A small rant about listening materials

[wushijiao]

Here is my question: do you feel that most Mandarin tapes are too standard?

Here is why I ask: currently I am an English teacher in China (God help us!). Most of my brilliant students have a great command of English, but they do have certain weak points. Understanding fast, semi-slurred conversation between native speakers is one of them. For example, in a class of 25 Chinese students, almost all would understand, “what are you going to do this weekend?” But, if pronounced how it is almost always pronounced, “whadayagonnado this weekend?” maybe one or two might understand.

In a similar way, I felt the same way learning Spanish. Almost all the tapes or videos we used were based on a standard Mexican or Madrid accent, which comprises a small percentage of the Spanish speaking world. They were all artificially too clear. “Cansado” is frequently pronounced “cansa’o” (without the d, in Cuba, the Caribbean and many places in South America), but the tapes always used the former. Likewise, when native Spanish speakers slur a few words together, the tapes would artificially separate them based on how they look on the written page.

With Chinese, the situation seems even worse. Of course, for beginners you want to familiarize them with the proper, standard putonghua pronunciation. Yet at more advanced stages, linguistically, a teacher should introduce students to the real spoken language. A good language teacher should also familiarize intermediate and advanced students with a variety of accents. When teaching English (or at least American English), you should teach “wanna” instead of the written form of “want to”. In spoken northern Chinese, it seems many people only slightly pronounce the “x” of, say, “xiache” 下车. “Ch”, “sh” and other sounds are often slurred through. “Bu zhi dao” is usually “bu'erdao”…etc. In southern China, the “sh” is often changed to “s” and the “zh” to “z"...etc.

I have often wondered why they don't make conversational tapes which mirror the way most people speak putonghua. My guess is, Chinese teachers are so brain-washed into thinking that the CCTV anchor person accent is the only proper accent to teach that they haven't even considered deliberately exposing students to other ones. But Chinese rural villagers learning the socially valued accent, and laowais learning the socially valued accent are two different things. In my experience, it’s not difficult for most foreign learners of a language to listen to a wide variety of spoken accents but still speak with the valued, standard, “proper” one.

I think slight-off standard tapes would particularly help people studying outside China. At least people in China can go talk to local fruit vendors, chat with people on train and the like, and get a better sense of words are pronounced.

Has anybody else had similar thoughts?

[wenjing*girl]

i agree,

[wenjing*girl]

I know exactly what you mean. But I wouldn't say that all learning English tapes are made with people talking in perfect English. I'm sure you've heard of "Crazy English." For the students that are followers of this cult, their English come out sounding like nothing I've ever heard. Their English is run together and garbled, but not in the way that a native speaker uses it.

Why would you want to learn non-standard Chinese though? Seems that if you learn to speak it right, you'll have no problem picking up the "fruit vender" talk.

For example, when I was living in Hainan it was hard to learn Chinese well because the people on the street weren't speaking standard Chiense (that is if you could catch them not speaking hainan hua).

When you went to the market it was hard to communicate because four, seven, and ten all sounded the same when they said them. It came out like the English pronunciation of "see". (yi, er, san, SEE, wu, liu, SEE, ba, jiu, SEE)

They would be like, "this is SEE kuai (七块)" and I would say, "no, SEE kuai (十块)

Anyways, I think learning to speak standard Chinese is better.

BTW, your classes have only 25 students in them? Dang, lucky.... I have 70 in some of mine.

[wushijiao]

When you went to the market it was hard to communicate because four, seven, and ten all sounded the same when they said them. It came out like the English pronunciation of "see". (yi, er, san, SEE, wu, liu, SEE, ba, jiu, SEE)

They would be like, "this is SEE kuai (七块)" and I would say, "no, SEE kuai (十块)

Anyways, I think learning to speak standard Chinese is better.

That's funny! I think we've all been there, not knowing what exact price was said.

