Deviations from standard 普通话 putonghua pronounciation

[Shelley]

I have finally been promoted to ask this question after another topic about deviations/mistakes from standard mandarin pronounciation was started.

 

The topic asked if it was corrected to say xxxxx with a different set of tones other than what the OP expected to hear in the place they were in.

 

My question is this, should we not expect to hear a wide variety of accents, dialects, pronounciation and tone usage from the huge range of people living in a vast country like China?

 

Even here in the UK, which is not a large country,there is a very large variety of pronounciation of English. When I first came to the UK I could barely understand a broad Jordie accent from the north and found the welsh accent very distracting.

 

Shouldn't we expect and accept the differences and try and cultivate a middle of the road Chinese accent that is based on the standard putonghua of the major capitol city Beijing as do people learning English try for a middle England accent from the heartland of the country and the capitol London.

 

If I was learning English I would hope my teacher would steer me in the right direction to acquire a neutral accent, I try to do this with Chinese, I don't want any broad or strong accent, just nice clear pronounciation.

 

What thoughts does anyone else have on the subject of what accent to learn?

 

And how fussy should we be about other people's (native Chinese) accent? I realise it may be confusing for the learner trying to work out the right and wrong way to speak, but until the student is advanced enough and can tell right from wrong, I would suggest only learning from teachers/textbooks etc.

 

 

 

 

[li3wei1]

I've heard some non-standard pronunciation (especially v-w confusion) in several professionally-prepared learning materials, so students aren't safe just by sticking to textbooks. I also think being exposed to a wide range of accents is good, even from the beginning, as long as these deviations are made clear to the student.

[Hofmann]

Non-standard native pronunciation of tones is regular, which is predictable. When a learner makes a mistake, it will not be from following a rule.

[Demonic_Duck]

If you're referring to my thread here, I should stress that it wasn't about non-standard accents, it was about the pronunciation of a very specific phrase by Chinese living in Beijing. I was (and still am) particularly curious as to whether a) there are different variations on this word that I hadn't come across yet, and b) this phenomenon has a specific identifiable cause in the case of this phrase.

 

I don't think one should necessarily aim for the middle-of-the-road. I think a moderate regional accent is fine, as long as it's understandable to most native speakers, and is consistent with the place/places you're learning and have learned Chinese. It's also fun to pick up the odd regionalism, I find it adds colour to your speech, and can even be a talking point with Chinese people who don't come from that region ("did you know that in ____ they say ____ instead of ____?")

 

I do, however, think exposure to a plurality of different accents is a good thing (although not so much when you're a beginner and having trouble understanding just one accent). If you learn Chinese in Harbin due to its reputation as having very standard Putonghua, and isolate yourself from extended communication with out-of-towners, you'll likely suffer more serious problems understanding people when you travel around the rest of China.

[Shelley]

I was referring to that thread, but not the content specifically, just the fact that it mention non standard tones/pronounciation and it reminded me that there have been others and it prompted the question.

 

I didn't mean to imply that i thought isolation was the best option, just to try and find a clear path through the chaos of choice.

 

Early on in my studies I followed my teachers accent, he then pointed out that we may want to listen to other accents and decide how we would like to sound.

 

I realise textbooks can have mistakes, but you have to start somewhere, and the mistakes must be few and far between, I hope. One or two mistakes I can undo.

 

This is one good reason to have a teacher of some kind (online, Skype, evening classes etc) to start with, hopefully they can pick up on textbook mistakes.

 

My main point was that I think we should expect and accept the differences. It seemed people were surprised or even put out that these differences occurred.

 

Viva la difference

[renzhe]

I'm hoping that this doesn't turn into yet another thread where people simply re-iterate their already widely-known positions.

It all depends on what you are trying to achieve. Everything, always.

For most people in most situations, I think that learning a standard, widely accepted and respected accent is the best decision. Most people will understand you, and most people will expect you to speak like that. You maximise your ability to communicate, minimise distraction, and minimise any stigma potentially associated with whatever you are trying to emulate.

