n, l, f, h

[Pedroski]

Last night I went downstairs to buy some vegetables. Some neighbours offer things they have grown. I was looking for 香菜， but they didn't have any. They had something similar. It is called juhuanao. I asked what it was called, they said 'juhualao'. Nanjing people have trouble with 'n' and 'l'. 'l' is 'n' and vice versa. laoren = naoren I hear there is a joke: I come from a province whose name begins with H. Errmm Hunan? Hebei? No, Fujian. In Fujian, Fujian is Hujian, whereas in Hunan, Hunan is Funan.

 

How many other similar phonetic shifts do you know of?

[陳德聰]

I'm not sure I'd call them shifts. Aren't these just crossover from local languages and their phonetic inventory?

[Lu]

It's even better: Hunan is Fulan. Henan is Helan (but not 荷兰). I didn't know Hujian.

A joke from Taiwan: what's huǎyì?

Answer:

fǎlǜ. f -> h, l -> y, ü -> i

[Michaelyus]

<Eye "dialect" spelling alert, including surface realisation of sandhi rather than original tone>

 

Lúguǒ nǐméng xiǎngyiào kàngkàng Hfújièng (Mǐngdōng) léng jiáng pǔtōnghfuà de yǔyīn biènghfuà, wǒ yǐqián xěguò yìgò tiēzǐ suōmíng wǒ gèléng de yìngxiàng. Suīláng zǐsì méiyǒu tàiduō xuésù gēnjù, juédé yīnggāi háisì bǐjiòu sǐyuèng de.

 

Hmmm... I should produce an IPA transcription of that - this modified Pinyin is far too painful to read!

[MPhillips]

Is this right: " 如果你们想要看看福建（闽东）人讲普通话的语音变化，我以前写过一个帖子说明我个人的影响。虽然只是没有太多学术根据，觉得应该还是比较使用的。" （？）

[msittig]

Latin "formīca" = Spanish "hormiga"

 

(English "ant")

[Lu]

All the linguistic shifts I know I learned from hearing how Chinese people from different places speak :-)

h <-> f (or rather hu <-> f)

l <-> n

r <-> l <-> y

-ng <-> -n

i <-> ü

etcetera.

[Michaelyus]

 

 

Is this right: " 如果你们想要看看福建（闽东）人讲普通话的语音变化，我以前写过一个帖子说明我个人的影响。虽然只是没有太多学术根据，觉得应该还是比较使用的。" （？） 

 

Very close... just one mistake with yìngxiàng.

 

I wonder why that middle nasal doesn't assimilate (whereas in 根据 it definitely does). Probably an effect of the sibilant.

[MPhillips]

Oops! 印象 not 影响 ！

[anonymoose]

Shanghainese people never seem to confuse f and h when they speak Mandarin, but in Shanghainese, some people pronounce 火 as hu and some as fu, and 老虎 as lohu or lofu.

[Guest realmayo]

Lúguǒ nǐméng xiǎngyiào kàngkàng Hfújièng (Mǐngdōng) léng jiáng pǔtōnghfuà de yǔyīn biènghfuà, wǒ yǐqián xěguò yìgò tiēzǐ suōmíng wǒ gèléng de yìngxiàng. Suīláng zǐsì méiyǒu tàiduō xuésù gēnjù, juédé yīnggāi háisì bǐjiòu sǐyuèng de.

 

Puzzled about how the tones are all so standard!

[loganmurphy]

Soooo many that you will notice the more you meet Mandarin speakers from different regions.

Taiwanese people(meaning 閩南人 in this case), for example, will often pronounce "f" sounds as "h" sounds. So 麻煩 changes from "mafan" to "mahuan".

Hakka people have plenty of things they pronounce differently ass well. For them 謝謝 usually comes out more like seisei(like say say in English) instead of xiexie.

Also, you'll notice that Taiwanese people really don't stress raising the tongue to pronounce words like mainlanders do, which can be confusing to people who learned Chinese in China. Take the sentence 我今年四十歲，Taiwanese people will pronounce the 十 as sí rather than shì. Another example is the word 蛇 would be read as sé, not shé.

This really is a fascinating topic and I love how diverse Chinese language is! It sure makes for a lifetime of study, as there's always something new to learn!

[Pedroski]

That with 十 is the same in Nanjing: 多少？四四？四四？？So they hold up 4 fingers, then make a cross with their two index fingers!

[liuzhou]

The h-f and n-l thing is common among many languages, sometimes in the other direction..

 

Down here in Guangxi many people speak 桂柳话. The most noticeable difference (to me) is that the soft /j/ becomes a hard /g/.

 

I remember asking for 鸡肉 jī ròu in a restaurant in my first week and being told they only has "Gee Rou"

[Pedroski]

Just got back from 江西吉安。On the train from 吉安 to 南昌 the conductor walked through the train shouting "lanchang daole, lanchang daole!" [南昌到了]

[Basil]

mostly caused by the difference between 平翘舌 and 卷翘舌.

 

I recently taught a southerner English from scratch. He was so bad I spent a week teaching him standard mandarin.

 

It is a secret that I will carry to my grave....except for the occasional online posting of course...