Chinese speaking speed - slow or fast?

[赫杰]

Question:

Do you guys believe that Chinese in general should be spoken fast and thus usually being more susceptible to common foreign mistakes, or more slowly yet clear?

In the past, I have had some people to tell me to slow down, and others to tell me to keep the same speed. But in the situations I have spoken slowly, no one has told me to "speed up"...I don't know, from asking/listening around, it seems speaking slowly is the way to go, and I have noticed that by slowing my speech down I can produce more thoughtful, interesting (well, to me anyway, haha), clearer, expansive, and more 地道 sentences, instead of just blurting out the first few sentences that come to mind...

One teacher here told me its like this, speed needs to be according to the situation, like when you are talking about BS everyday topics we all talk about, work, classes, weather, food, and asking/responding to such common questions, stuff like that, speak fast, and then in other topics you should speak slow and clear. What do you guys think?

Thanks

HJ

[HashiriKata]

The speed of speech will depend on one's fluency and speech habit but I believe while still learning, one should try to speak slowly and deliberately, and not try to impress with one's speed.

By habit, I'm a slow speaker but I sometimes try to speak fast so as to avoid thinking

[Lu]

I speak fast in any language, so naturally also in Chinese. When I speak fast I get complimented on my Chinese more, so it seems speaking fast is perceived as speaking better/more fluent. Also, when you're not sure of a tone it's easier to hide that when you're speaking fast (but that's not good, of course).So if your Chinese is good enough to not trip over it when you speak fast, I'd speak fast.

[chenpv]

Well, to me, whether to speak slower or faster is really not an issue that I would think of while talking with other people. (As I presume you were not referring to situations such as making a public speech.) Nevertheless, it is also true that I will intuitively adjust my speaking speed to the feedbacks I get from listeners. Like if they looked confused or made sounds like 'uh?', I would have either slowed down or rephrased what I had said with a slower flow of words. Similarly, if the feedbacks went too familiar or provocative, I would have for sure sped up (and also volumed up if necessary:mrgreen: ). So generally, it is not a significant issue to worry about during some casual conversations.

[wushijiao]

I generally don't think about it too much, but probably speak about the same speed as I do in English, or maybe 10-20% slower.

but I believe while still learning, one should try to speak slowly and deliberately, and not try to impress with one's speed.

I agree with that. I think that for foreigners learning Chinese, one's ability to speak quickly comes faster than ones ability to speak correctly. Also, I think many people tend to equate speaking quickly with speaking well, which is not always the case.

For me, I wish I could all do it over again and tell myself, when I was first starting out, to deliberately speak a bit slower in order to really get my tones down and the such. Oh well.

[SJLongPants]

Hint: Take me for example, and follow the above recommendations. After 17 years of no formal schooling, (只住在东北,台湾..没上学) here I am, in this forum, going back to learn it the right way. Sure, I could be mistaken over the phone as Chinese, but I - like one of the above posters do honestly speak fast to cover up missed tones on occassion. (Fake it so to speak)

Looking back now I wished I paid closer attention.

[thph2006]

I've found that as a beginner if you can get the whole context of what you're trying to say out there quickly the Chinese speaker will have more information to work with and you'll have an easier time being understood. If you speak out each word slowly they'll be focused on trying to decode each word and will have a tougher time understanding you. At least that's my experience.

[889]

When people tell you to slow down, they're really telling you -- in a polite and indirect fashion -- that you're not speaking clearly enough, because of errors in pronunciation, tones, rhythm or whatever.

So if you just slow down, you're not getting the message. Instead, start focusing more attention on how you're speaking.

[Gulao]

I speak as fast as the language comes to me. Sometimes that's fast, most of the time it's relatively slow.

For me, I wish I could all do it over again and tell myself, when I was first starting out, to deliberately speak a bit slower in order to really get my tones down and the such.

Agreed. I didn't realize until only a year or two ago how important tones and pronunciation were, and I had to work it all out from scratch.

[shibo77]

I think when one speaks normally, one doesn't realise one's speaking speed, it changes according to the topic, the time of day, the speaker's mood and other factors, when the speaker becomes consciously aware of their own speaking speed, it is probably because it is abnormal to the speaker's mood or the topic being spoken. This is probably similar to heart palpitations when you become aware of your beating heart, when normally you aren't. I suppose you shouldn't pay attention to your speaking speed, unless the listener specifically tells you to adjust.

-Shibo

[赫杰]

Thanks all for the responses! Perhaps I am indeed thinking about this too much, but I just wanted to see what others thought. Here is how I am personally dealing with this:

When I speak fast, people understanding me is not a problem, I think the reason some people say I should slow down is because I sometimes tend to kind of like run some tones together. Just like many people mentioned, in my first year here, I also did not pay attention to the tones THAT much, I would just mimic what I heard included the tones and speed as I heard them. And when I practiced 朗读 things, I would just read according what I was used to hearing, and from my friends would tell me I would get most of my tones right, and they were always able to understand. In the past, I too associated the faster one speaks the language with the better one has a grasp on the language, because I was always impressed when a foreigner spoke fast English, even if there was accent or sounded a little funny, I thought: "well what does that matter, as long as I can understand that’s the important thing, right?"

The problem came in the start of the fall semester, people would ask me simple questions and topics like what do you think about the education system of America and this and that, and lo and behold, I could not say a single damn word, I know my vocabulary list is big enough to at least get my meaning across, but there was just no feeling. Or when I finally thought of something, I would just sound like a stuttering retard, LOL, and not at all as fluent in the other situations, not only that, when I was speaking slow trying to get my point across, my tones were all over the damn place due to nervousness and second guessing among other things. I just get nervous so easily, in the situations of just having to make quick comments and speak your mind, being nervous will actually make you speak faster I think, but in those situation where I had to explore aspects and feelings, man, it was tough and so damn frustrating, because after I would get home I would suddenly think of all the things I should have said.

I then discovered, this is indeed how I talk, in English I speak fast in similar situations, and slow in those similar situations, but I was so used to speaking fast in Chinese that I really had trouble speaking slowly about those other topics. So I started to really study tones and stress them, constantly 自言自语 about different topics and force myself to explore as many aspects I could think of, and most importantly get used to speaking slowly. I have found that while speaking slowly I am able to use more of those cheng yu and xi guan yong yu that I recite so often, and expand my sentences around them. In all, I have found myself to enjoy speaking Chinese more while speaking slowly, just some thoughts...

The way I kind of figure it is like this, I can speak fast and sound more like a fast talking American speaking Chinese, or speak slow and sound more like a slow speaking Chinese person...or I can speak just as fast and react exactly like any normal Chinese would, because that is just so easy....晕that’s never gonna happen

The biggest advice I got from you guys is not to think about too much, and I won't again.

Thanks again!

HJ

PS We just got out of school here; I hope everyone has had another good, productive, and successful semester. Time to use this holiday time to...well...to study more Chinese, but I'm happy!