Talk:Taiwanese Mandarin/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 19:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Will take this one. My 台灣國語 is better than my 普通话 but both aren't as good as I would like... Comments to follow in a few days. —Kusma (talk) 19:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Progress box and general comments

• I am enjoying reading this, and some of my comments will add my own WP:OR when I talk from my own experience (especially about differences), so don't add anything I say without proper sources :) —Kusma (talk) 21:35, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
• I am making more comments than are strictly necessary to satisfy the GA criteria. If you feel something I ask for goes beyond the GA criteria and you don't want to work on it, just tell me. —Kusma (talk) 22:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
• Is there any influence of Hong Kong on Taiwanese Mandarin? (After all, for about 50 years Hong Kong was the geographically closest and most easily accessible Chinese-speaking area from Taiwan).
• First reading done, a well-researched and interesting article! I do wonder whether it can be made easier to read, especially for someone who can't read Chinese. I still need to check various small things for some criteria so I'm not quite done reviewing, but I can add a couple of ticks now. Various prose/structure/content comments below. —Kusma (talk) 22:59, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you, and I appreciate the comments thus far! (I think the influence of HK Mandarin is probably minimal given how little influence HK Mandarin has historically had vs. Canto in HK itself; and I don't recall really ever seeing much to that effect in the literature.) Life hit me with a whole lotta responsibilities about 24 hours after submitting this GA review, so please no rush — I'm going to do my best to fix it up ASAP, hopefully this time next week at the latest. Again, appreciate your feedback so far! WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 02:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Lead section

 Done First impression: Lead spends a lot of time defining terms, and I don't think it really "stand[s] on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic" as MOS:LEAD tells us (some divergences and differences exist is perhaps a bit short to cover all of Section 5). Will come back to this later.

• ( Done) We do have an article about 教育部國語辭典, at Ministry of Education Mandarin Chinese Dictionary. Link that instead of linking to zhwiki.
  • WtY: I agree, and I will work on fixing this. I think moving some of this information down to the terminology section as long as it isnt redundant will suffice. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 16:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Rewrote the lead section, so marking this as done, pending any other comments from you. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 22:57, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Terms and definition

• Generally underlinked. (Chinese language, Sinitic languages, Sino-Tibetan languages, Mandarin Chinese, Varieties of Chinese etc.)
  • Question: I assumed that since these are done in the infobox and the lead, they'd be redundant elsewhere. (My reading of WP:OVERLINK. Are there specific examples you have in mind? (If so, feel free to fill them in to avoid the hassle of going back-and-forth here, if that's easier for you)
    • I usually try to make the body of the article work on its own. My brain usually ignores infoboxes (or treats them as the caption for the lead image), so I wouldn't know whether any terms are linked there. Personally, I think MOS:LINKONCE is wrong, and terms should be linked more than once in long articles, to help readers on mobile devices or small screens and those who read only one section. Anyway, I will add the links I think are needed.
• Many linguists, some linguists etc: is this what the sources say or can this be made a little more concrete? (WP:SOME)
  •  Done Reworded one of these ("Some linguists further differentiate..." into "Guoyu can be further differentiated...") — this is a pretty common practice, see the cited source and e.g. zh:臺灣國語. (Special:Diff/1123857285) Also changed "Many" to "some" (i.e. Her and Sanders, both cited) and added the relevant quote from Sanders, which is not paginated in the version I'm able to access (Special:Diff/1123858191)
    • The PDF is paginated, so you could use that.
• You use Guoyu and Putonghua, but "Southern Min / Hokkien" instead of Minnanhua or Taiyu as these are frequently called, which looks a bit odd to me (haven't met people who say "Hokkien" when they mean 台語). Also, it might be easier to read if you stick to one word instead of alternating "Hokkien" and "Southern Min".
  • Noted, and I'll see about changing this. Part of the issue seems to be that Hokkien is the more precise term preferred by some linguist sources I've read in English, but it's often just 閩南語 in Mandarin (mainly because Hokkien itself is just 福建 and no one says that in Mandarin). I'll probably adjust to "Southern Min"/Taiyu — the latter appears in English sources, but usually Minnanhua is transalted as Southern Min, I think.
    • I don't know what is more common in linguistic sources, but I think Minnanhua or Minnanyu or even Taiyu would work fine in parallel to Guoyu and Putonghua, as long as you define it once and then try to use it consistently. I would also accept "Hokkien" but please don't mix it with other terms that mean the same.

