Resources for studying dialects of Chinese

[gato]

The dialect in Kunming is pretty close to Mandarin, though, so a native Mandarin speaker can generally understand it.

[abcdefg]

My (sort of) girlfriend is of Hani origin, from the lower part of Honghe Prefecture ("Deep South" Yunnan.) A few weeks ago two friends came from her home town to visit. I took the three of them to lunch.

 

In the taxi, they were chatting in the back seat using their local dialect while I sat in front to direct the driver. At a traffic light, he couldn't stand it any longer. turned around and asked, "Where are you girls from, anyhow?" They laughed and explained.

 

Later, when we were alone, I asked her to translate some basic words and phrases. For example, I asked her how to say 你好 in 哈尼族 language.

 

She replied, "We never say that." I was surprised and followed up by asking what they would use in its place as a greeting. "Several things would work," she explained. The most common one turned out to be the equivalent of “你来了”。

 

[zachhoy]

That Phonemica resource is great for interest and comparison, but it's far from comprehensive and would be impossible to learn from. I used to spend a lot of time in Mianyang, Sichuan, with my wife and her family. I remember being very concerned that if a Sichuanese person encountered a character that they were unfamiliar with, perhaps a difficult character that most people don't know, they would lack any resource to determine the pronunciation in their dialect since, as far as I can tell, there are no 方言 dialects. 

What phonemica should do which would be more interesting would be to have people read the same line, or tell a similar story, so that sounds could be compared directly (instead of just gaining a sense of the overall prosody differences). 

Admittedly, though the idea is exotic, I have pretty much given up serious attempts at learning to speak in a Sichuan dialect. 

[OneEye]

The Glossika 閩南 course should be out any day, with a special discount if you buy pre-launch. It teaches the Tainan/Tailam 台南 dialect, which is the prestige variety in Taiwan. This may prove to be one of the best resources available for learning Taiwanese. If only it had come out earlier so I'd have time to use it before I leave Taiwan.