Hi guys,
I'm interested in tipping my toes into Chinese Mandarin. I have a few things to ask and maybe you could help me:

1) I'm most interested in Taiwan. How close is Taiwan Mandarin to Mainland China Mandarin?

2) I know 0 about the language. Are there secrets I have to know?
I've heard about tones and that kanji have only one reading. How true is that?

3) Show/media recommendations.

4) Japanese/Mandarin dictionaries anyone?

Taiwanese Mandarin and mainland Mandarin is the same, they have no problem understanding eachother whatsoever (ofcourse not talking about Hokkien dialect).
There are no real 'secrets', just go about learning it as you would learn any other language. Though do get your tones right. There are tons of Taiwanese game/variety/dorama show either on youtube or crunchyroll etc. You shouldn't have any trouble finding the Taiwanese kind since they produce a lot. And although I can't recommend any dictionaries (other than a mandarin/japanese wordtank) is it very helpful since the majority of compounds are basically the same as the chinese ones so theres a big plus.

http://www.nciku.com is a pretty awesome dictionary.

And yeah, hanzi almost always have just one reading, but there can sometimes be several tones.

I think Taiwanese pronounce a few characters different from mainland Mandarin speakers. Not too many though.

Hi Mentat_kgs!

1. I got a lot of use out of the (FREE!) textbook "Speaking Chinese". It's available for download on MIT's opencourseware website. The author is named James Wheatly --he's a very cool, Indiana Jones type of figure. He travels all over the world, has language wanderlust to the max, and is interested in all things history/culture/language. His text is excellent! Clear grammar explanations, lots of useful vocab (along with context notes so you know when it's appropriate to use the words), and is also very sensitive to the differences between Mandarin spoken on Taiwan and that of China.

2. Heisig's Traditional Hanzi method, of course!

3. "Fundamental Spoken Chinese" published by University of Hawaii press also systematically presents a slew of grammar (and has a ton of audio)

4. For pronunciation guidance, I'd recommend 2 sources: McGraw-Hill's "Chinese Pronunciation" used in conjunction with sinosplices's "pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese" found online at: http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/pronunciation/.
They both complement each other.

Hope this helps. Have fun with Mandarin!

Uhm, this sinosplice link is quite nice. Also thanks for the nciku link.
I've seen that for taiwan, bopomofo is important to learn.

So now I'm looking for a spreadsheet/anki deck/csv file with the Traditional Hanzi, and their readings in bopomofo/pinyin.

Btw, I'm so lucky. I ordered a few days ago an usb keyboard. In the add, it was a normal US keyboard, but it seems it was misplaced and ended up receiving one with bopomofo =D

Another fantastic resource for learning pronunciation and pinyin is the Pronunciation and Romanization section of the Resource Module in FSI's Standard Chinese: A Modular Approach. You'll need the 6 tapes and the Text (PDF). I'd recommend it over John's tutorial (which is good but not nearly as comprehensive IMO).

Zhuyin Fuhao (bopomofo) is good to know, but I'd say pinyin is more important since vastly more material has pinyin than zhuyin. Here's a zhuyin ---> pinyin conversion chart, along with some example hanzi and pronunciation:

ㄅ b 八 (ㄅㄚ, bā)
ㄆ p 杷 (ㄆㄚˊ, pá)
ㄇ m 馬 (ㄇㄚˇ, mǎ)
ㄈ f 法 (ㄈㄚˇ, fǎ)
ㄉ d 地 (ㄉㄧˋ, dì)
ㄊ t 提 (ㄊㄧˊ, tí)
ㄋ n 你 (ㄋㄧˇ, nǐ)
ㄌ l 利 (ㄌㄧˋ, lì)
ㄍ g 告 (ㄍㄠˋ, gào)
ㄎ k 考 (ㄎㄠˇ, kǎo)
ㄏ h 好 (ㄏㄠˇ, hǎo)
ㄐ j 叫 (ㄐㄧㄠˋ, jiào)
ㄑ q 巧 (ㄑㄧㄠˇ, qiǎo)
ㄒ x 小 (ㄒㄧㄠˇ, xiǎo)
ㄓ zhi 【zh】 主 (ㄓㄨˇ, zhǔ)
ㄔ chi 【ch】 出 (ㄔㄨ, chū)
ㄕ shi 【sh】 束 (ㄕㄨˋ, shù)
ㄖ ri 【r】 入 (ㄖㄨˋ, rù)
ㄗ zi 【z】 在 (ㄗㄞˋ, zài)
ㄘ ci 【c】 才 (ㄘㄞˊ, cái)
ㄙ si 【s】 塞 (ㄙㄞ, sāi)
ㄚ a 大 (ㄉㄚˋ, dà)
ㄛ o 多 (ㄉㄨㄛ, duō)
ㄜ e 得 (ㄉㄜˊ, dé)
ㄝ ê 爹 (ㄉㄧㄝ, diē)
ㄞ ai 晒 (ㄕㄞˋ, shài)
ㄟ ei 誰 (ㄕㄟˊ, shéi)
ㄠ ao 少 (ㄕㄠˇ, shǎo)
ㄡ ou 收 (ㄕㄡ, shōu)
ㄢ an 山 (ㄕㄢ, shān)
ㄣ en 申 (ㄕㄣ, shēn)
ㄤ ang 上 (ㄕㄤˋ, shàng)
ㄥ eng 生 (ㄕㄥ, shēng)
ㄦ er 而 (ㄦˊ, ér)
ㄧ yi 【i】 逆 (ㄋㄧˋ, nì)
ㄧ yin 【in】 音 (ㄧㄣ, yīn)
ㄧ ying 【ing】 英 (ㄧㄥ, yīng)
ㄨ wu 【u】 努 (ㄋㄨˇ, nǔ)
ㄨ wen 【un】 文 (ㄨㄣˊ, wén)
ㄨ weng 【ong】 翁 (ㄨㄥ, wēng)
ㄩ yu 【u, ü】 女 (ㄋㄩˇ, nǚ)
ㄩ yun 【un】 韻 (ㄩㄣˋ, yūn)
ㄩ yong 【iong】 永 (ㄩㄥˇ, yǒng)

Also, for what it's worth, there's a great little book called A Manual of Transcription Systems for Chinese by Ching-song Gene Hsiao. It contains conversion tables for Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Yale, Zhuyin Fuhao, and even Gwoyeu Romatzyh. Incidentally, the book, which is published by Yale University Press (and so you would expect it to favor Yale romanization), spells Zhuyin Fuhao as Chu-yin Fu-hao, which is Wade-Giles romanization. Interesting little nerdy tidbit.

So I started to listen to watch 2 shows in Mandarin.
One is Devil besides me, other is Volant blabla Ice Mountain.
I'm stunned on how different chinese and japanese seem to be, at least in TV shows. =O

bflatnine Wrote:Zhuyin Fuhao (bopomofo) is good to know, but I'd say pinyin is more important since vastly more material has pinyin than zhuyin.

I would definitely agree with bflatnine here.

The PRC officially uses pinyin, and Taiwan has in the past used bopomofo to teach character pronunciation, but is currently switching to make pinyin the "official" phonetic system. For that reason I would suggest learning pinyin.

Don't forget that pinyin is a phonetic system divorced from English phonetics (i.e. don't assume the roman letters have any relation to English phonetics). It is used by the Chinese as a pronunciation guide, it is not simply a way for English speakers learning Chinese to get around learning characters. Some might find it helpful to learn bopomofo as a way to separate themselves more completely from English while they learn Chinese--which is definitely a valid reason to learn it! But as a whole I think your time spent learning the correct pronunciations of pinyin is much more valuable.