History and usage

•  Done I am sure there were also some aboriginal languages spoken in Taiwan.
  • There are, but that amounts to less than 1% of the population at present and there is little influence of them on Guoyu outside of a few place names, so I have not mentioned that. I think it's sort of like talking about Ojibwe in an article about Quebec French: they were both spoken in proximity to each other, but by two very distinct groups with limited linguistic influence on the latter. But this is not an opinion I hold strongly, so happy to add something if you have any suggestions.
    • My point is that Official communications were made in Mandarin (官話 Guānhuà, lit. 'official language'), but the primary languages of everyday life were Hokkien or Hakka. only refers to the everyday life of Chinese immigrants, not of everyone in Taiwan, and it could be read as if we are pretending the aboriginal people do not exist.
      • Ah, I see what you mean. That makes sense. I added two sentences about that (Special:Diff/1120085883/1120182415). Thanks for pointing that out.
•  DoneMany who had fled the mainland after the fall of the KMT also spoke non-standard varieties of Mandarin, which would later influence colloquial pronunciations. I'm not totally sure I recognise this in the source, given also that p. 49 is about Singapore.
  • The citation is for pages 47–49, and the relevant stuff is mostly on page 47: "The phenomenon may be attributable to the fact that when Modern Standard Chinese was first introduced to Taiwan in the 1940s, the majority of new immigrants to the island spoke and adulterated guóyǔ…" — I modulated the sentence somewhat to include the "may" and changed the citation to just page 47
•  DoneEnglish classes are often preferred by parents and students over mother tongue classes does this mean there is a choice whether to take English or Taiwanese (or Hakka/aboriginal) lessons? (Hakka Chinese should also be linked)
  • From the source: "Mandarin still has the lion’s share in language policy support. Mother tongue classes are generally limited to 1 hour a week, compared to 7–10 hours a week for Mandarin ... In addition, mother tongue classes are competing with English language programs. ... Due largely to parental pressure, many education authorities, especially in urban centers, now begin teaching English programs in Grade 1. ... English is usually given more emphasis than the mother tongues. While in the lower grades mother tongue may have equal or more class-time than English (i.e. one period a week), two English classes a week is common in Grades 5 and 6." Re-reading the source, I've rewritten this sentence to Greater time and resources are devoted to both Mandarin and English, which are compulsory subjects, compared to mother tongue instruction.
•  Done Link Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu.
•  Done So I gather Guoyu as primary language is on the rise? I am a bit confused because I (anecdotal evidence alert) see so much Taiyu in films and music.
  • It's known that the younger you are, the more likely you are to primarily communicate via Guoyu. The rise of Taiyu is more because it is bouncing back from the artificial zero it was at for most of the martial law era, I think. I added a line with a source about the stratification via age in Special:Diff/1120081988.
    • That explains it better. Since 2003, I have been to Taiwan for less than a week so I'm (a) old and (b) not totally up to date :) Twenty years ago it was still common to meet people who spoke little or no 國語, especially in the South. However, the most unexpected place for me to encounter 台語 was at an electoral rally for the 2000 election in Taipei, where James Soong (宋楚瑜) of all people was speaking in Taiwanese. After that experience and Chen's presidency, I expected Taiwanese to be on the rise. Always good to learn when I'm wrong. —Kusma (talk) 21:44, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Script

