struck me as rather meticulous. 

Both methods are strikingly Audiolingual. Armenian has to be; how else does one deliver asynchronous online sessions? You can't teach communicatively without someone to communicate with. For Taiwanese, I suspect it's partly based on how Mandarin is taught (that is, very traditionally), and partly because most of Ms. Deng's students are hopelessly Indo-European: they need and expect the pronunciation support. I'm told by a friend who also takes lessons that she'll be happy to practice speaking authentically once I'm able to speak at all. 

Still, Armenian starts with conversation: Hello, how are you? I'm fine, you? I'm fine, thanks. What's your name? My name is Anna. And you? I'm a teacher. I'm a volunteer. Communicative methods aren't embedded in Armenian; they went through centuries of inefficient teaching and learning modalities just like everyone else. The method is Anna's doing.

Armenian also has something called the trchnakir, a Medieval illustrator's avian dream, in which the letters of the alphabet are rendered as brightly sinuous bird bodies. I know the difference in learning style has nothing to do with that, but there's something poetic in thinking of one of your new languages as music, practiced like I quacked those first notes on a trumpet years ago. I had to learn to read music, of course, before I could do much of anything. It was months before I played a real song. The other is the organized chaos of a watch of nightingales, a murmuration of starlings or a charm of finches. You just up and go.

(Originally from this tweet)

Taiwanese starts with a, á, à, ah, â, ā, å (I made that last one up; my keyboard won't type the actual diacritic). Do all that, then you can have some words. We go over it again, and yet again, until Ms. Deng is satisfied with my ability to stumble around in her language. 

"Okay!" she says. 
"Okay," I laugh. Just okay.

Okay, but why am I doing this? Do I enjoy elaborate constructions of linguistic masochism? (A little, yes.) Why both? Why now? Why these two hilariously unrelated languages? At the same time?

One is about the past, one is about the future, and in both, I'm a pretender. I speak neither language yet, though I can make sounds which imply I kind of do. Generously, I am a small child in the body of an adult, whose tongue can thrash around like a baby: goo-goo gaa-gaa barev dzez, inchpes ek, shnorakalutiun yev hajogutsyun Զեփյուռ կդառնամ, մեղմիկ աննման: Սարերից կիջնեմ, նստեմ քո դռան. Cháu chháu kâu gâu pōng bōng ng hng ióng hióng 在這個安靜的暗暝, 我知道你有心事睏袂去, 想到你的過去, 受盡凌遲, 甘苦很多年。

Neither my Armenian nor my Taiwanese is that good, but I understand those lyrics. One of the ways I bolster my motivation is to listen to music I like in languages I'm studying. I look up what is being said, even if I'm not ready to truly learn it yet.

I chose Armenian because I simply felt I had to. For too long, I've acted like a victim of the heritage language denied me, all those ideas and modes of expression that nobody thought important enough to pass on, a cold wall between all those relatives who thought their opinions, ideas and perspectives didn't matter enough for me to understand them. My great-grandmother died when I was 14, and while we had real conversations, I can't say we ever had full, deep, real ones. I both knew her and didn't. 

This memory resurfaces every time a Taiwanese acquaintance reveals that they could barely communicate with their own grandparents because their generation was raised in Mandarin but their elders barely spoke it.

Being a linguistic victim sucks, though, and it doesn't even suck in an interesting way. I'm unlikely to ever be fluent, but if I can have an understanding and some basic Armenian conversational skills, it'll be a victory. Just because my grandfather made a decision in 1953 doesn't mean I have to abide by it. I think it's necessary not just to connect with my heritage, but to move my own story forward as well. As far as I know, I'm the only Renjilian of my generation who decided to re-learn, however imperfectly, what was lost. 

I have no such ancestral connection to Taiwanese. I moved here at the age of 26 for no specific reason: it just looked like an interesting place to be. I stay for a thousand reasons, which deserve their own post. Whatever connections grow from learning this language, they are entirely in the future. I don't know that I'm trying to prove that Taiwan is actually my home now...except perhaps, I am. 

Still, I feel like a fake. My family spoke Western Armenian (the last native speaker died just this summer). I'm learning Eastern, because that's what's available. As for Taiwan, well, I consider this my home but I'll always be seen as something of an outsider, no matter what language I learn.

It turns out that both Armenian -- especially Western Armenian -- and Taiwanese are somewhat inaccessible; both suffer from a dearth of teachers and materials. There are days when I have to tamp down annoyance that I have to work for a heritage language I should already know, and a local language I began learning about 15 years too late.

That's a long time to put something off, so I felt a strong need to start now. Not in a year, not after I'd gotten some Armenian under my belt, and not until I could improve my Mandarin (as I used to tell myself). Now. If I wait too long, I'll wait forever.

The inaccessibility is a bit seductive, though. Many have the opportunity to learn Mandarin. Who is so lucky as to have an experienced Taiwanese teacher dropped in their lap by recommendation? I have to learn it via Mandarin, which frankly provides more motivation to improve said Mandarin than I've felt in years.

Armenian is the same: most Armenians speak Russian as a second language, and the diaspora all have other tongues now. Russian is more common as an offering -- how many have the patience to practice Armenian from Taiwan, with no feedback and no real reward? I'd be surprised if there were six Armenian speakers in the whole country! 

Both languages need more speakers: Taiwanese was the target of an intentional campaign of eradication, and even today is insultingly classified as a dialect despite being mutually unintelligible with Mandarin. Unsurprisingly, Taiwanese is an endangered language. Western Armenian is endangered as well, and I'm unlikely to be able to access it unless I learn Eastern Armenian first. 

