🇹🇼 What Language Do They Speak in Taiwan?
The short answer
Taiwan speaks Mandarin Chinese as its official language, alongside widely spoken Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka. Unlike mainland China, Taiwan writes with traditional characters — the fuller, older forms of the script.
Worth knowing
- ●About 70% of Taiwanese also speak Taiwanese Hokkien at home or with family
- ●Taiwan's 16 recognised indigenous peoples speak Austronesian languages related to Malay and Māori — not Chinese at all
- ●Taiwanese Mandarin is softer-sounding than Beijing Mandarin and uses some different everyday words
Going to Taiwan? Say your first words before you land.
Yap gives you a real 30-second spoken conversation in Chinese every day — role-play the café, the taxi and the market with an AI tutor that listens and gently corrects. Four weeks of that beats any phrasebook.