•  Done Why is の for 的 or 之 not mentioned here?
  • also removed a sentence about the use of の in Minnanyu because it was sort of trivia, I think. Special:Diff/1126857341
•  DoneBraille: could you go into a little more detail here on what the difference is? The systems seem to be based on very similar ideas.
  • There's not a whole lot comparing the two directly that I was able to find, though I did expand a bit based on what the existing Omniglot source cited already says. (final change after copyedit Special:Diff/1126858855)
•  DoneZhuyin fuhao: Could mention that many children's and early reader books use bopomofo as ruby characters. Taiwan is the only Chinese-speaking polity to use the system but it was in use in the ROC on the mainland in the 1930s as well I think, and probably in the PRC as well until Hanyu pinyin was introduced to schools in the late 1950s.
  • Done, see dif below, except for the mainland usage — I had a hard time finding info on that. I think because a) literacy is so low and b) there were so many competing romanization schemes it's hard to say how widespread its use was. Will keep an eye out, though
    • Anecdotal evidence: 1921 bible in Bopomofo. I think it was also used in several dictionaries but I couldn't find an accessible one. The fact that there were several Bopomofo reforms (see zh:注音符號 in the 1920s also points towards some use. —Kusma (talk) 10:31, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
•  Done *Zhuyin representing Taiwanese nationalism: page number? isn't it more identity than nationalism that the article talks about?
  • Reworded, I was being sloppy with terminology there Special:Diff/1126862593
    • Much better!
•  DoneNational Phonetic Symbols, Second Scheme isn't this usually called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II?
  • Yes, replaced with that link

Phonology

•  Done I am wondering whether you should indicate to readers that you will later give a list of characters pronounced differently.
  • Done
•  Done Mention that erhua is super common in Beijing dialect?
  • Done, added with Chen citation on page 39
•  Done Again, it is perhaps not clear that "Hokkien" and "Southern Min" are the same.
  • Fixed
•  Done I don't fully understand the thing about retroflex sounds and hypercorrection. Who are the "non-native speakers" here? Native Taiwanese who aren't native speakers of Guoyu? (The phenomenon certainly doesn't seem common among European learners of Chinese). Also, what about the many speakers who don't use retroflex sounds?
  • In the context of that statement, yes, exactly. There are elderly Han Taiwanese (less and less nowadays) who did not learn Mandarin in school well, if at all — before the KMT, they were learning Japanese in school and speaking Minnanyu or Hakka at home. The citation is from 1985, when this was much more common, so I've reworded it a bit given that that is naturally less and less likely now, from "most non-native speakers" to "some speakers", which is technically still supported by the underlying citation. Added another citation as well, a more recent one. (In my experience, you do still hear this when people are trying to be conscious about "good" pronunciation. E.g. I stayed in a Hakka area once and had waiters talk like this (inconsistently in the same utterance, even) possibly because I was a foreigner who approached them with my "proper" Guoyu. It's very interesting.)
•  Done Can you give more concrete examples for some of the shifts? (e.g. does eng->ong happen in 風? Does Tongyong pinyin reflect Taiwan Guoyu pronunciation here? Do you mean reading 男 as lan?)
  • Gave a few more examples, including 風.. Some are tricky due to pinyin restrictions (e.g. there's no 'e' in the IPA sense in pinyin on its own, for the last bullet about -ei/ui -> -e). To my knowledge, Tongyong wasn't attempting to cover this.
•  Done Tone quality images would probably look better if together and in the same section, e.g. using {{multiple image}} or {{gallery}}