Neither language is widely considered useful: I've already been advised to just stick with Mandarin -- or worse, to spend my time practicing Simplified characters. I blanch at the thought! I've also been told to just learn Russian as I'll get more utility out of it.

That's just fuel, though. I'm sick of the utilitarian argument. It's a privilege to be able to float around in languages that aren't international, that you don't need for anything in particular. But it's also what draws me.

Maybe I have something to prove or I just like learning "useless" things, but I'm not doing this for utility. My intrinsic motivation to learn Mandarin died awhile ago; I persevered because it was useful. I was never a huge fan of the politics of it. Yes, Taiwanese has a settler-colonial history too, but it should have never been suppressed the way that it was. In any case, most expats come to Taiwan expecting to learn some Mandarin. Some succeed, some don't. How many come and decide to learn Taiwanese?

I know more than one, but there could be -- should be -- even more than that. 

As for Western Armenian, it should still be widely spoken across Anatolia. But it isn't. You know why. 

With opinions like that on why languages are worth learning, who needs usefulness?

And yet, blue eyes in Armenian culture portend bad luck -- they're said to be more susceptible to the effects of the evil eye (I think this is why charms against the evil eye across the Mediterranean are blue). Yeghishe Charents even wrote of it -- Blue-Eyed Armenia. And here I am, a blue-eyed white lady learning two wildly disparate languages and wondering what bad luck might await. 

The worst possible outcome is that I make a short study of both, learn neither well, and they enter the dormant part of my brain where French and Spanish are buried. Just another person who "took a language class" but never actually learned the language. Or I'll try and try but never master tone changes in Taiwanese, and always be stuck sounding like a tortured goose. Or I'll go to Armenia again, someday when it's safe, and proudly try out whatever Armenian skills I've gained by then only to be laughed at because my pronunciation sounds more like a series of sneezes than comprehensible language.

I also wonder, given the endangered status of both languages, if I'm actually helping by being a new person -- something of an outsider -- interested in learning. Or am I just rubbernecking as both languages fall, like birds shot out of the sky by the KMT, or the Young Turks?

As China amps up its provocation and bullying of Taiwan and Armenia stands on the precipice of invasion by Azerbaijan, am I doing anything meaningful by learning Armenian and Taiwanese? It strikes me as a statement: I will help preserve what you are trying to destroy. But am I really helping, or indulging myself? I can't help but think it's closer to the latter.

And yet, I keep practicing pronunciation until Ms. Deng moves us on to actual words. When I feel I've done enough, I head over to Youtube. Anna's classes are a challenge now, but if I'm tired I can always watch Bopo children's television and learn colors, or animals, or whatever.  

Perhaps I'll never succeed at either language. Perhaps Armenian won't lead to whatever window on the past I'm looking for. Certainly, learning Taiwanese won't make me a local. Neither language will lead to a better job, more money or even many conversation partners. But it's worth it. 

Three Great Articles About Taiwan

As I head back from a combination business trip/mini-vacation in southern Taiwan, I thought it would be a good idea to highlight three excellent articles about Taiwan by three smart women who care about this country, and tell you whyI like them so much. If you’re interested in changing perspectives on Taiwan, including through foreign voices, all three are worth reading. Sadly, two are behind paywalls, but if you have free articles left with the New York Times and Asia Nikkei, these are worth the views. 

First up, let’s talk about What Taiwan Really Wants. This editorial by Natasha Kassam in the New York Times does an excellent job of framing the issue. 

A key quote for anyone who can’t get around the paywall: 

The status quo means maintaining de facto independence but avoiding retaliation from China. And the percentage of Taiwan’s people who want to maintain the status quo indefinitely is growing. It is the best-case scenario in a sea of unenviable options.

To be sure, if there were no risk of invasion from China, the majority would choose independence.

But China’s President Xi Jinping has made clear that such a declaration is not available to Taiwan. So the status quo is pragmatic — and preferable.

This is succinct, expert analysis which acknowledges the role of the ‘status quo’ while clarifying that a preference to maintain that status quo does not mean that there is no consensus on sovereignty or unification.

Certainly, not everyone is on the same page. In any society there will be a range of opinions. However, stopping at “most people prefer the status quo” makes the issue sound far more fractious than it really is. The truth is that most people prefer sovereignty and peace — not just one or the other — and if the only available option is this “status quo”, they’ll take it. 

It’s also about time we acknowledged that the way the questions on the “status quo” survey are worded push respondents toward choosing it. Almost nobody wants to choose unification, but there’s no option for choosing “independence, but without fighting a war.” I'm not the first person to point this out, either.

Participants are never asked what they’d prefer absent a threat from Beijing — which is to say, what they ideally, actually want for their country. It's not a pointless question: it's the only type of question that attempts to probe respondents' true desires. Currently, every answer clearly leaning toward “independence” carries an implicit acknowledgement that war might be a part of that choice.

What people are trying to say here is that they want both. They want better options, but ultimately, the status quo is sovereignty. 

Pretending otherwise does a disservice to Taiwan. It relegates “pro-independence” sentiment to only a narrow set of views, when actual pro-independence Taiwanese don’t necessarily fit in those boxes. 

We know this because those same Taiwanese who say they “prefer the status quo” also identify as solely Taiwanese or prioritize Taiwanese identity. People know what they want. Listen to them.

