Clarification on possible Malaysia/Singapore Mandarin colloqualisms

[calibre2001]

Hello all,

I watch plenty of Mandarin TV shows to improve my listening skills. To minimise incidences of 'accent' shock, I watch shows from various Mandarin speaking groups including Malaysia/Singapore, which in my opinion sounds strange.

Anyway, I like to clear up on some terms I hear being used (forgive my poor command of pinyin and tones):-

'ni si si gan la ' - a phrase which roughly translates as ' You try la' where 'la' is a local colloqualism. I'm not sure if 'si' in this case refers to ' 試' (shi4)

'jiang si' - which roughly means 'like this' or 'like that'.

I hope you Mandarin experts can help me out. I've checked out online dictionaries, but can't make sense out of these things so far. Thanks.

[wai ming]

I think "jiang" as in "jiang si" is just a contraction of zhe4 yang4 - as in, if you say 这样 fast, it sounds a bit like "jiang". I've seen examples of Chinese "internet speak" where people write 酱紫 for 这样子.

[Ncao]

'ni si si gan la ' - a phrase which roughly translates as ' You try la' where 'la' is a local colloqualism. I'm not sure if 'si' in this case refers to ' 試' (shi4)

Yes, it's 你試試看. Most Malaysian/Singaporean Chinese are of southern Chinese descent. Southern Chinese pronounce sh sound as si.

[calibre2001]

Thanks guys. What I want to know these are commonly used amongst other native mandarin speakers? So far my not-so-good listening tells me no. But I don't think I know enough...

[Ncao]

Lots of languages have variations. Look at English, there's British English, American,Australian,Carribean English.