Differences from mainland Putonghua

•  Done Aren't some of the topics discussed in the previous two section also differences?
  • Reordered sections to make that less confusing — now the vocab differences one is its own section.
•  Done Pronunciations: what is your source for These differences are primarily but not exclusively tonal and peer-reviewed, scholarly research on the subject is scarce?
  • The former becomes clear looking through the 两岸辞典, but I wasn't able to find a source. Re: the peer-reviewed stuff, I think my exasperation at not being able to find someone stating the obvious made me accidentally editorialize/insert some OR of my own, oops. I think that having more examples with tonal differences conveys the idea to some extent. Removing both sentences.
•  Done Quantification of the extent of pronunciation differences between Guoyu and Putonghua vary varies?
• Thank you for the list of differences. Now I finally know why I pronounce 暫 different from the teachers at my local Confucius Institute.
  • A lot of native speakers on either side often aren't aware of it!
•  Done For another example difference that is not just tonal or retroflex/non-retroflex, what about 垃圾 (le4se4 / la1ji1)?
  • This one is the only one I know of where both characters are pronounced differently, interestingly. I went ahead and added it with a note as to why both characters are included (as opposed to each individually, as for the others in the list)). Special:Diff/1124856045
• Nice examples for different words / different preference, but I guess many words are also different between Beijing and Southern parts of Mainland China. (腳踏車 vs 自行车 and 番茄 vs 西红柿 are examples I think?)
  • Yeah, and I tried to find sourcing to state as much, but a lot seems to be locked in CNKI or in graduate theses. Not surprising given that Southern Min etc. exist on the mainland too, so you'd expect to see similar lexical exchange.
•  Done Words specific to Guoyu: mention what the example ㄍㄧㄥ means? Source for this?
  • (Update: removed this part, interesting but probably too trivial, all things considered) The Wiktionary link gives the definition, which I had a hard time condensing ("nonexpressive and nervously tense; rarely showing feelings; inhibited; stiff and uncomfortable") — I could gloss as inhibited/tense. It's an example I am familiar with because of how frequently it appears in Mandarin news in Taiwan (Google news search). I was kinda hoping this could be shoehorned into Sky is Blue territory, but I could also cite one of those news articles (I was wary of getting too close into original research territory). Alternatively, ㄎㄧㄤ kiàng is much more common I think (but no wiktionary entry) — thoughts on this as a source? This article insists on writing it as a Hanzi despite people mostly using the Zhuyin. Might just have to drop it or shove into a footnote.
• You usually give many nice examples, and also many terms unique to Guoyu were adopted from Japanese would work better with examples. Just saw that you have examples later; why not combine in one place?
•  Done Particles: Wu (2006) argues is influenced by a similar la particle in Hokkien copyedit this sentence.
•  Done The paragraph about の might work better in the "Script" section.
•  Done Why do we have Lin (2014) and Wu (2006) and then later "according to one linguist"?
  • Fixed, I think
•  Done Loan words: 酸奶酪 for yogurt isn't really a transliteration, it is more an example where one version is a transliteration and the other a translation.
  • Yeah. Removed the line, there are plenty of other examples.
• Some local foods are usually referred by their Hokkien names. Oh yes. Never heard a Mandarin word for 蚵仔煎. But do you have a source for this?
  • That actually might be a small remnant from the pre-overhaul article. And it's another frustrating example of "this is obviously true and everyone knows it but it seems so obvious that no scholarly cares/bothers writing it down" (insert rage emoji) (same problem with the ㄎㄧㄤ kiàng above). This very non-scholarly source sort of hints at it. It really is such a funny nuance; technically, the Guoyu is just ézǐjiān. It's a loan in the sense that only a non-native student or mainlander might read it like that, but no one in Taiwan would — except, of course, for the Ministry of Education, because they're extremely prescriptive and doesn't like acknowledging nonstandard forms. Might need to just cut that out, unfortunately. (did that)
•  Done From Japanese: 民主 and 革命 certainly are also perfectly acceptable Putonghua words, as they were imported into Chinese well before 1950?
  • Yes, that's what I try to get at in the first paragraph. Added a link to the Meiji and Taishō eras and a sentence making it more clear, Special:Diff/1127968990.
•  Done Wiktionary only has スカンク as "skunk", not also as "to lose completely".
  • Fixed — it was スコンク, not スカンク. Japanese Wiktionary ja:wikt:スコンク has "total loss" as a definition for the former — which, weirdly, it claims came from English. Go figure.