Here is how you can tell Kassam is a true expert: it took my several paragraphs to say that. She clarified it in half the space, without falling into the trap that fells so many analysts: the idea that “the status quo” represents indecisiveness, or that the survey in question even has construct validity. In my opinion, it doesn’t — the questions don’t actually ask what interpreters of the survey think they do.

Next up, Rhoda Kwan writes about the erosion of the Taiwanese language in public spaces for Hong Kong Free Press. This is an excellent piece both for the clarity with which it discusses Japanese and KMT linguistic imperialism, while pointing out that attitudes today, influenced by past authoritarianism, are also barriers to making Taiwanese mainstream in all situations, including formal ones. 

Hong Kong Free Press has no paywall, but here’s a key takeaway:

The academic’s attempts to use Taiwanese in his daily life have been polarising. Although some Taiwanese have hailed his efforts to engage with a long-oppressed facet of Taiwanese life, some have also taken offence at his use of the language in professional settings.

“Some Taiwanese stigmatised the language and believe that it should not be used in formal situations,” he told HKFP. “I had an experience in southern Taiwan where a Taiwanese said to me angrily, ‘How can you speak the Taiwanese language in such a formal situation? I am very surprised that the university employed this kind of faculty member!'”

This anger speaks to the threats facing the Taiwanese language in the island today, where its use is almost confined to certain social milieus. 

“You often hear construction workers or police officers speaking Taiwanese… so there’s always been these environments [to speak it], even though it’s been formally suppressed,” Catherine Chou, a Taiwanese-American history professor, told HKFP.

That’s the tricky thing when a language becomes very context-specific, there’s the danger of actually losing it, because the mentality becomes ‘It’s not for general use, it’s for the home, it’s for very specific business relationships, it’s for people that I know, it’s not for people I don’t know’,” she continued.

This is fantastic because Chou (who is quoted here) is right. I say that with the full force of someone who actually is an expert in this stuff: I’m a die-hard social constructionist and interactionist. And that’s the core of it: you need meaningful and varied opportunities to use a language as well as the motivation to actually do so in order to attain a high proficiency level. 

And the attitude that Taiwanese is for family and friends and informal situations — a ‘kitchen language’ — is now the obstacle that must be overcome. If initiatives like Bilingual by 2030 are to truly give languages like Taiwanese adequate resources, this needs to be taken into account. 

Finally, Erin Hale talks about “Taiwan’s Enduring Fascination with Japanese Architecture” in Nikkei Asia. 

This is a fantastic piece because it uses architecture in an immediately relevant way to deconstruct the half-hearted screeching of online tankies and trolls. 

Ever heard one of them whinge about how Taiwanese still have “colonized minds” because they wish they were still ruled as a colony of Japan? I have. But it’s not remotely true: the underlying assumption here is that thinking of your cultural heritage as partly Japanese is “colonial”, and thinking of it as uniquely Taiwanese is “separatist” — the only way to properly think of one’s culture, according to these people (or bots) is to consider it wholly and unchangeably Chinese. 

But Taiwan is more than that, and Taiwanese history proves it. Acknowledging one aspect of one’s cultural heritage is not the same as idealizing a former colonizer.

Hale lays this out well: 

To many Taiwanese, however, these buildings represent a new "Taiwanese identity of pluralism" where Japanese cultural influence is "not seen as a foreign element that's going to dilute Chinese culture" but as part of a more complex identity for the third-wave democracy, said NTU's Huang.

But, Huang warned, by embracing Taiwan's past, people should not over idealize it. The Japanese era is remembered so well in Taiwan in part because of the martial law that came after it, not because of the innate superiority of Japanese culture or governance.

She also lays out the problems with architectural restoration: it’s expensive, and there are a lot of buildings which were left to rot by the KMT as a form of replacing Japanese influence with Chinese. The lack of maintenance makes them even harder to restore. There are only so many Japanese cafes and restaurants in restored buildings that a country needs, but allowing private companies to do the restoration with the government as a ‘landlord’ has worked in a few cases. 

I’d also add that some of these buildings have been turned into museums, like the Railway Department Park, which was carefully restored in conjunction with the National Taiwan Museum just up the road. 

There you have it — three great writers and analysts, three great pieces, three things worth reading this week. Every one of them evidence that discourse on Taiwan is changing. 

A Bilingual By 2030 Throwdown

Bilingual by 2030 is a complicated topic on its own terms alone. Using it as a hook on which to hang your favorite opinion without discussing the merits of the actual policy is not the way to go with this.

Deliberately Lost in Translation: How Language Is Used to Obfuscate Taiwan's Reality

Consume any mainstream English-language media about Taiwan, and you'll come across an abundant lexicon of terms that sound as though they help define the Taiwan-China situation: "renegade province", "split in 1949", "dialect", "Mainland", "reunification", Chinese", "One China Policy" and "status quo" are probably the most common. More recently, there's also the term "one family", though that doesn't seem to have made the leap to English quite yet, and there's the perennial "tensions", a term which has already been covered extensively for its problematic usage.

These terms are readily employed by writers wanting to appear knowledgeable about the region  - especially non-specialist journalists, though some specialists do it too.

The problem?

Many of these words phrases don't translate well into English, and the ambiguity created by imperfect translations is, in my opinion, being intentionally used to imprint an inaccurate narrative of Taiwan in the international media.

In other cases, the meanings of the terms are clear, but the most common translation is simply wrong, yet encouraged - by China that is - because it promotes their preferred perspective.

And in still others, the implications of the terms call to mind a state of affairs that simply does not exist.

