hi, happened across your recap for over me! Just a FYI - CKJ being from Taiwan doesn't mean he speaks a totally different language from Zhang Hao. Taiwan's main language is Mandarin, as is Mainland China's - there might be slight slang/accent differences, but that's it, and we've seen them speak Mandarin together on the show. (While other dialects exist, it's pretty unusual to not know standard Mandarin.)
Ah, thanks! I can't distinguish between different types of spoken Chinese (I know they're quite distinct, but I've never studied any of them so I don't know). That makes it even more interesting that they'd choose to speak Korean together, right? Maybe it's just easier to stay in one language and not switch back and forth constantly. Hmm. I wonder what language they would have chosen if the cameras were off!
I was under the impression that people in Taiwan mainly spoke Taiwanese (also called Taiwanese Hokkien), which is a totally separate language from Mandarin, because I had a Taiwanese-American friend a while ago who said that people in Taiwan don't really speak Mandarin. But that was a while ago and her info might have been out of date since she was a daughter of an immigrant family and not born in Taiwan. Also, things in Taiwan have changed a lot in the last, like, 20-30 years.
You inspired me to look it up, and yeah, while apparently a lot of people in Taiwan speak Taiwanese Hokkien, plenty of them also know Mandarin. I hope that Taiwanese Hokkien survives, for the record. I love language diversity. But Mandarin has a way of taking over, doesn't it?
So yes, thanks for the info! :) Come back any time -- I like learning stuff about cultures/languages/etc.
