Learning from immersion
Learning a new language can be a slow, academic grind — flashcards, grammar drills and vocabulary memorization. However, when you are surrounded by the language every day — when it becomes your tool for survival — something incredible happens.
I moved to Taiwan in 2021. Formal Chinese lessons began when school started, but progress felt slow. My classes were in English, and even with intensive sessions at the Chinese Language Center, I felt stuck. I was learning words, but not truly using them.
Then I got a job at a Chinese restaurant. Suddenly, Mandarin was not just a subject — it was my lifeline. I had to talk to customers, take orders and work under pressure, all in Chinese. I learned dish names, practiced pronunciation, made countless mistakes and cried more than once. My manager scolded me often, and I nearly quit, but little by little, I adjusted.
Chinese is often seen as one of the most difficult languages. The traditional characters are complex, the tones are subtle, and the cultural context is deeply layered. Yet, when you walk the streets of Kaohsiung, hear Mandarin on the MRT, see characters on every corner, you are no longer just “studying” the language. You are living it.
Immersion forces you to use the language — not perfectly, but purposefully. It transforms learning from passive to personal. It does not just teach you grammar — it teaches you resilience, confidence and connection. In just three months, I was functional. I could speak, listen and connect. Mandarin became a bridge, not a barrier. I stopped memorizing and started communicating. I began to belong.
As Taiwan pushes forward with the Bilingual 2030 initiative, it is worth asking: How can we create similar immersive experiences for English learners here?
Many students in Taiwan still approach English the way I once approached Chinese — as an exam subject, not a real-life tool — but what if English-language internships, exchange programs, or part-time work in tourism and hospitality were integrated into the national curriculum? These practical, hands-on experiences would allow students to engage with English in meaningful contexts — giving directions to tourists, working at bilingual events, or helping at local museums and cafes. Instead of studying English, they would start using it.
Communities can support this shift by creating inclusive, low-pressure environments for natural English use, such as local conversation clubs, language cafes, or public storytelling sessions. These spaces would allow students to make mistakes, try again, and grow more confident. They would also help normalize English as part of everyday life.
Kellyn Marvelina Sadeliputri
Kaohsiung
Chinese agents often target Taiwanese officials who are motivated by financial gain rather than ideology, while people who are found guilty of spying face lenient punishments in Taiwan, a researcher said on Tuesday. While the law says that foreign agents can be sentenced to death, people who are convicted of spying for Beijing often serve less than nine months in prison because Taiwan does not formally recognize China as a foreign nation, Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said. Many officials and military personnel sell information to China believing it to be of little value, unaware that
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
RSS