All of these are invisible hurdles that Taiwan advocates must vault in order to make Taiwan's case to the world - every minute we spend arguing over the meaning or use of a term, we waste precious time of other people's attention span to actually make the arguments we want to make in the first place. We are literally held back by language. And I daresay this is not an accident. It is entirely deliberate.

There doesn't seem to be a comprehensive breakdown of this strategic use of language anywhere else and why it's a problem for Taiwan, so I've created one here. Let's have a look - starting with the biggest headache of them all.


"Reunification"

The Mandarin term for Taiwan and China (ostensibly peacefully) uniting is 統一 （tǒng yī). It means "unify" or "unification". If you wanted to add the meaning of the "re-" prefix in English to that, it would be something like 再統一 (zài tǒng yī). I've also recently heard the term "回歸" (huíguī), and there's 光復 （guāngfù), which means 'retrocession' or 'recovery', but is rarely used outside of formal speech.

So here's the thing - nobody actually says these in Mandarin. They always use "tǒng yī". The Mandarin term for this concept is "unification". It doesn't mean -  and has never meant - "reunification", though I suspect many in China view it that way, because they've been taught to.

It's not a natural perspective arising from history: the Qing era - an imperial era, really - and the brief interlude between 1945-1949 are the only times in the history of both China and Taiwan that one could argue that the two were united. Both are open to interpretation, however. During their reign, the Qing were not considered Chinese (they were Manchu, which was considered a different group of people). Qing Dynasty China was arguably a Manchu colonial holding; Taiwan was too. And not even all of Taiwan - for most of their time 'claiming' Taiwan, the Qing only controlled the western part of the island, and for most of their reign it was not considered a 'province' in its own right. Before that, Taiwan was not considered 'Chinese', as the people living there were indigenous, and China's borders were considered to end at the sea. 

So was there one China under the Qing Empire or were there two colonial holdings - Taiwan and China? That's a discussion worth having for a clear historical perspective (though as far as I'm concerned it changes nothing about Taiwan's right to sovereignty now). The government which accepted Japan's surrender on behalf of the allies was not the same government that ceded Taiwan to Japan. Likewise, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China were never united.

The problem with "reunification", then, is not only that it's not an accurate translation of the Chinese. It also assumes a particular historical interpretation - that Taiwan and China were once clearly unified and that the change in government from 'empire' to 'republic' doesn't matter. "Unification" is a less politically marked word; regardless of one's interpretation of history, it provides the linguistic room the conversation to happen. For that reason alone, it is the more appropriate term when discussing peaceful integration (non-peaceful integration would be "annexation").

So what to make of news outlets using "reunification" as though it's the correct term? I can only assume the editors don't know what they're talking about. Reuters, especially, has just put out some hilarious junk on this point:


China translates the word “tong yi” as “reunification”, but it can also be translated as “unification”, a term in English preferred by supporters of Taiwan independence who point out that Beijing’s Communist government has never ruled Taiwan and so it cannot be “reunified”.


The CCP does promote the use of "reunification" over "unification" to describe 統一, but the rest of this is laughable. It subtly gives credence to the CCP's preferred term by referring to it as "China's" choice of translation, not that of a political party with a particular objective regarding Taiwan, and marks the less problematic and more accurate/directly translated term as political by saying that it is used by "supporters of Taiwan independence" - as though to use it is to make a political statement. When, in fact, the opposite is true: "reunification" is an inherently more politicized word, as it is promoted by a particular political group (pro-China/CCP supporters) and is not a direct translation of the Mandarin term.


"Renegade Province"

This one is interesting, because it doesn't seem to appear in Mandarin-language media regarding Taiwan. A friend of mine asked about this recently, and the answer he got was that media from China discussing Taiwan never use "renegade province", because that would imply that the majority of the people in that province wanted to be "renegades", and that they'd elected a government that represented that wish. China can never admit to its own people that this is in fact the case (and it is!) - it has to refer to those who support Taiwanese independence as "splittists" and make them seem like a loud minority.

This view that Taiwanese national identity is a minority separatist movement is underlined by the recent comments of a Chinese general, who warned that "Taiwanese independence supporters" would be considered "war criminals" if China "were forced" to invade. That would only be possible to carry out if it were a minority of Taiwanese - otherwise, the implication of that statement is that the majority of Taiwanese (so, somewhere between 11 and 23 million people) would be war criminals. But that's exactly what would happen! This general - and China as a whole - cannot admit openly that the majority of Taiwanese favor independence (more on that under "status quo").

The phrase "renegade province" in Mandarin would - to the best of my knowledge - be 叛變的省份 (pànbiàn de shěngfèn). That phrase pops up in Internet searches, but doesn't seem to make any appearances in any major Chinese-language media.

So where did "renegade province" come from?

The best I can puzzle out is that it was picked up by foreign-language media, first appearing in 1982. Prior to that, China had used it to describe northern Vietnam, and the foreign-language media started using it to describe Taiwan out of a desire to summarize the CCP position succinctly (apparently Lee Teng-hui used it too? I have no evidence for this but someone I trust said he did).

The unfortunate side effect is that it gives the international media an easy way to avoid clarifying that China calls pro-independence support in Taiwan the work of "splittists", but that in fact, such a category would include most Taiwanese.