Grammar

• The grammar of Taiwanese Mandarin is largely identical to Standard Mandarin as spoken in mainland inaCh, Putonghua. As with its lexicon and phonology, differences from Putonhua often stem from the influence of Hokkien. Something needs to be fixed, and not just the typos. Why do you introduce "Standard Mandarin" here again and do not use "Guoyu"? Also, sentence is uncited.
  • Reworded. As for the citation, I intended it to just be a sort of general restatement of what is covered in the section. I'll look around for something that states that explicitly and note here when I find it.
    • Makes sense, although the story with separable verbs doesn't have an obvious Minnanyu connection.
•  Done Min grammar don't introduce yet another way to say Taiyu unless you want to make a point of talking about a larger class of dialects.
•  Done I don't have the fonts installed to display it, I had to look through Wiktionary and find (nicer alternative to 袂) to understand that also 我袂熱 fits with a discussion about 會。
  • This one is tricky. That character is definitely more illustrative, but the "most correct" one, at least according to the Ministry of Education, is in fact 袂. 勿+會 is listed as a nonstandard variant in the MoE Taiyu dictionary. Do you think a note would be a good way to include that (I agree that it's interesting, though I want to avoid shoving a picture inline for the almost universially unsupported character if possible)?
    • A footnote could be nice, but as this is highly specialised and mostly only targeted at people who care about written 閩南話, I agree it shouldn't be discussed in the main text, especially given that 袂 is official.
      • Added a footnote for funsies :) — Special:Diff/1127947775
•  Done This is not true of all separable verbs in Guoyu, and prescriptive texts still opt to treat these verbs as separable. all of the separable verbs including 幫忙?
  • Reworded to disambiguate (all separable verbs -> every separable verb). 幫忙 is one example, and by far the most commonly discussed. Other ones I can think of off the top of my head are 打臉 (Internet slang, 'to humiliate/cause someone to be embarassed/show someone up', see e.g. this headline) and 求婚 （你求婚過嗎？ is acceptable as opposed to 你求過婚嗎?)
    • When talking to Mainland Chinese, I do get the feeling I'm not separating verbs as often as they are, so probably there are a few more.

Notes

• Note 4 about zhwiki might also go into a See Also / External links section
•  Done Note 5: 乎 common in Classical Chinese is uncited
  • Reworded to "a Classical Chinese particle"
• Note 8: I don't understand why you talk about Yang and Sanders here, as they aren't mentioned. That 他會來嗎？ is not OK in Putonghua would also require a citation I think.
  •  Done That note was a very convoluted attempt to explain why I used Guoyu and not Standard or Taiwan Guoyu. Technically, it's the result of Minnanyu influence — but it's also common even in Standard Guoyu speech, suggesting it's been adopted as a norm, unlike other aspects of Minnanyu influence. But I messed up in quoting that example: 他會來 is not relevant here. Fixed here: Special:Diff/1128584664

Citations / References

Will do a formatting / reliability / spot check source review, but not today. —Kusma (talk) 22:59, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

• Looking at Special:Permanentlink/1117850418.
•  Done Lots of refs look like they really should have page numbers, for instance 6, 8, 12, 17, 18, 22, 23, ...
•  Done Avoid typesetting Chinese in italics. There are |script-title= and similar options in some of the citation templates, and if all else fails, {{noitalic}}.
  • Very good to know, thank you — fixed
•  Done What makes the Brubaker PhD thesis and especially the two master's theses from 師大 high quality reliable sources? See WP:SCHOLARSHIP for the criteria. I think you have so many scholarly sources that you should be able to work without these three.
  • removed the PhD. For the MAs, Wu is kept, as discussed below, and Nan is further contextualized as graduate research in the body and not cited definitively.
•  Done The 兩岸常用詞典 (68, 69, 70, 72, 73 etc.) could use access-date and possibly an archive (and it is an awesome resource, just added it to my Pleco). Most are ok without translating the title, but 80 perhaps could use one.
  • I agree on archiving, and I'll start that process. Big bummer that User:InternetArchiveBot has been down for so long :(
•  Done 71 could use a translated title for consistency
•  Done Why is 122 a citation footnote instead of a sfn reference?
  • Made into sfn