I also think learning to speak standard Chinese is best, especially for the first year or two. However, from a listening point of view, I think it might be valuabe to be exposed to the slightly un-standard ways people speak putonghua (I'm not talking about learning dialects/languages...Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, perhaps Hainanhua (don't know what that would be)).

[carlo]

As with learning English, films are a good way to get used to the way people actually speak. Compared with other languages, it's actually much easier to find original video material that carries Chinese subtitles in China (or on CCTV 4). Try watching 尋槍 without subtitles....

[wame]

Listening and speaking are two different things,the best way is to speak like a broadcast people so everybody can understand you and reach the level that you could understand different Chinese accent(generally only two kinds:northern accent and southern accent)

travelling around and talking to people from different place might be the only way to get this.

[Green Pea]

I agree, wushijiao.

Why would you want to learn non-standard Chinese though? Seems that if you learn to speak it right, you'll have no problem picking up the "fruit vender" talk.

To make people laugh. I love to put on a Taiwan accent. Mainlanders just roll on the floor in hilarity. When you travel around China, it is best to modify your accent. I speak differently in Beijing than I do in Shanghai or Taiwan. A language student needs to develop a wide range of speaking and listening skills. The obsession with only speaking standard putonghua befuddles me.

Watching TV or movies is a waste of time. For 100 hrs, there's probably only 5 mins of usable stuff. A good audio programme could provide this is in a better format. As usual though, no one knows how to teach Chinese, so I'm sure we'll never see anything useful for it.

[xiaocai]

wenjing*girl:

The example you mentioned is not hainan hua, it is 海普, a kind of nonstandard putonghua.

[englishboy]

couldn't agree more.

I'm learning Mandarin from a series of Pimsleur CDs in England. When I visit China I am often complimented on my very precise style and accent, ie very easy to be understood

But.....invariably I can't understand people when thay talk to me. I'm sure most of it's due to the basic level of my Mandarin but I aso think it's because I only listen to "newsreader" style - a long way removed form the Mandarin spoken regionally.

Some more colloquial learning aids would be a big help - knowworramean??

[xiaocai]

englishboy, where have you been? If you went to southern China, you would suffer the heavy accent, sometime it is very difficult to native speakers too.

One good way is to ask the students, their Putonghua may be much more clear and standard.

[englishboy]

Hi xiaocai, I've been to most of the industrialised areas of East China over the past couple of years but rarely in the South. However, I'm in Guangzhou in April so perhaps I need to pick up a little Cantonese - currently limited to "kung hei fat choy" and "haam sup", however the latter seems most effective in certain situations!!

[xiaocai]

Don't be worry, the situation I've talked about now will only happen in small towns, not in Guangzhou and other big cities.

I know few Gungzhou hua, maybe we are in the same level.But it seem that you've missed the best time to use the first one.

[Haoqide]

englishboy...

We sound like mirrors of each other as far as our studies up until now. I'm a "Pimsleur graduate" as well. Most of my Chinese friends that I come into contat with on a dailiy basis are from Fujin, and they have that definite Southern accent that's really hard to understand. I go through exactly what wenjing*girl was talking about every time I have a conversation with them.

P.S. - "haam sup" - Does that mean what I THINK it means?! HAHAHAHA! In what situations do you use that without getting smacked?

[englishboy]

Haoqide...

I am still in the undergraduate phase of Pimsleur. You should try the Wenzhou accent, almost impossible to my ears and as for its local dialect........

Yup, "haam sup" means a number of rude things in Cantonese I believe, see earlier thread on slang. You have to pick your moment carefully to enter it into conversations.........but it can be a real ice breaker!!! My Chinese friends think it's hilarious when I use a phrase like this

[wenjing*girl]

xiao cai: I meant that is the way it sounds when they speak in Chinese. Hainan hua is much different. Actually, in that situation, I'd prefer them to speak hainan hua because the numbers are distingishable from one another.