I assume some good faith from the international media - I don't believe they are intentionally trying to distort the narrative. They just don't know better. The CCP, on the other hand, tacitly encourages it, as it keeps Taiwan's perspective from being fully included. It frames the Taiwan issue as being similar to 'separatist movements' that Westerners, at least, seem to think of as destabilizing, overly ethno-nationalist or not their business (how many Westerners do you know who actively support a Kurdish state?), rather than accurately portraying the desire of most Taiwanese to merely maintain the sovereignty they already enjoy.


"Chinese"

In Mandarin, there are two ways to refer to a person as "Chinese". The hypernym for this is "華人" (huá rén), and it means a person of Chinese ethnic heritage - whatever that means. Not everyone from China is similar genetically - the Uighurs and Tibetans certainly aren't - and plenty of people who are certainly not from China are Chinese, and not all Chinese speak the same language or are Han, so it's really a reified sociopolitical construct rather than a real definable thing.

But, anyway, let's say you had ancestors from China whom most people would consider "Chinese". It is quite possible in Mandarin to call oneself huá rén the same way I call myself "Armenian" even though I'm a US citizen: without making any statement about one's nationality. You can be Singaporean, Malaysian, Taiwanese, American, Australian or whatever and also huá rén. 

The other term is more of a hyponym: 中國人 (Zhōngguórén), and it specifically means "from China, the country" - as in, a citizen of the People's Republic of China.

Taiwanese who also claim Chinese ethnic identity overwhelmingly refer to themselves as huá rén - only a unificationist or someone actually born in China would call themselves Zhōngguórén.

And yet, in English, both of these terms are translated as "Chinese". It's very confusing, and the Chinese government benefits from the ambiguity - and wants to keep it that way. So much so that it considers all Chinese regardless of citizenship to be primarily Chinese.

This bleeds over into another confusing term: "overseas Chinese". "Overseas Chinese" can be citizens of China who happen to live abroad, or citizens of other countries who emigrated from China, or from other countries with ancestral heritage from China. The Chinese government also benefits from this ambiguity because it makes it easier to defend not only their harassment of Chinese citizens abroad, but their interference in the actions of citizens of other countries (many members of the Chinese Australian community referenced in the pieces above are citizens of Australia, not China).

So, when some know-it-all Dunning-Kruger type says "but the Taiwanese are Chinese!" as though that is a good argument for Taiwan being part of China, he's confusing huá rén (a person of Chinese ancestry, the same way most Americans have ancestry outside the US) and Zhōngguórén (a person from China). Or he's deliberately equivocating: deliberately using the huá rén meaning of "Chinese" to convince listeners that Taiwanese are the Zhōngguórén kind of Chinese.

If you're wondering whether this quirk of English translation is intentionally exploited by the Chinese government, well, they equivocate in the exact same way. So yes, it is.

Bring this up, and you might well get some version of "yeah but to be Chinese is a different notion, because of...uh, cultural differences, so the two terms connote more closeness than when Westerners talk about their ethnic backgrounds!"

Except it's not and never has been. First, if it were, there wouldn't be two clearly separate terms for it. Second, ask any Taiwanese what they think of the term huá rén and you won't hear that it's similar in meaning to Zhōngguórén. If anything, they'll tell you the opposite. And in order for this "but they are the same" nonsense to have any purchase, the Taiwanese would have to agree with it - and most don't. Otherwise you're just telling people what they should think of their own language and identity. Don't be that person. 

This makes it difficult not only to talk about the parts of Taiwan's cultural heritage which come from China, but for Taiwanese to talk about their ancestry without it being politicized. I'm sympathetic to Taiwanese who don't want to cut off their connection to their Chinese ancestral heritage, and how difficult it is to express that clearly in English without implying that one wants to be a citizen of China, when the two words are the same in English.

And if you're wondering why Singaporeans, Malaysians, Americans and others of Chinese heritage refer to themselves as "Chinese" without hesitation, it's because China's not trying to take over Singapore, Malaysia or the US. They are trying to take over Taiwan. The political implications are simply more dire, and that is not an accident.


"Dialect"

As someone who studies Applied Linguistics, this one has me clawing at the air with rage.

First, forget the stupid adage that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy, or however it goes. That was an off-the-cuff joke by a non-linguist. It explains the political reasons why we have separate "language" names for dialects (e.g. Hindi and Urdu), but linguistically it means nothing.

The labels "language" and "dialect" can only be applied in relation to other languages/dialects. In relation to Urdu, Hindi is a dialect, but in relation to Tamil (which is entirely unrelated), it's a language. American English and Australian English are dialects in relation to each other; in relation to German, each is a language.

Languages are mutually unintelligible. Dialects may sound different and have some different features, but are mutually intelligible.

By that rubric, Minnan (Southern Fujianese) and Taiwanese are dialects of each other. In relation to Mandarin, they are languages. Cantonese is a language in relation to Mandarin. Taiwanese, Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible.

But oh look, here comes Dunning-Kruger Guy again, and he took Chinese 101 as an elective in college. "But the Chinese [he means Mandarin] word for them translates to 'dialect'! Hah! I explained it!" 

That's true - in Mandarin, the word 方言 (fāngyán) - as in 地方的語言 or "language of a place" - is translated to “dialect", but the underlying implication is more like 'tongue spoken by people of a nearby [in China] place'. This is entirely a sociopolitical construct: in defining what "is" and "is not" China, the tongues spoken "in" China are more conveniently referred to as "dialects" so as to promote a sense of political unity that helps the leaders of China to maintain control and discourages the formation of unique cultural/national identities within China.

