[alisonatwork]

If you're looking for a local translation tool, I wrote a small CC-CEDICT lookup script in shell+JS then eventually rewrote it in Go so I could run it on whatever computer I was using at the time: https://github.com/alisonatwork/cedict

It just does a dumb greedy search to try find the longest chain of characters for the translation, but that turns out to work more often than not:

  $ cedict -m 果汁很好喝
  果汁    [guǒ zhī]       /fruit juice/
  很      [hěn]   /(adverb of degree)/quite/very/awfully/
  好喝    [hǎo hē]        /tasty (drinks)/

I wanted to add different strategies on -s like dict(1), but I never got round to it because it was easy enough to just force breaking the word by adding spaces:

  $ cedict -m 入鄉隨俗
  入乡随俗        [rù xiāng suí sú]       /When you enter a village, follow the local customs (idiom); do as the natives do/When in Rome, do as the Romans do/
  $ cedict -m 入鄉 隨俗
  入      [rù]    /to enter/to go into/to join/to become a member of/to confirm or agree with/abbr. for 入聲|入声[rù shēng]/
  乡      [xiāng] /country or countryside/native place/home village or town/township (PRC administrative unit)/
  随俗    [suí sú]        /according to custom/to do as local custom requires/do as the Romans do/ 

Now I live in Taiwan it might be neat to update it to output traditional characters, but to be honest I think simplified is easier to read and learn for foriegners.

[Hammerhead12321]

I don’t mean to derail this thread, but I am considering a stint in Taiwan to learn Chinese. I am wondering how different the accent/dialect is compared to mainland China. Are you a native speaker or did you learn while there?

[alisonatwork]

I am an ethnic European who lived in China for several years and now live in Taiwan. I speak and read Chinese at a level good enough for casual conversations, doing banking/rent/etc and getting by in the workplace, but I am far from an expert.

The accent and dialect is mutually intelligible on both sides of the strait, but there is a fair bit of vocabulary and some pronunciations that clearly mark you as having learned in one place or the other. Think of it as the difference between British and American English.

The bigger difference in my opinion is simplified versus traditional. It is possible to learn one and read the other, but having lived almost 2 years in Taiwan now I still find a wall of text in traditional a lot harder to digest. Personally I think simplified is more legible, especially on low res screens or at a distance, but it's unlikely to change over here for political reasons.

Taiwan is probably a fine place to learn Chinese as a beginner. It's easier to "cheat" due to the English language resources available in the community, but if you make an effort I'm sure you can immerse yourself.