In this podcast episode, Canadian Anthony Van Dyck details the steps he took to self teach himself Mandarin Chinese, which enabled him to branch out from teaching English and climb the corporate ladder all the way to COO of an energy company in Taiwan.
Listen to find out:
- What brought him to Taiwan
- What it was like living in Chiayi in the 80s
- His first words in Mandarin
- How he learned Bopomofo (zhuyin fuhao)
- What business culture was like in rural Taiwan
- Distinguishing between Taiwanese Mandarin and standard Chinese
- Learning to count in Chinese
- Learning Chinese from movies
- Learning Chinese from love songs
- Making friends with Taiwanese
- Learning Chinese from the iPhone
- Learning Chinese on the job
- How speaking Chinese got him promoted
- His Chinese phone hotline story
- How he switched career paths
- Why CVs aren’t good enough to get a job
- Raising bilingual kids in Taiwan
- Education in Taiwan
- The problem with education in Taiwan
- Why expats should learn Chinese
- The benefit of an Master’s degree
- A useful idiom to learn
- How to develop your social environment in Taiwan
- How to learn new idioms
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:44 — 49.4MB) | Embed