It is very convenient for the Chinese government to refer to Taiwanese, which is intelligible by people from southern Fujian, but nowhere else in China - as a "dialect". It implies that Mandarin speakers can understand Taiwanese...but they can't. It promotes a sense of unity where there is otherwise none. It makes it more difficult to talk about this aspect of Taiwanese identity in English, especially as Mandarin was essentially forced on Taiwan by the KMT's language policies, so that the vast majority of Taiwanese now speak it.

Dunning-Kruger Guy: "But they can understand each other through writing because the writing systems are the same! Nyah!"

Sort of, but no. It's more that Taiwanese doesn't have its own writing system, so Chinese ideographs were adopted in order to write it. In that sense, someone who can read Mandarin can puzzle out some Taiwanese writing, but that doesn't mean they are mutually intelligible, any more than Japanese and Mandarin (two different language families) are mutually intelligible just because one can write Japanese in Chinese ideographs (kanji). What's more, with underlying differences in how the characters are used and how the grammar works, it's not as intelligible as you think.

Don't believe me? Ask a Mandarin-speaking/reading friend who is not from Taiwan and doesn't speak Taiwanese or Minnan what this says:

哩講三小！ 恁祖媽係大員郎。

Go ahead, I'll wait.


"...split in 1949"

I'll try to keep this one short - the issue here isn't that it's completely wrong, it's that it leaves out key details that change the entire story.

First, I'm not so sure that the ROC (Republic of China) and the PRC (People's Republic of China) "split" in 1949 so much as the ROC fought a civil war with the Communists; the Communists won, drove out the Nationalists and their ROC government, and formed the PRC. To split, two sides must have once been united, and the ROC and PRC were never united.

It also implies, through omitting the history immediately prior to 1949, that before that date Taiwan and China had been united. For how long? Who knows! The media never says!

It's true that from 1945-1949 the ROC controlled both Taiwan and China after a fashion (I mean for most of that they were in the process of taking over for the Japanese on Taiwan while fighting a progressively more dire civil war in China so they would not have actually controlled both places at the same time for even that long, but let's not nitpick).

But before that, Taiwan was a colony of Japan, and before that, a colonial holding of the Qing. To boil that complicated history down to "split in 1949" makes it easier to write succinctly, but also implants in readers' minds this idea that for a significant period of time before 1949, Taiwan and China were part of the same country. And that is simply not the case. To the point that many people who consider themselves well-versed in international affairs likely don't even know that Taiwan was Japanese, not Chinese, before it became part of the ROC. Why? Because the media rarely mentions it!

And why doesn't the media mention it? In part because it takes up valuable word count, but in part because the "China experts" that the media talk to never bother to emphasize this point. And why would they? It helps China's case that Taiwan is Chinese if the rest of the world conveniently forgets that Taiwan used to be Japanese. 


"Mainland"

I hate to be one of those people, but let's take a quick look at the first dictionary results for the term "mainland":









The clear connotation of "mainland" just going by these definitions is that it is the main/continental part of a territory, and that outlying islands which are referred to in relation to it are also part of said territory.

By that metric, the only reason to use the phrase "Mainland China" in relation to Taiwan is if you want to imply that China and Taiwan have some sort of territorial relationship, or that Taiwan is a part of China. If you believe they are two sovereign or at least self-ruled entities, it makes no sense at all. In that sense, Taiwan doesn't have a mainland, unless you want to refer to "mainland Asia" (as Taiwan is a part of Asia, but not a part of China - you can also refer to "mainland Asia" in relation to, say, Japan).

So why do people keep saying it? I think partly force of habit - because former president and slightly deformed voodoo doll Ma Ying-jeou was pro-unification (yes he was, and is) and his administration used it, or if one is a journalist, perhaps because everybody else still does for some reason. I'm not sure how people came to believe the word was neutral or apolitical. It's not.

If you are wondering just how political "mainland" is, remember that it is required as a corresponding term to "Taiwan" in Xinhua's style guide, which is a reflection of Chinese government policy (seeing as Xinhua is state-run news, as basically all news in China is).

And yet it's become so ingrained in English discussions about Taiwan that people I know have asked what other option there is to refer to China (like, oh, "China"), and then resist, saying that just calling it "China" is political, but "Mainland" is not, when the opposite is true. That's frankly tiring. 

So if you want to talk about Taiwan exactly the way the Chinese government prefers, by all means use "mainland". I don't know about you, though, but I prefer not to be a useful idiot.


"Status Quo"

The thing about the term "status quo" is that it's not wrong - it describes the situation of Taiwan being de facto independent but not de jure independent.

That said, the status quo as it exists today does allow Taiwan to rule itself. It has sovereignty. From the Taiwanese perspective, it may be said that Taiwan is already independent (if we leave aside the compelling argument that the ROC is a colonial entity and true independence will come the day we formally change to a government of Taiwan).

Yet, when people who don't know Taiwan that well refer to the "status quo", they seem to think it means that Taiwan is in a much more precarious state of limbo - I've met people who genuinely think that Taiwan's current status is "a part of China but wanting independence" (like Xinjiang), or that China has some official say in how things are run here (they don't), or that Taiwan simply doesn't have a government (how would that even work on an island of 23.5 million people?). In any case they don't realize that the 'status quo' effectively renders Taiwan as de facto sovereign.

So if you are wondering why I would say that the Taiwanese favor independence when polls show they favor the status quo, it's because the status quo basically is independence. Considered alongside the fact that there is almost no support for unification, the public will is clear.

