Xi'An or Nanjing to study "Standard Mandarin"?

[LeoX22]

I will spend one year at a Chinese university learning Mandarin and I have to decide between those two cities now.

My main goal during my stay is to learn as much Mandarin as possible and immerse myself in the language while also having an enjoyable time during that one year. Therefore I want to go to some city, where the local people also speak Mandarin and not another dialect (like Shanghainese). Also the Mandarin should not have a heavy accent. Ideally it should be close to Standard Mandarin.

I am able to choose between Harbin, Beijing, Xi’An and Nanjing. I don’t really want to spend that one year of my life in Harbin due to the harsh climate and I don’t want to go to Beijing due to the large number of foreigners, the pollution and because it is so expensive. I would prefer to go to some city where foreigners are not such a common sight and the local people will still be curious about a foreigner, so it might be easier to have some genuinely interesting interactions and practice the language with the locals. Maybe I am all wrong about that, so correct me please if that is the case.

So my two options are Xi’An and Nanjing. Which of these two is closer to standard mandarin? Which could be generally considered more livable? Is there a marked difference in the attitude and open-mindedness of the people towards foreigners? And yeah I am a young guy, so any info about the dating scene would be appreciated as well

Maybe someone has been to both of these places and can give some info. Any comments about my general plan are also highly appreciated

Thanks for reading.

[dnevets]

In Xi'an there is a local dialect, sha(a)nxi hua, which is mandarin-y, but almost everyone (99% of people you'll meet) can and will speak mandarin, and with a standard accent that is easy to learn from.

I never visited Nanjing so can't comment on the place, but Xi'an is great. Xi'an Jiaotong university has a course that is popular with Chinese language learners.

Xi'an has foreigners, but nowhere near the number you see in Beijing or Shanghai. You can easily spend a few days without seeing another foreigner, if that is what you want. Foreigners are treated pretty well in Xi'an, crime is low, food is awesome.

[Radzilla]

I've never been to Xi'an, but I live in Nanjing currently and have been for the past 3 years, with the intent to stay for additional three. I did not have a problem acquiring Mandarin while I have been here despite the dialect issues. If you speak Mandarin to people, you are generally going to get a standard Mandarin response, with the caveat that understanding older people(70+) may sometimes be difficult. They will be able to understand your Mandarin just fine, but it is not necessarily the case that you will understand what they are saying.

The nice thing about Nanjing dialect is that it is still part of the Mandarin language family, so a good portion of it can be learned with a few relatively simple changes to your standard Mandarin pronunciation knowledge. You won't need to speak it either, because of the fact that older people will still understand your Mandarin. A simple passive understanding of it is good enough, but you can put on a show if you learn to speak it well.

I'll outline what I've learned about Nanjing dialect here, and how it is different from standard Mandarin:

1. The first and fourth tone switch places. By this, I mean that first tone characters are generally pronounced with Mandarin's fourth tone, and vice versa. So, 米饭 (mandarin: mi3fan4) becomes mi3fan1. There is something to note about Nanjing dialect's "first tone". It is a flat tone, just like standard Mandarin, but the pitch is lower. This has an interesting effect of making females sound more masculine when they speak this way as opposed to when they speak Standard Mandarin, where the pitch is higher. This is possibly why some criticize Nanjing dialect as sounding too harsh.

2. The Hanyu Pinyin final "ai" changed to something like an "eh" sound (think Canadian English). There are some exceptions to this, like 还 (hai2), but it is very generally applicable.

3. In many cases, like lots of Southern Chinese dialects. the zh, ch, and sh sounds change to z, c, and s, respectively. However, words like 是 (mandarin :shi4) do not drop the "h" but DO change in tone --->shi1

4. The Hanyu Pinyin final "eng" gets cut off at the end, becoming "en". So, we can see that, combining points 3 and 4, the word 成(cheng2) becomes (cen2)

5. Forming questions such as "好不好“ (is it good?), will often take the form 阿好啊？(a hao a)? I call the the "Double 'A' Structure"

There are more advanced topics to explain, like special vocabulary and the "entering tone" (入声), but the above rules can be easily applied to your Mandarin study without too much effort. I don't want to scare you away from Nanjing because of the dialect, it's actually quite fun to learn!

I've enjoyed my life in Nanjing so far, so I would say it is quite livable. I can't comment as to which city is better, though.

I hope this helps!

[panpan86]

I really think the whole fear about choosing a place with 'standard' mandarin is overstated.. no matter where you go, you will find that most educated young people have the ability to speak standard mandarin.

In terms of whether or not you will have interactions with locals, sure, it makes sense to go to a smaller city because you will naturally encounter more locals than foreigners. and the locals will tend to speak less English so you'll be relying on your Chinese much more. But apart from having short conversations with taxi drivers and shop assistants and random girls who want to take your picture, 'curious' locals are not necessarily what you want. When you want to start forming real relationships with people, it can be hard to avoid the feeling that people want to be your friend out of curiosity or because they want to practice their English and not necessarily because they like you as an individual. And, many people who have had limited exposure to foreigners will always see you first and foremost as a foreigner and their interaction with you will be governed by their preconceptions about what foreigners think and how they act - it can take a very long time to break through their stereotypical notions.

Anyway, sorry if that post sounds a bit negative - !

[LeoX22]

Thanks for the replies. I am still not sure where to go, as I hear good things about both places.

About curious locals... I just got that idea about better opportunities to interact with the locals from the time I spent in Thailand studying Thai language.

In Bangkok it seldomly occurred that locals showed any interest in interacting with me (in Thai language) as they were already used to plenty of foreigners around. Therefore when I tried to strike up a conversation I had the impression that most people were not really interested (as long as they did not want to sell something to me). But in the smaller towns in provinces with only few foreigners the people seemed to show more openness and interest in talking with me than in Bangkok, because they were not used to foreigners. So I am not necessarily talking about forming meaningful relationships, but just more and better opportunities to practice the language with local people, because they may show greater interest in talking with me.

I have never been to Beijing, but I imagined it to be similar to Bangkok in this regard.