Like, "Have a nice day" and "That outfit looks nice on you", etc.?

Yikes. My first thought was what did you have to endure to learn all of this?

try face to face chat with hookers and wiseguys in a triad owned pub!

not lying!

The title of this thread needs to be changed. I almost didn't bothered to read it but there's some good stuff here.

Thanks Ran, although I do need those tones. I'd hate to be misunderstood.

thing is, what taiwanese i can say i learned by ear, and the tones in taiwanese are really hard. they have like 9 tones!!!!!! if i break them up, I'll get them wrong. when I'm I'm pissed and say them all together, I say them right! it's wierd!(':lol:')

Let's just clean up the romanization a little bit...

Can you send a sound file? I'll see meanwhile if I can dig out my Taiwanese-English dictionary, although since it's published by Maryknoll, it may, um, lack certain nuances that we're looking for. I should be able to identify the tones if I have a recording of the words, though. (Not necessarily in rapid speech, but if I can play it over and over [and over and over])...

oh by the way, thanks for putting in the Chinese and the tones. but ji ba is the exception. taiwanese pronounce it ji "bai" not "ba". I think it's taiwan/mandarin!

Cussing like a native. Don't really find anything strange about that, it's a fun and interesting way to learn the language. Maybe not a safe way, but hey, you gotta learn somehow.

What I do find strange is that some posters that make the most noise about the lack of class of our hosts and how poorly they behave are demonstrating a certain abiltiy to behave in the same manner in the same language.

Swearing, excessive swearing, or certain words, to a point, display a lack of class. If it were me, I'd feel that it would be a little like the pot calling the kettle black.

But hey, heck, go ahead, let's talk about the lack of class that our local hosts have. We wouldn't do anything like that.

Sorry, had to be said.

Nail. Head.

And taike CAN be offensive, depending on the person. If they're being deliberately, overtly, hipster-TK then they'll probably take it as a compliment. Otherwise not. Taimei I think is generally a bad thing.

Hmm...that's interesting! Some students of mine about 10 years ago told me the joke:

What do you call the road from Taipei to Xindian? [Taixin Rd.]
What do you call the road from Jilong to Bali? ....[wait for it...they always get it after a second]
so at least back then it would have been pronounced "ba", but nothing to say it wouldn't have changed since then.