I do believe this is somewhat purposeful: while the Chinese media refer to Taiwan as a part of China in their own media, internationally they are quite happy to encourage the misconception that "status quo" means Taiwan does not currently have sovereignty in any form, when in fact it does. 


"One China Policy" 

Last but not least, we have the most misunderstood policy in...quite possibly the history of modern international relations.

A frightening number of laypeople and writers confuse the US's "One China Policy" with China's "One China Principle".

The American "One China policy" (which is not so much a single, formal policy as a set of confusing and ambiguous policy decisions, acts, communiques and official documents) stipulates that there is one government of China. Somewhere in this dizzying array of papers, there's an acknowledgement that people on "both sides" agree that there is "one China" and Taiwan is a part of it (wording that was penned back when the government of Taiwan felt that way, but was a military dictatorship and therefore not representative of the will of the people).

These documents, however, are more of a recognition or acknowledgement of the situation rather than a formal statement about what the US believes vis-a-vis China. That is to say, the US government acknowledges China's position that their territory includes Taiwan, but does not say that the US necessarily agrees (or disagrees) - only that the issue should be settled bilaterally.

Leaving aside the fact that a bilateral solution is not possible, the clearest interpretation of the "One China policy" is that the US takes no formal stance other than that there should be no unilateral moves. That means Taiwan can't unilaterally declare independence, but also that China can't take Taiwan by force.

So why do so many people seem to think that it means "the US believes Taiwan is a part of China"?

First, because China's own "One China Principle" (which does say that Taiwan is Chinese) sounds so similar to the "One China policy" - and there's no way that's unintentional. Of course they want it to be confusing.

Second, because every time someone points out that Taiwan is already self-ruled, and that the US maintains close (unofficial) ties with Taiwan which include arms sales and trade as well as unofficial consulates, a bunch of yahoos butt into the conversation with "but One China Policy! The US says Taiwan is Chinese!"

Some of these are surely Dunning-Kruger Guys, but I suspect a fair number of them are PRC trolls who deliberately muddy the issue and crap all over these conversations, so that we Taiwan advocates spend time fighting with them rather than getting our message out to people who might listen.

Let me repeat: China wants you to think that the US agrees that Taiwan is a part of China, and so it (probably) deliberately gave its own policy a similar name in the hope of confusing you, and is all too happy to let Internet trolls (who may be on its payroll) further obfuscate the truth. 


* * *

It's quite late now and I've just spent my whole evening writing about the deliberate use of language to confuse non-experts into believing half-truths and untruths about Taiwan. Sometimes this is done through exploiting ambiguous translations into English, sometimes through promoting certain word choices and unhitching them, through repeated use, from their political origins. And sometimes through deliberate style choices and other means.

I can only hope the international media will wise up and start reporting on Taiwan and China with more accurate terminology and clearer explanations, but I've got to be honest. Most of the folks writing for said media don't know the region well enough, and I'm not holding my breath.

In the meantime, everyone reading this should take a long look at the language they use to talk about these issues, and start using accurate terms that make Taiwan's case to the world, rather than holding ourselves back with terminology deliberately put in place to make it more difficult for us to do so. 

This whole "English as the second official language" thing

So you've probably heard that Premier William Lai has promised to make English the "second official language of Taiwan", with the idea that English, being an international language, will help raise Taiwan's visibility and competitiveness.

You may also recall that Lai enacted the same policy when he was governor of Tainan - this is clearly some sort of pet favorite project of his. Of course, if you've been to Tainan, you might notice that English isn't particularly widely-spoken there. That's not a critique of the programs in place, it's an observation from my trips there: the program may be fantastic, but I have not personally noticed a city-wide improvement in English proficiency.

This leads me to wonder whether Lai likes this particular policy because it looks sweeping and potentially transformative, it looks forward-thinking (and specifically focused on a world outside China), but is ultimately toothless. There will be no accountability when language proficiency goals aren't met, which is great for him.

And they will not be met, because the Ministry of Education, at the national level, doesn't know how to set second language proficiency goals that are based in real-world communicative competence. I doubt any study providing reliable data about overall English proficiency in Taiwan will be done.

Hell, forget communicative competence - I'm not even sure scores will go up on the crappy, useless, garbage English exams they've got now.

(Oh, sorry, I should use professional terminology. The tests lack most types of validity, are inauthentic, are so indirect as to be thoroughly unable to measure real-world ability, tend not to test at the discourse level and often don't even make sense.)

I don't mean to imply that I disagree with the general idea of making English a second official language. Many countries have English as one of their official languages, including India, the Philippines and Nigeria. At first glance, it also seems as though these countries do have high(er?) rates of actual English speakers.

That said, those same countries also tend to have a colonial history that is intertwined with English, which Taiwan does not. Generally, English as one of the official languages in those countries happened because of that colonial history, so while there may be correlation, there's no proof of causation. English-medium education in those countries is more likely to exist regardless of official language policy.

I'd still be otherwise on board though: there is a lot of evidence to support the idea of bilingual education, if this is where the policy were going to lead (but it's almost certainly not going to lead there.) A big question in multilingual education is whether policies create learners of languages, or users of languages. I would be strongly supportive of evidence-based, professional-led (as in, actual language teaching and second language acquisition professionals, not ministry officials with general Education degrees) movement towards an English education policy that sought to create users of languages, with assessments and measurements designed accordingly. (Check out the Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism for more on multilingualism in general, including this topic.)

