4 ms·

I'm a Western who has lived in Taipei for almost three years. I use Google Translate every day of my life. It's helped me book restaurant reservations and talk

I'm a Western who has lived in Taipei for almost three years. I use Google Translate every day of my life. It's helped me book restaurant reservations and talk to my doctor. I also grew up in Canada, have British parents, and lived in the USA for seven years, so I'm used to switching from "Traditional English" to "Simplified English" too ;-) I mean, ya, sometimes Google Translate uses Mainland China words (e.g., I just typed Bicycle and it returned 自行車 instead of 腳踏車). But I just tried typing 土豆片 (potato chips) and translating it to "English" and it returned "potato chips" instead of the British "crisps" too. This is not a big deal at all.

throwaway6e8f 3y ago
I mean it’s on a par with using simplified Chinese here. People understand what you mean, but you get disapproving looks. A foreigner using G translate would probably be fine, though :)
- sshine 3y ago
  As a 外国人, I get a lot of good will for even a weak attempt at simplified.
uranusjr 3y ago
自行車 is used since way before mainland China influence is significant, although 腳踏車 has always been indeed more colloquial. Rejecting 自行車 is like rejecting winter squash as American English only because you grow up calling it pumpkin. As parent said, author really seems to have shockingly little experience with non-colloquial Taiwanese Chinese to confidently publishing such a page.
4cao 3y ago
Is having "lived in Taipei for almost three years," really enough to confidently claim that "this is not a big deal at all?" Especially if you "use Google Translate every day of [your] life," presumably not because you're proficient in the local language? As a matter of fact, a special "Cross-Strait" dictionary was developed to deal with all the language differences, with nearly 6,000 words and 30,000 phrases: https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10&post=19596 https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10&post=19596 It hardly seems like "no big deal" to those who should know best.

throwaway6e8f 3y ago

I mean it’s on a par with using simplified Chinese here. People understand what you mean, but you get disapproving looks. A foreigner using G translate would probably be fine, though :)

sshine 3y ago
As a 外国人, I get a lot of good will for even a weak attempt at simplified.

uranusjr 3y ago

自行車 is used since way before mainland China influence is significant, although 腳踏車 has always been indeed more colloquial. Rejecting 自行車 is like rejecting winter squash as American English only because you grow up calling it pumpkin. As parent said, author really seems to have shockingly little experience with non-colloquial Taiwanese Chinese to confidently publishing such a page.

4cao 3y ago

Is having "lived in Taipei for almost three years," really enough to confidently claim that "this is not a big deal at all?" Especially if you "use Google Translate every day of [your] life," presumably not because you're proficient in the local language? As a matter of fact, a special "Cross-Strait" dictionary was developed to deal with all the language differences, with nearly 6,000 words and 30,000 phrases: https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10&post=19596 https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10&post=19596 It hardly seems like "no big deal" to those who should know best.