How much can you understand?

[Quest]

Hakka:

mms://media.chinaradio.cn/chinese/kjh/hour/2004102624.wma

90%

ChaoZhou:

mms://media.chinaradio.cn/chinese/czh/hour/20041008.wma

80%

Minan/Taiwanese:

mms://media.chinaradio.cn/chinese/mnh/hour/20041027.wma

70%

If they speak more slowly, I can probably understand everything.

I didn't think these dialects were that intelligible.

The Hakka one is like a perfect blend of Mandarin and Cantonese.

[xuechengfeng]

0%

[ala]

Hakka: 30-40%, Hakka sounds similar to Mandarin though.

Chaozhou: 20%

Taiwanese: 10%

If they speak more slowly, I can probably understand everything.

I didn't think these dialects were that intelligible.

News format is a little different from colloquial speech, it's more Mandarinized in presentation. Nevertheless, I can only understand very little, mostly just one or two words in a long sentence (Shanghaiese doesn't help me out at all).

[fireball9261]

Hakka: 20%, .

Chaozhou:50%

Taiwanese: 85%

I guess this is the most standard Taiwanese. I don't think I understand street Taiwanese as much (maybe 50%), and forget about southern Taiwanese.

I wonder how much I will understand if it's Shanghainese or Hangzhou dialect. I always thought I understand Shanghainese and Hangzhou dialect more than Taiwanese, but I never try it out.

[Ncao]

Hakka-50% It does really sound like a blend of Mandarin & Cantonese.

Chaozhou and Minnan- 1%

[Ah-Bin]

Many thanks to Quest for posting these great resources. I had been looking for a Zhangzhou radio station for ages. This sort of listening helps to improve speaking and listening about more complex things that you don't always get to hear in colloquial speech.

Can't understand too much though....

Haha, just noticed why..... it is in Teochiu not Zhangszhou:oops:

[文言訓開班]

冇听咗每一全野, 但

客家 - 70%左右

朝洲 - 55%左右 - chao zhou's a little weird for me, so i think that percentage will probably go up and down depending on the day. i think it's the mandarin-like vocab with the canto-like pronunciation

闽南 - 40%左右 - this is crazytalk . Some of it sounds like cantonese...

对我一直讲好快

[LiYuanXi]

Hakka: 40%

Teochew: 65%

Taiwanese: 100%

Think taiwanese is the easiest for me (have got a friend who speaks only taiwanese) .. hakka.. I seldom get to hear it in Singapore. Teochew is quite common here.

[Yiwan]

Hakka:

1%

ChaoZhou:

99%

Minan/Taiwanese:

60%

[zozzen]

Quest, can you write the transcript for hakka and teochew's clips?

I can only understand around 30-40%, being able to catch up some phrases, but not really get the whole sentence.

[channamasala]

Cantonese: 0%

Hakka: 5%

Taiwanese: improving by the day. 10%?

I've found with Taiwanese that when I hear it, I have no idea what the actual words the person is saying are. However, if I just sort of sit back and let my ears do the thinking, I start to understand the general gist of what the speaker is saying...while continuing to not understand the individual words. Odd.

This happened in Jingtong a few months ago; we went hiking up Shulongjian and the two dogs that the owners of our hotel had followed us up, then disappeared. On the way back we asked an old lady if she'd seen the two dogs. She talked for about 45 seconds in Taiwanese.

"What did she say?" asks my boyfriend.

"That the dogs came by about an hour ago and headed home."

"So you understood what she said?!"

"Not really."

A lot of Taiwanese is very similar to Mandarin ("wah bu ei hiang dai yi" should be a phrase any decent speaker of Mandarin would understand)...and a lot of it is really, really not.

[geek_frappa]

Hakka: 5%

Teochew: 15%

Taiwanese: 80% (from reference point of fujianhua)

[Kaimei]

Hakka:

20%

ChaoZhou:

5%

Minan/Taiwanese:

10%

All the southern speech,so strange~