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From Study to Writing University Texts in Taiwanese Language
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    There have been two approaches for Read/Write Taiwanese Language.   One is the PHONETICAL Approach and the second is the LITERAL Approach.  We can write a Chinese sentence with well known Po-Pho-Mo Symbolic letters, or a Mandarin text with Chinese characters in higher efficiency.   Sentence composition with Po-Pho-Mo is a Phonetical approach, and Mandarin Text is the Literal approach. 
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    Books are used for the study of English.  This makes a person who cannot speak well in English can read and understand articles including political news, scientific reports, etc.   Only scholars of linguistics who are studying to assign the Standard Pronunciation for English vocabularies need to discuss the proper combination of International Phonetics, etc.
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    The Modern Literal Taiwanese (MLT) was invented from the beginning to let every people, even those who has no confidence on his own Taiwanese pronun-
ciation, can read/write Taiwanese sentences by learning from textbooks.   This is impossible with the traditional Phonetical method which requires the knowledge of
the exact pronunciation of all Taiwanese words.

     Since MLT is LITERAL rather than phonetical, it can be studied from books and texts on INTERNET.   The promotion of it is also possible with these means.  Teachers in the university can learn MLT very swiftly from INTERNET articles and begin to write their teaching materials in specialty fields with MLT.

      Taiwanese scholars do not prefer to write texts with Mandarin because they feel it difficult to type those Chinese characters, especially those translated words of technical terminology's.   The most efficient typewriting is naturally the Romanized sentence such as English.    To write Romanized Taiwanese, there has been long existed the MLT which makes Taiwanese expressed fully in Roman words. 
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      Each English word corresponds to an MLT word, and no more to a Chinese character or a set of them.   An MLT word is a set of spelling whit is said to be of TMSS(Taiwanese Modern Spelling System).    Words in an MLT sentence are arranged in the order of spoken Taiwanese of nowadays people.   This is why it is called as MODERN Literal Taiwanese. 

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     In the study of Taiwanese with MLT, it is not required like that in any Phonetical systems to memorize the Classical Seven Tones of Chinese tradition at the start, and also does not ask students to compose the sound and tone of each syllable of the word in his mind.    The modern teaching method of language is to let students "memorize word spelling with feeling" and next "imitate the word order in speech (i.e. grammar)".

     Today, after 100 years  of  extermination policy of Taiwanese language in Taiwan, there are no more person who can pronounce every Taiwanese word 
exactly as in the dictionary.    So how can we expect people to think out the exact pronunciation to write its phonetics while he is composing a sentence?  This is almost impossible. 
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      On the other hand, MLT allows students at the beginning to recognize naturally a lot of vocabularies of common words so marvelously in a very short time of study.  And then how about the next step?  Spelling of not-so-common words can be thought out in reference to those of the common words with direct feeling only if it was ever seen in some books.  The word spelling makes you able to pronounce its exact sound and tone. 

      For words you have only a little impression, the exact spelling can be searched from a dictionary using its Obscure Spelling.   Such a dictionary is now available in this web site. 

      To compose a good Taiwanese sentence, it is necessary to study grammar of Taiwanese language.   This most important is the method of word formulation which is somewhat different from that in English.   You need to look those articles in this web site.   They are specially important and useful. 

     A new movement in Taiwan is to compel university teachers to write their texts of specialized courses in Taiwanese.   Teachers at their middle ages know very well that the job is not equivalent to the kindergarten teachers' poetry writing in phonetics.   They need a Literal System of Taiwanese language, so to let them write their texts as they write in English.   This demand is, however, not understood by nowadays linguists of Taiwan who have the right to decide how professors should express their idea in written form.   It is impractical to ask professors to study exact phonetical pronunciation of those Taiwanese words and also to ask them to create Taiwanese equivalent of those technical terms.

     To learn how to write a Taiwanese technical paper, the professor is advised to memorize at first those common words without hesitation.   Then to prepare for spelling by himself, the method of simplified spelling is a good starting point.  This kind of spelling is constructed from a basic consonant and an atonal vowel.   Basic consonants are (in Capital):  B, C=c,ch,cv,chv, G=g,gv, H=h,hv, J, K=k,kh,kv,khv, L, M, N, P=p,ph,pv,phv, S=s,sv, T=t,th,tv,thv, and Z=z,zh,zv,zhv.  Atonal vowels are simple vowels: a, e, i, o, u, m, ng;  complex vowels: ai,au, ia,iau,io,iu, oa,oai,oe, ui;
and nasal vowels: am,an,ang,eng, in,iang,ien,iong, om,ong,oan, un.    This is the simplest combination for constructing Taiwanese sounds.

      The simplified spelling is used for cases when the tonal inflection words of n can be neglected, such as titles in posters and sign board, personal signature, words of foreign origin, technical terms, etc.    Abbreviation of Taiwanese terms are taken from such simplified spelling, e.g. L.K.K, from LauKokKok.  For technical terms, foreign consonants, such as D, F, R, V, Bl, Br, Str, etc. may be used.

      For writing a Text in Taiwanese, the above mentioned points of studying Taiwanese spelling and sentence composition are followed.    This is certainly the shortest route to become an Taiwanese author.                                                   .

Study of Taiwanese Language and Writing University Texts     by Liim K-H & Siaa, E-K