Learning Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) has been made much easier.
Reseachers Bernhard Fuehrer and Yang Hsiu-fang (楊秀芳) spent 10 years compiling a three-volume textbook for people who are fairly proficient in Mandarin and want to learn Hoklo as well.
The Southern Hokkien: An Introduction set comes with three CDs, said Fuehrer, an Austrian professor who teaches in London and first visited Taiwan in 1982.
Yang is a professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute for Taiwanese Literature.
Fuehrer studied at the university in the late 1980s and graduated with an undergraduate degree in 1990. He later received a doctorate in his native Austria.
Southern Hokkien: An Introduction, published by National Taiwan University Press, use situation-based approaches, with dialogues designed to reflect real-life activities rather than a classroom situation, the authors said.
Dafydd Fell, Taiwan Studies director at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, said the textbook set is an important development.
“Professor Fuehrer introduced a year-long Hoklo course to SOAS almost 10 years ago, and it’s been available as an option for undergraduate and postgraduate students,” Fell said in a recent e-mail.
“As far as I am aware it’s the only such course in Europe and North America. He’s been developing this textbook project since 2005. I’m delighted that we will now be able to use this for our courses, but also hope it can be adopted more widely on Taiwanese courses in Taiwan,” Fell said.
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