The Beijing Brogue - love it or hate it

[roddy]

There's a nice middle ground between CCTV-standard Mandarin (which, much as Beijing folk would like to tell you otherwise, isn't Beijinghua) and the slack-jawed (it has to be, else they choke on their big tongues) slurring of the 京油子. Give me a bit of an Beijing flavour, some more -er-ing, and some local vocab and I can happily listen to it all day. But when it gets to the point you can't tell where the word boundaries are, I lose interest.

[renzhe]

Don't like it. Sounds too communist. Not elegant or smooth at all.

LOL

[Lu]

It would seem most of the lovers of the Beijing 'rrrr' are people who like Beijing

It's been years since I've been in Beijing, but oh I love the accent. Not sure if I'd still understand it, and I'd certainly couldn't speak it anymore unless I went back to living there for a while, but still, love it.

[AxelManbow]

Depends on the format. In conversation on the street a Beijing accent is softened by things like the jack-hammer across the road bringing a pause to the harsh rolling and vowels. When in isolation on a TV show a strong Beijing accent isn't a sound I 'like', it sounds too stylised.

Give me someone North of Changchun any day, a Heilongjiang farmer's daughter usually sounds clearer and more cultured than a native of the capital. Oh wait, I'm from East London.

[bhchao]

I much prefer the accent heard in 標準國語, Standard Mandarin historically spoken around the region of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and heavily influenced by Wu dialects. The standard Mandarin spoken by Shanghainese is really quite close to the Standard Mandarin accent heard in Taiwan. Call me biased.

Standard Mandarin spoken in the Northeast provinces also sounds much better than the Beijing accent. Personally, I find the Mandarin spoken

much more palatable than the Beijing Brogue.

Taiwanese Taiyu-accented Mandarin sounds just as worse as Beijing accent.

[calibre2001]

I found this useful. Good luck

[trevelyan]

It's also worth pointing out that a) the Beijing accent is not Standard Mandarin, and B) adding 儿 does not necessarily mean a Beijing accent.

I'd say Imron has the key point here. Most people I've met who have complained about this haven't known the difference. On a side note, nailing the 儿 on less commonly used measure words is imho one of the easiest ways to elicit shocked awe from a native speaker.

[flywhc]

Just heard a word in a TV series last night: 红眼病 was pronounced by all as "hoon-yan-been'rrr~" and yes, I liked it.

Beijing accent it should be hoon yaerr bing (hong1 yaner3 bing4).

Beijing accent itself doesn't impact understanding but other things does:

* Speak too fast or has a lazy tongue. Such as pronounce "同志们" as "同儿们"

* Slang, such as 点吧(dian2ba, eat) 葛儿屁 (geer3 pi4, dead)

* Swearing a lot

You won't have much chance to hear Beijing accent when studying at University in Beijing.

Even most taxi drivers are from suburban districts who speak different accents.

[Brian US]

I am the only one in my class at BLCU that throws the rrrr at any chance I get. Yet, I still don't understand why many students from southern/outside of China (mainly Indonesian in my class) who have never learned Chinese before, make the si sound with everything.

Spent 5 minutes with a classmate who couldn't sound out rrrr if his life depended on it.

[wrbt]

Love it, even if I can't understand the taxi driver for shyt.

On a side note, nailing the 儿 on less commonly used measure words is imho one of the easiest ways to elicit shocked awe from a native speaker.

Agreed, my favorite is reading "yi ber shu"

[Caidanbi]

I don't really mind it either way. Actually, I find myself changing my accent a little depending on who I'm talking to. If they are from the Beijing area, I tend to speak that way, but if they aren't, I drop the "er" stuff a lot of times. I actually prefer to speak without it though, it seems to flow a little better (at least for me).

[Cactus543]

Where is the button to delete posts.. I shouldn't have helped bump a thread this old lol..

Edited February 27, 2010 at 11:36 PM by Cactus543

[creamyhorror]

Standard Mandarin spoken in the Northeast provinces also sounds much better than the Beijing accent. Personally, I find the Mandarin spoken

much more palatable than the Beijing Brogue.

Agreed, that's a nice, clean accent Gong Li has. Noticed she threw in one or two 儿s (e.g. 点儿 at 1:47), but it was mostly clear of them.

Taiwanese Taiyu-accented Mandarin sounds just as worse as Beijing accent.

Occasionally when I hear it on TV I can't even make out what the person is saying (usually when they aren't making much effort to distinguish sh/s, ch/c, etc. or sticking to the tones). But most Mandarin on Taiwanese TV sounds okay.