If you want to know why Taiwanese kids study English constantly yet so many can hardly speak it, look right past your folk theories (though some are better than others) and look straight at that. Taiwan as a nation, whether in buxibans or the formal education system, simply does not seek to create language users. Target that, and you've cut the whole damn knot.

That's not likely to happen, however. Even if the programs in place in Tainan are good - and I have it on solid authority that they are, despite a lack of data about their overall effect on English proficiency in the city - national-level obstacles in how language education is viewed in Taiwan will almost certainly make it difficult to roll-out an effective, modern program nationwide.

The overall reliance on exams create absolutely terrible learning benchmarks (benchmarks themselves not necessarily being bad things, it depends on how they are designed and applied). Teacher training, when it is good, can't make up for this due to the pressure to give in to negative washback (I haven't read the material in that link but Kathleen Bailey is reliable, so I feel confident posting it).

The main issue, to my mind, is the overwhelming negative washback of the stressful national high school and university entrance exams. There is already some indication that the exams create a situation where elementary school teachers feel free to implement communicative language teaching (CLT - which is hardly a new concept; it was developed in the 1970s) whereas teachers at the junior high school level and above feel more pressure to teach using older methodologies that they feel better prepare learners for the test (rather than preparing them to actually use English).

If something so mild and mainstream as CLT can't even be successfully implemented nationwide at all grade levels, I don't see how a more innovative curriculum might overcome this obstacle.

This is not a criticism of the teachers themselves. I began my own teacher training career believing teacher training in Taiwan was abysmal; now I've seen enough of their knowledge base and classroom practice I have a more optimistic view. My only gentle critique is that there is a heavy focus on the Applied Linguistics/SLA side of teaching, and not enough on pedagogy/methodology/classroom management and how to apply them.

Others who would have a strong basis of knowledge for evaluating teacher cognition (including their knowledge of how to teach), who have talked to teachers in other contexts in Taiwan, tend to agree: the teachers may well know what they are doing, but there are a lot of barriers to being able to implement their ideas in the classroom.

However, I see no evidence that people in charge of managing language teachers and curricula at the national level know what they are doing, or can handle pushback from more traditionally-minded critics. That's not going to change overnight, and the best-trained teachers in the world will struggle with that hurdle.

On the plus side, multilingualism is not necessarily subtractive - the Taiwanese government got that wrong when they made it illegal for kindergartens to employ foreign teachers (which doesn't necessarily mean the same as not allowing English to be taught in them; I can't find any sort of law against that, but that was certainly what they were going for). The government assumed English would be subtractive and take away from local identity, when it never had to be that way.

Learning a second language at any stage - even at the stage where it could be a second native language, or L1 - doesn't take anything from knowledge of one's other L1. It may take a little longer for both native tongues to develop fully, with a long intermediary "interlanguage" stage, but research clearly shows there is no adverse long-term effect. (For more on this, I recommend Lightbown and Spada's How Languages Are Learned).

If adding English as an "official language" does not have to be subtractive to local languages, then wouldn't it be additive? As in, gaining an additional skill on top of the linguistic competencies one would gain simply being born and raised Taiwanese? Research does show that additive environments produce more successful learning outcomes. I would hope so, but I do question why English is prioritized for "official" status over Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka or any indigenous languages as languages actually spoken natively in Taiwan. It's hard to make the case for English being an additive rather than subtractive language competency when it is being pushed to the forefront ahead of other neglected local languages. That's close to the definition of what it means to be subtractive!

A final thought: there will be people complaining about this policy as "linguistic imperialism" - I see where they're coming from, but I take a more, let's say, postmodern view. Modernism states that English can only be introduced as a language in a colonial or postcolonial context exploitatively: that it is always subtractive, never additive, and always seeks to overlay this new identity of "English speaker who therefore conforms to Western/Inner Circle norms" onto whatever original culture exists in any given place.

Look...sure. But Taiwan isn't some poor postcolonial backwater exploited by the West - it's a developed democracy exploited by China (where the idea of Mandarin as an official language originated!) If anything, Mandarin is more of a linguistically imperialist language to have as an 'official language' than English!

Taiwan, rather, tends to use English in an 'appropriative' way: those who really learn it want to learn it so they can use it to their own ends, to meet their own goals. Those goals might be as lofty as disseminating a message - perhaps writing an op-ed for the Washington Post about Taiwanese identity - or as workaday as advancing in a chosen career. Taiwanese use of English is far more in line with a postmodern, World Englishes or English as a Lingua Franca model of second language use than a "linguistic imperialism" model.

So, there ya go. This could work - it could be a great idea. We could come together to create a language learning paradigm that created users of English rather than just learners. We could torpedo the language exams, because they are useless trash. We could turn English into something additive to Taiwanese culture - and use it as yet another way to differentiate Taiwan from China.

But we won't, and Taiwan will probably suffer for it. Whatever might have caused the disconnect between Tainan's attempts to implement innovative English curricula and my anecdotal observation that proficiency has not improved, it likely exists at the national level as well and will cause the same problems.

Even now, I notice it is difficult for my students to effectively talk to foreigners (they generally get better after they work with me). Many have expressed a desire to promote Taiwan abroad. Some are actively trying to do this, or hoping to, but they come up against their own language competency limits, and get discouraged. It takes longer to communicate effectively when this happens, and people just don't have the time. As a result, the 'case for Taiwan', the soft power of the Taiwanese people themselves, never quite makes it out of the larval stage. And I see little to suggest that Lai's grand vision for English is going to help those who want to grow wings, because there is no indication that there is a plan to overcoming the obstacles it will face.