Overall lots of reliable sources, formatting is good but not fully internally consistent. Text-source integrity spotchecks to follow. —Kusma (talk) 22:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I have a moment at the airport so I'll address the master's thesis etc. quickly. At Special:Diff/1120011484 I have a note justifying the Wu master thesis inclusion. The Brubaker thesis and the Nan masters thesis can probably be removed, and I will do so when revising, though I do like that Nan provides another metric for differences in cross-strait pronunciation. I relied on Nan because there is a weird gap in terms of actual hard numbers when it comes to the question "just how many things are pronounced differently"? Technically, things like the Cross-Strait Dictionary could answer that question if I just counted them, but that might be weird OR or something, so I just went with the thesis in the case of Nan. It's also more current than the 1992 Li study, which I can imagine being relevant given how in 1992 the ROC and PRC had barely an interaction whatsoever, so linguistic differences may have been more pronounced. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 16:42, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

OK, sounds reasonable I think. Couple of random spotchecks so I can feel I have finished my review properly:

•  Done 96 Lin 2014 is another thesis (although published), and I couldn't find it via the ISBN given. Linking to [1] is more useful than the ISBN here. Citation should use page numbers.
•  Done I couldn't find the "isochrony is more syllable timed" of footnote 47 in Chen 1999. I did find the remaining remarks, if expressed a bit differently (but I think that is good).
  • That's a holdover from the pre-rewrite article that I apparently didn't bother to check; it's definitely not in Chen. Some thesis cites that to Kubler 1985 but he doesn't talk about isochrony. very possibly OR. Fixed. Special:Diff/1128183233/1128191517
•  Done Why not use Hsieh/Hsu 2006 when you talk about Japanese loanwords? Also has more examples including 甜不辣 and chotto matte (or do people no longer say that? I spent a lot of time with people saying that a lot in 2000).
•  Done Merge 111 into 109?
•  Done 117 should have a page number.
•  Done Checked a few others. Wiedenhof seems a nice grammar mentioning a few grammatical differences (p. 214 says 有沒有 should stand together in a question in putonghua, but can be split to 有...沒有 in Taiwanese Mandarin.
  • Added some more info from Wiedenhof along those lines.

The more I look, the more I am impressed by the breadth of your sources. But perhaps you should go through all sfn's and try to add page numbers or think of a specific reason not to have them... —Kusma (talk) 21:57, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Finally done with this section. Also expanded a bit to be more specific on the Minnanyu loanwords. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 23:44, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Images

• Licensing status seems ok.
• Consider whether the tone images would work better as a gallery or with {{multiple image}}.
• Captions usually don't end with a period unless they are a full sentence.
• Infobox image could have a caption that says that darker blue = more Mandarin. (The legend is unreadable at the size it has in the infobox).
• Alt text would be nice, especially for the road sign image.
• Some audio samples would be awesome I think, but certainly not required for GA.

Added the alt text and infobox caption, and made the tone images into a gallery. Removed periods from captions. Unfortuntately, haven't found a suitable open-source Guoyu audio sample, but I agree. (My accent is pretty good, but I'm non-native, so definitely not ideal, otherwise I'd do it.) Might try to recruit a friend in the future... WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 23:40, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Comments by a455bcd9

Super interesting article: congrats! A few remarks:

• "All forms of written Chinese in Taiwan often use traditional characters alongside other Sinophone areas such as Hong Kong, Macau, and many overseas Chinese communities."
  • No source in the article for "many overseas Chinese communities"
    • WtY: Rewritten to written Chinese in Taiwan generally uses traditional characters, in contrast to mainland China, where simplified Chinese characters were adopted beginning in the 1950s.
  • Inconsistent with the content of the article ("In practice, Taiwanese Mandarin users may write informal, shorthand characters (俗字 súzì, lit. 'customary/conventional characters; also 俗體字 sútǐzì) in place of the full traditional forms.")
  • I suggest: "Formal written Chinese in Taiwan use" or "Written Chinese in Taiwan mainly use"
• "Shorthand characters": are they used in handwriting only? or also on desktop & mobile?
  • • WtY: Handwriting only.
• "Guoyu is still the main language of public education": as of when?
  • WtY: As of today. I slightly worry adding "as of" may inadvertently imply that there are calls to make education non-Mandarin medium, which is not the case. Reworded to English and "mother tongue education" (母語教育 mǔyǔ jiàoyù) — Minnanyu and Hakka — were introduced as elective subjects in primary school in 2001. From context and the following sentences, that Guoyu is still the medium of instruction should be clear, I think.
• "mother tongue education": what does this mean? Hakka and Hokken classes? Do they learn how to write these languages?
  • WtY: Yes, Hakka + Minnanyu/Hokkien. Writing is taught, as far as I am aware; the "tongue" does not imply speech only, given that the Mandarin is just 母語.
• "national and local levels of government have promoted the use of non-Mandarin Chinese languages": I don't understand, the previous paragraphs seem to say the opposite.
  • WtY: Reworded slightly to Overall, while both national and local levels of government have taken some measures to promote the use of non-Mandarin Chinese languages, younger generations generally prefer using Mandarin. The promotion includes e.g. the mother tongue classes. Promotion here is relative to the past, where it was outright prohibited.
• "The Cross Strait Common Usage Dictionary categorizes [...]": not sourced
  • WtY: Fixed
• "Wu (2006) argues is influenced by a similar la particle in Hokkien.": ???
  • WtY: Fixed
• "For recurring or specific events, however, [...]": not sourced
  • WtY: Fixed — removed the line, as it was confusing
• Transliteration formats are not consistent, here are a few examples:
  • "阿公 agōng"
  • 爺爺 yéye (paternal grandfather)
  • 民主 minshu 'democracy'
  • 會 (huì)
  • 珍奶 zhēnnǎi
  • 'traffic rules/regulations' (交通規則/交通规则, jiāotōng guīzé)
  • I suggest using Template:Lang-zh (potentially with |labels=no) everywhere.
    • WtY: I fixed the outliers. The article takes two approaches to Chinese text. The first is when introducing the Chinese translation parenthetically, i.e., where the Chinese word itself is not the focus. This is present in the lead especially. Deeper in the article, where the words are discussed as examples, the format is generally Hanzi (in the {{lang|zh-hant|漢字}} or zh-hant-TW as appropriate) + italicized pinyin + gloss, if necessary. The lang-zh template unfortunately forces the use of semicolons between sections, and there's no way to remove those at present. I'm partial to the uninterrupted insertion of Hanzi + pinyin + meaning if needed because it allows for the paragraph to flow easily, especially when there are so many instances of Chinese text. (e.g. blah blah 國語 Guóyǔ 'National Language' blah vs. blah blah 國語; Guóyǔ; 'National Language' blah)

A455bcd9 (talk) 16:51, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Chiming in to say a) thanks and b) I'll take a look at these after I'm done with Kusma's above. So sorry for the delay. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 03:19, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Provisional completion

@Kusma and A455bcd9: Pinging to let you know I've gone through all of the suggestions at present. Thanks so much for your patience and constructive feedback. Feel free to take some time to look through again if needed. There were some significant alterations in the course of re-researching, especially the lead, the From Minnanyu vocabulary section, and the From Japanese vocabulary section. Happy to answer any questions in the meantime, and again, thanks you very much, and apologies for the delay. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 00:45, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks: looks good to me! Congrats on the impressive work accomplished so far :) a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 08:24, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

@WhinyTheYounger, lots of good work! I'd like to do another proper read through as it's been a while. With the holidays, my time is a bit unpredictable but I'll try not to let it take too long. —Kusma (talk) 14:30, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! And I appreciate it. No need to rush through, please take your time, especially after being so patient. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 19:17, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Second round

Apologies for the long delay, I didn't get enough wikitime over the holidays (stomach bug plus travel, don't ask). Everything looks pretty near in shape, with perhaps some work necessary in the lead section. Other small issues/comments:

