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After Japan and South Korea, Taiwan is our next largest source of students. What should we know about Taiwan and its culture to better help Taiwanese students?

Taiwan Crash Course

First, let’s go over some basic facts about Taiwan. Since it's a relatively unknown country, if you know just a few basic facts about it, you’ll be able to impress your students!

For starters, know that Taiwan is not Thailand:

The capital of Taiwan is “Taipei,” which literally means “Tai-north.” As you might guess, it’s located in the northernmost part of the island. You may also want to learn:

“Taichung” (“Tai-middle”): the city in the middle of Taiwan and
“Tainan” (“Tai-south”): a southern city.

This might seem trivial, but you’d be surprised by how many positive comments from Taiwanese students are about a tutor’s knowledge of Taiwanese cities and corresponding landmarks!

The next thing you’ll want to know is that Taiwan has about the same population as Australia (23 million) ... and this population is diverse. In addition to the official language, Mandarin Chinese, most Taiwanese people can also speak some Taiwanese (Hokkien). Then, depending on which part of China their family originated from or which indigenous tribe they belong to, they may speak some other languages as well.

On top of that, there are many immigrants from Southeast Asia: “In Taiwan’s K-12 schools, there are already 80,000 students with a Vietnamese parent and 20,000 with an Indonesian parent.”

Other fun facts you might want to know are that Taiwan ... :

... had the tallest building in the world between 2004 and 2010: the Taipei 101
... is where the famous drink, “bubble tea,” was invented
… recently became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage

Finally, avoid mentioning China; it’s a sensitive topic.

Why Taiwanese Study English

For much of the past century, Taiwan has had a close relationship with the US. In fact, until the 1980s, Taiwan was America’s 2nd largest source of international students, and today, it remains America’s 11th largest trading partner.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the US — and English — loom large in the Taiwanese imagination. As Tutor Norma (🇿🇦), who has been teaching Taiwanese students since 2015 says, “Many Taiwanese companies do business with the US, and a lot of my Taiwanese students even want to work in the US.”

In addition, many Taiwanese believe that it’s important to understand the world outside their home country. This helps explain why Taiwanese are so eager to study abroad. According to Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, Taiwan sent over 60,000 students abroad in 2017, with most going to Western countries.

Taiwanese students’ interest in study abroad is reflected in the booking rates of our test-prep materials. For example, since we released IELTS Speaking Practice in June, we’ve seen the series booked 1,590 lessons by students from Taiwan. By comparison, it was only booked 3,582 times in both Japan and Korea, where we have 17 times as many students.

Students preparing for these tests often need someone to practice English with. A Taiwanese student who now studies in the US told me, “ I took TOEFL prep classes, but the speaking classes were useless since we didn’t actually have much time to speak and get corrections. So I started taking 1-on-1 lessons on Engoo.”

Taiwanese English

Now that we know who our Taiwanese students are, let’s take a look at the most common mistakes they make.

1. During Self-Introduction

During self-introduction, you’ll most certainly hear them ask something like, “Where are you come from?” This is a mistake that even advanced students make. All. The. Time. The easiest way to say this is: “Where are you from?”

You’ll also hear Taiwanese people say, “I am a Taiwanese.” This is incorrect, because “Taiwanese” is an adjective (e.g. “Taiwanese people,” “Taiwanese food,” “Taiwanese culture”). So the correct way to say this is “I am Taiwanese” — or even better, “I’m from Taiwan.” (Try and get them to practice using “from” correctly.)

2. Use of ‘Have/Has’ instead of ‘(There) is/are’

Another common mistake that Taiwanese people make is using “have” or “has” instead of “ is.” For example, “There has a book” instead of saying, “There is a book.” This is a result of direct translation from Chinese. I’ve also heard Taiwanese people say, “Do you know where have toilet?” (instead of “Do you know where the toilet is?”) and, "My family have three people" (instead of "There are three people in my family").

3. Omission of -S and -ED

Finally, if you’ve ever had a Taiwanese student, you’ve definitely noticed that they tend not to pronounce the -S’s (at the end of plural nouns) and -ED’s (at the end of past tense verbs). When reading out a Daily News article, they’ll treat them like they’re not there. So make sure to correct their pronunciation if you notice they make the same mistake more than 2-3 times!

👋 That’s it for now!

We hope this post has given you a better idea of who our Taiwanese students are and how to best help them. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our posts introducing Japanese and Korean students too. Happy tutoring!