Why is her Mandarin Rubbish?

[chrix]

but you do know that Dubya worked hard at his accent, right? The first time he ran for Congress, he was rejected by the good people of Midland because he sounded like an East Coast patrician He might be able to teach people a thing or two, hehe

[calibre2001]

Her canto sounds normal to my ears

[sebhk]

Can someone please tell me why people think her Mandarin is rubbish?

Her pronunciation is very Cantonese. For example, she says

see (si) instead of shi (是，時)

zan/zen instead of zhen (真)

cyun instead of chuan (穿)

sen/san instead of shen (身)

zaan instead of zhuan (賺)

zee (zi) instead of zhi (知)

And her tones don't sound quite right...

People probably think that her Mandarin is rubbish, because many HK people used to have the attitude that Mandarin can be spoken by simply slightly changing the pronunciation of Cantonese. And her Mandarin sounds like she is doing exactly this.

[jiangping]

To me she sounds quite a lot like a Korean speaking Chinese.

[trien27]

so what's her Cantonese like?

Her Cantonese isn't perfect either, she speaks Cantonese with a bit of an American English accent(?) and some "lazy sounds" of Cantonese.

And then the suffixes that's used in Cantonese, sometimes are substituted by other words in Mandarin, which means in Mandarin, the same words aren't used as a part of the same suffix or ending of a phrase or sentence like the one in Cantonese, which if you don't speak either dialect, might not tend to notice.

Nobody's perfect. Her imperfect Cantonese + perfect English(?) + imperfect Mandarin = ? I can't figure this out. Can you?

* Many Cantonese speakers who haven't learned Mandarin just assumed that you can use the same sounds in Cantonese in substitution for words in Mandarin, which is dead wrong. Only a small percentage of words has the same sounds in Mandarin & Cantonese, not all the words.

** In addition, beginning Cantonese learners of Mandarin might not know that some of the words in a phrase must be reversed from Cantonese to make sense in Mandarin.

Example: "[The] guest(s)" in Cantonese = 人客, but in Mandarin, it's 客人!

Edited June 3, 2009 at 12:39 AM by trien27
additional information

[Music&MeForever]

Rubbish to whom and by what standard? If I happen to stop this speaker in the middle of Hongkong to ask the way, I'd probably think her Mandarin is very good.

I agree completely with HashiriKata. Her Mandarin is fine. She's got a bit of an accent but I can perfectly well understand what she's saying.

Anyway, I haven't been able to find the word rubbish (垃圾) in any of the comments

What on earth gives any of you the right to call it "rubbish" !?

[zhwj]

We're talking about Lee San-san (李珊珊), right? (Moderator: please delete if we aren't allowed to name her in thread...)

Here's the same video, mainland-accessible, titled roughly Lee San-san's Mandarin is Rubbish (李珊珊普通话好烂)

[Music&MeForever]

titled roughly Lee San-san's Mandarin is Rubbish (李珊珊普通话好烂)

"rubbish" for 好烂 ? A very, very rough translation. But it seems no one is agreeing with the OP on youku Regional chauvinism is quite common in every country though, and in China HKs seem to be a favourite target. I wonder why? Jealousy? Then I'd also go for gato's comment:

The commenters are too harsh on her. Maybe she stole their boyfriends.

Anyway, the word used in this thread is rubbish and rubbish in Chinese is 垃圾. Advanced Mandarin learners familiar with China's online communities will surely have noticed it is very often used in debates and comments, whereas 好烂 as used here IMO would be more like "is bad/rotten" or "is a mess", in the sense of non-standard (不标准), but it's not even close to the meaning of "rubbish". Rubbish is something like totally useless, unintelligible. Which in her case is not true

By the way, wannabefreak this reminds me of your own experience with some HKs flinging abuse at your Cantonese, but don't let them get you down, they're just bad. Next time they do it, you just laugh back on their crappy English and that should put them back in their place

[Hofmann]

Regional chauvinism is quite common in every country though

"Rubbish" is a funny word used by some people on the other side of the lake.

I agree that "rubbish" isn't quite accurate, but I'll stand by my evaluation of "terrible." If she was just a nobody I met on the street, then I'd just think that she hasn't formally studied Mandarin and she's just trying her best to make herself understood. Fine, whatever. I appreciate that she's intelligible.

But compared to most people who pay attention to pronunciation, for example, if she was a student and I was grading her pronunciation, it would be obvious that she didn't pay much attention to Hanyu Pinyin (or IPA or whatever). She makes mistakes that nobody would make if they've seen the Pinyin for even basic vocabulary. Her performance would be equivalent of making a mistake every other note if she was playing a musical instrument. Only useless teachers won't have a lot to say to her about that.

[renzhe]

Anyway, the word used in this thread is rubbish and rubbish in Chinese is 垃圾

That's a literal translation.

Calling something "rubbish" is a colloquial way of saying something is "crap", or bad, or really wrong.

Neither "crap" nor "rubbish" are supposed to be translated literally here. You wouldn't translate "crap" in this context as 拉屎 either.

[Music&MeForever]

She makes mistakes that nobody would make if they've seen the Pinyin for even basic vocabulary. Her performance would be equivalent of making a mistake every other note if she was playing a musical instrument.

Now here's a genuine academic evaluation.

It's all perfectly clear now.

Thank you for elaborating :wink:

[gato]

She makes mistakes that nobody would make if they've seen the Pinyin for even basic vocabulary.

Does that mean she makes mistakes that nobody here would make then?

[HashiriKata]

When I wrote "Rubbish to whom and by what standard?", what I intended to say was for an ordinary person in Hongkong, I don't think her Mandarin is any worse than that of the majority there. Or is she a professor of Chinese? Or did she herself ever claim to be an expert in the language? If not, I think we're a bit harsh in focussing on her language when she is supposed to be known for something completely unrelated. Just my view, anyway

[Music&MeForever]

赞！

好人一生平安

[Lu]

Does that mean she makes mistakes that nobody here would make then?

Not pronouncing the f-, mixing up n- and l-, too many le, ne and a at the end, yeah, I'd say those are mistakes that nobody here would make. And saying shee for shi is a mistake people here usually stop making after the first week or so. (On the other hand, we probably make grammar mistakes that she'd never make)

'Terrible' is too strong a word for her Mandarin, I think, she speaks it alright, her pronounciation is bad but still intelligible, she won't have any trouble making herself understood in China. But I wouldn't hire her to pick up the phone in a Chinese company, and if her job as Miss HK (or what was it) requires speaking to the media regularly, I'd strongly recommend classes of some sort, or a pronounciation coach, or something.

[DrZero]

She's a fluent speaker, she just has an accent. An accent isn't "bad" or "rubbish" per se.

The term for her Mandarin is "strongly accented" as compared with standard Putonghua. But not every Chinese speaker is going for standard Putonghua.

A Hong Konger might not necessarily want to sound like a Beijinger. She probably maintains a Cantonese accent as an identity thing.

[tooironic]

Agreed. It's the *rough* equivalent of a heavily accented Scotsman, Chav, Scouse, Aussie Ocker, Texan, etc ... i.e. just because you speak English as your native tongue doesn't necessarily mean you're fluent in that language. Another reason why the "native speaker" debate is a load of crock IMO.

[Lu]

Not the same, imo. She's not a native speaker of Mandarin, her first language is Cantonese.

[Prodigal Son]

agree with previous poster, accent aside, she doesn't appear to be a native mandarin speaker at all.

[DrZero]

I didn't say she was native, I said she was fluent.