•  Done Minnanyu should be defined at first use, and it should be clarified that this is essentially the same as "Hokkien" when that is first used.
•  Done "then-Chief Executive": drop the "then" and perhaps say what he was Chief Executive of.
•  Done Similarly, "then-mayor of Taipei" could just be "mayor of Taipei" imo.
• Romanization: not anything to do for you, just another anecdote: what you describe sounds almost organized compared to the "Diong-Sam Road" for 中山路 that was fairly common in Southern Taiwan twenty years ago...
  • WtY: Yeah, that's based on the Pej-oe-ji for Hokkien! I would guess that for things like roads especially, changing the romanization means changing the actual English name, which would make things very complicated, so they keep whatever it has been known by.
• Phonology "Taiwanese authorities prefer traditional pronunciations recorded in dictionaries from the 1930s and 1940s" are these more like Nanjing pronunciations?
  • WtY: Not quite. From the Under KMT Rule section, Wu Chinese dialects were also influential due to the relative power of KMT refugees from Wu-speaking Zhejiang, Chiang Kai-shek's home province. My understanding is that in Taiwan they looked to the formal written standard, whereas in China, they adopted some of the more colloquial pronunciations already common in the Beijing area as standard. That seems to be why Guoyu formally retains idiosyncratic/almost one-off tonal differences in certain words, like 從容 cōngróng / cóngróng mentioned later in the article. (Another example off the top of my head is 敬而遠之 where yuǎn is "properly" read yuàn, inherited from older (classical?) Chinese where the tonal difference demarked the adjective 'far' from the verbal 'to distance'. That distinction has long been lost for pretty much all speakers.)
•  Done Link "later in this section" does not work for me?
•  Done Would it make sense to add a citation to the image caption for the pitch contours?
•  Done The table with pronunciation differences looks a bit odd now that lese/laji has been added. Perhaps do not center within the columns?
  • Agreed. Deleted one character that is covered in the following paragraph to rebalanced it, Special:Diff/1132450250.
• Some of the differing transliterations are unsourced; having everything cited might help repel / revert additions of further examples without citations.
  • Could you clarify? Do you mean in the Taiwanese Mandarin#Loan words and transliteration section? Seeing that you handled that already, thanks!
•  Done The citation "Hsu 2014" isn't used.
  • WtY: removed

Lead section/infobox comments:

•  Done Would suggest to combine the fourth and fifth paragraph.
• Slightly more information on what type of differences to expect (other than that differences exist) would improve the lead, which should summarize the whole article. Perhaps try to mention more or less everything that is mentioned in the table of contents?
  • Done
•  Done The box below the infobox has "Taiwan Huayu" instead of "Taiwan Guoyu". And why is "Taiwan Huayu" used first in the infobox?
  • Fixed

Think that's all! Should be able to respond quickly to further changes. Great work overall, WhinyTheYounger! —Kusma (talk) 17:28, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

• • Thanks so much, and no worries on the delay — I kept you waiting much longer anyways. I fixed a few right now and am looking into the others. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 18:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

    @WhinyTheYounger, I think it's almost just the lead now, so it should be possible to get this over the line soon. One thing that I wanted to ask you (but obviously doesn't need to go in the article for GA) is whether things like writing 動算 for 當選 (following the Minnanyu pronunciation) happen commonly. (I've seen this in news reports of the 2000 election, when you'd have a dude with megaphone shout 阿扁 etc. and the crowd answer 動算, and there are various Google hits for the phrase). —Kusma (talk) 13:49, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

    • Finished up some more and working on the remainder. Also found a friend and an acquaintance to do readings; one is a professional newscaster. and . Will probably try to incorporate these after GA status :) WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 01:57, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

      @WhinyTheYounger, those are great and nicely illustrate the difference between Standard Guoyu and more colloquial Taiwan Guoyu (without showing a 台語 accent)! Compare also File:Universal Declaration of Human Rights - chn - cz - Art 1.ogg. I think we're down to two remaining issues, hope you can squash those soon. :) —Kusma (talk) 10:02, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

      • All done, except for that bit bit about transliteration. Almost there, and thanks again! I'll try adding the audio after it's over the finish line :) WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 01:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, that's all! It took a while but I enjoyed reading and working on this! —Kusma (talk) 17:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.