When I was in hainan I picked up a Hainan accent with Chinese. It's changed now that I'm in Kunming... I am trying to make it more standard sounding now. One thing I love here is that everyone says "没有" in kunming hua, which sounds something like "mo de" .......or "muh duh".

[Lorenzo]

I'm only beginning to study Chinese, but it was my experience with many years of studying Spanish that it would have been helpful if my teachers had formally taught me some regional variations to expect. I suppose the feeling in the linguistics community is that it is just not scholarly to formally teach people poor pronunciation and grammar. I would have loved to have seen books and tapes/CDs that formally set out what to expect in different Spanish-speaking regions. Not just slang, but pronunciation. For example, I was studying Spanish at an advanced level in Central America when I set out for Cuba. I went from advanced to baby! I couldn't understand a single word unless the speaker went out of his or her way to speak clearly for me. I had similar, though not quite so dramatic, difficulties in parts of S. America. With some formal preparation, I might have known what to listen for. I can imagine it being exactly the same situations for you advanced speakers of Chinese, having studied a year or two in Beijing, only to find yourself being unable to understand people in other supposedly Mandarin-speaking regions. I would love to see authors of language books and tapes create materials specifically designed to assist advanced students cope with the non-standard pronunciations that one can be expected to encounter.

[roddy]

I think ideally it'd be great, but if you consider the dearth of decent advanced materials currently published, I think it's unlikely anyone is going to start producing books attractive to an even more restricted market.

If anyone's interested in this side of things, try tracking down Chinese-published linguistic texts on local accents / dialects / regionalects / whateverects - there are massive numbers of them, and while they're generally dry and academic they'll show you what some of the features of pronunciation are for the region in question.

I don't think I've even seen English teaching materials ( a much more mature market) for areas any more specific than 'American / British' English.

Great rant though!

[wushijiao]

For example, I was studying Spanish at an advanced level in Central America when I set out for Cuba. I went from advanced to baby! I couldn't understand a single word unless the speaker went out of his or her way to speak clearly for me.

Yeah, Lorenzo. I know how you feel! In fact, I had a Cuban university professor who said that he had to remind himself to pronounce his d's and s's so that his gringo students could understand!

In my case, by the time I was eighteen I was able to understand my university professors all in Spanish, and I watched and understood about 95% of Univision (the Spanish-speaking channel out of Miami). Then I went to Chile and felt completely disheartened when I couldn't understand anything. Part of that, of course, was the frustrating process of adjusting one's ear to the accent of whatever country or region one goes to. Yet I couldn't help but feel that listening materials and my language teachers could have done more to prepare me for street Spanish. I've heard the sound of Spanish poetically described as a hailstorm beating a zinc roof, with quick sounds and explosive p's, t's, and l's. Sadly, the tapes tended to pronounce d's and s's when they weren't there in many cases, and generally pronounced everything to slow to slur together naturally.

As far as Chinese, I've been thinking that it would be useful to have tapes a bit along the lines of the very useful and practical HSK 听力惯用语, and 听力关键词. They could first use relatively slow, standard, clear putonghua, with speaker A saying something, and then have speaker B reply. Then, they could repeat the exact same thing in generic, quickly-spoken, un-standard northern putonghua, and then repeat it again in un-standard southern putonghua. Or something along those lines. Of course, it might be hard to determine what type of un-standard putonghua should be included in order to get the most practical benefits for the learners.

I think ideally it'd be great, but if you consider the dearth of decent advanced materials currently published, I think it's unlikely anyone is going to start producing books attractive to an even more restricted market.

That's probably the biggest problem. What would be the market for this? Probably less than a few thousand people, if that.

Maybe, sometime down the road when (or if!) I have the expertise, I might try to create something like this, with the help of dialect books and a lot of friends. I guess because the teaching-Chinese-to-foreigners market is still so new, we are still at the stage where it's best to create our own learning materials if it doesn't exist.