Taiwan was occupied by Japan from 1895 to 1945, and beginning in 1937 the Japanese began a policy of eradicating Chinese culture and replacing it with Japanese culture. As part of this, Taiwanese was banned, and households that spoke Japanese particularly well were rewarded. This policy created the impression among Taiwanese that the Taiwanese language was non-mainstream, and Taiwanese became a second-rate language.
經過日據五十年的統治，特別是一九三七年日本大力推動皇民化運動的統治末期，以禁講台語、標籤「國語家庭」（說日語說得很好的家庭）來壓抑台灣語文，造成台人認為講台語很「低路」（台語意為不入流），台語變成了次等語言。