In some cases, there may be really strong reasons to not learn the "standard" but something else.

The following is my personal opinion. I think that it's fine to adopt a local accent, dialect and manners, as long as you have a real connection to the place. In other words, if you speak like a Glaswegian, I expect you to be Glaswegian -- you know Glasgow, you know its culture, and you are accepted by Glaswegians as somebody living there and treated as such. If you are faking a Glaswegian accent badly and you've never even seen the city, then there is nothing more fake than that, and it's just embarrassing. In that case, you should stick to RP or standard American pronunciation. Same goes for talking like a favela kid from Rio -- if you can't take me on a tour of Rio, just stick to standard Brazilian pronunciation, please, no need to fake something you don't really know.

If you can internalise local speech and are accepted as a local, then that's awesome. But local speech is like local customs and local culture -- it is something that develops naturally after you have lived in a place for a while. It's not something you can fake.

In any case, I don't feel that it's for foreign language learners to pass judgement on native speakers. If you can top a C2 exam easily and score in the top quarter on language exams aimed at native speakers, then by all means criticise away. Otherwise, you should be studying instead.

[Shelley]

Very well put, renzhe. This is just how I feel about it, which is why I thought as learners we should aspire to a non specific accent so as people don't expect us to come from somewhere in china when really we don't.

 

I too hope this doesn't just end up a thread where the same old stuff is trotted out, but was hoping for some new insight into this from students (newbies and advanced) and their solution to this.

 

For example and only to give some kind of way to judge things what accent would anyone say DaShan has or any other well know 2nd language Chinese speakers.

 

I was told by my first teacher Mao's accent was very thick and people found it hard to understand, I admit to not being able catch any more than one word every so often when i have heard him speak.

 

Can anyone suggest someone who we should listen to and has a "good" accent?

[hedwards]

Shelley, unless you put a massive amount of work into your accent and word choice, it's highly unlikely that anybody is going to confuse you for a native speaker. And the point where you can get yourself in trouble for not knowing as much as they think you do came really early for me.

 

For me, I'd rather take those moments as a sign of respect for my ability and use them to try and improve my language. Of course, I'm very white with blue eyes, so the only possibility of somebody confusing me for a native speaker is if they can't see me.

 

Non-specific is probably OK, but it's kind of foolish to not target an accent that's more respected by the native speakers. Chances are you'll wind up with an accent that's non-specific anyways, the other accents you come across will probably cause that, but you'll still be targeting a well respected form of Chinese.

[querido]

(This is not necessarily addresssed to just Shelley.)

Working through native *enunciation* - not the small variations in pronunciation that inspired the thread - is the overwhelmingly bigger problem. And, yes, I think that finding perfectly-spoken materials and listening only to that was a big mistake. I'll never forget that it was from the father on the series 家有儿女 that I learned how much trouble I was in. You could *start* there to build your tolerance. The lead character of the talk show QQSRX (see threads here) is another great one. Until you can understand speech like that I don't think you should worry so much about the topic of this thread.

 

"Can anyone suggest someone who we should listen to and has a "good" accent?"

 

I suggest the pthcs test materials. My old links to recordings and transcripts don't work now but you could probably find them again. Don't expect random natives to sound like that, themselves, but they should understand you easily. I'm sure someone else here could name a newscaster, podcast host, etc, who speaks like that consistently. I was happy with everything I bought from BLCUP.

 

No, I wouldn't use a non-native as a model.

[hedwards]

@querido, in my experience with other languages, you can figure out the enunciation fairly quickly with mass quantities of listening. The key thing is that you have to have sufficient grasp over the grammar and vocabulary to be able to understand roughly what's being said.

 

Pronunciation itself is something that tends to solve itself if you're actually listening to how the natives speak. I'm aware of cases of people in Hong Kong learning Mandarin as their first Chinese language and having a very thick Cantonese accent from all the years where they were listening to Cantonese speakers