Which language?

Foreign brides face language gap

The language barrier is the biggest problem faced by some 300,000 foreign brides, the Eden Social Welfare Foundation said yesterday.

The foundation said that because foreign brides often encounter language problems and strained relations with their mothers-in-law, it will offer free Chinese-language classes to foreign brides and provide counselling to help them adjust to life in this country.

So which Chinese is the (Christian) 伊甸總會 promoting? Mandarin or Taiwanese? Will the brides get a choice based on the language primarily spoken by their husband's family? It does little good to insist on one or the other. The stereotype is that many husbands are retired soldiers from the mainland, but there are probably a fair number of benshengren.