Recommendations for developing listening abilities in Beijing pronunciation?

[tannranger]

Greetings all,

 

I am a proficient speaker and fluent reader who has spent almost all time in Chinese-speaking in southern accented regions (Taiwan, Guangdong). I would like to develop my ability to hear and understand the Beijing dialect on an accelerated time frame (<1 month).

 

Interested to hear recommendations for the following:

1) (Working) radio station where I can practice listening to Beijing accented Mandarin? I have had severe difficulties finding working radio stations on resources like TuneIn or Streema

2) Any particularly good resources for learning Beijing slang and special usages?

 

..and any other recommendations.

 

Not so much interested in learning to speak this accent, I am already a strong speaker and have no issues being understood, albeit with a southern slanted accent. Simply looking for things I can use actively and passively to improve understanding.

 

Thanks!

[TheBigZaboon]

As you are already proficient in speaking, and seem to be satisfied with your current progress, I don't know how listening to a specific Beijing accent as opposed to say a specific Tianjin accent (or any other individual northern accent) would benefit you. I would think any northern accent would be fun if it is recognizable enough.

 

That aside, there is a chef in a restaurant in my neighborhood who has what I imagine to be the ideal Beijing accent, and a wonderful plummy baritone voice that allows the er hua to flow with a truly hypnotic effect. Talking with this guy is a delight. My wife can't understand (partially because she doesn't speak Chinese) why I'm so eager to go to the restaurant at off-peak hours just to get a chance to listen to this guy tell a story. His wife is from Beijing, too, and is a very animated speaker as well. But she doesn't have the vocal magic her husband has. 

 

I use TuneIn Radio, which you say doesn't work for you, but if you can use any other app to navigate the same way, there is a station I sometimes listen to with the English title AM 603 Beijing Story Radio, and the Chinese title AM 603 北京故事广播 . There are lots of different types of programs, including discussions with local literary personalities and readings of stories that will favor Beijing pronunciation, but I never got the feeling it was that different from any other station, other than the emphasis on Beijing-y stuff.  Not everything is in a real Beijing accent, but as there are similar regionally titled stations all over the dial, I assume they feature more authentic regional stuff than the ordinary station. If I listen to Taiwan stations, the accents seem, at least to me, to be all over the map, even though the underlying bias is toward standard Taiwan usage. But my tutor, who is  from Taiwan, hops up and down in her chair when I play something I've recorded from a Taiwan station. She can identify the broadcast itself as from Taiwan, even when I can't. Maybe the Beijing tilt of Beijing Story Radio will meet your needs.

 

As for study materials, there is a book entitled Streetwise Mandarin Chinese (McGraw Hill, ISBN 978-0-07-147490-0) that you might find useful. I wrote a mini review of it on Amazon.com. Others who wrote reviews complained it was too oriented toward Beijing usage, but I usually take that with a grain of salt. Maybe it will help, too. It is an excellent book on its own.

 

In any case, my education in Chinese has been very eclectic in terms of accents and such. I generally don't have too much trouble with accented Chinese as long as the speaker is for some reason trying to be understood by other Chinese in general. I am sure there are hundreds of regional accents that will completely defeat me. I have not had the advantage of spending any longer than a month in China at a time, but have had lots of opportunities to speak with Chinese from across the Chinese diaspora.  I just take it as it comes, trying to avoid using anything non-standard, as I don't really have the ability to do so.

[TheBigZaboon]

OP, in the course of writing my previous post, I just tuned in to Beijing Story Radio. I guess I never listened to it with the purpose of finding a Beijing accent before, but in light of your request, I realized the program being broadcast featured a discussion between a woman who spoke with what seemed to me to be a pretty standard accent and a guy with a more Beijing-y, er hua-laced laced speaking style. Maybe this station might meet your needs after all.

[imron]

Check out the TV Series 奋斗 (search the forums for previous discussion).

[simc]

You could listen to an audiobook read in a northern accent, for example 我叫刘跃进. There is a sample on the publishers website: http://www.homestar.com.cn/file/liuyj_t.mp3

 

(or watch the movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZDzfh4kd-E&list=PL701B7A6169C0033D&index=1)

[hedwards]

Glossika has added a Beijing program to their Mandarin program. You might consider buying that and then doing the transcriptions. I'm in the middle of extracting it, so I don't yet know how good it is, but it's something worth considering. Getting material that has an accurate pinyin transcription can be somewhat challenging as most of that material is children's books.

[Flickserve]

Check out the TV Series 奋斗 (search the forums for previous discussion).

 

Good recommendation.

 

I googled for Beijing accent and listening and came back to Chinese forums and this previous thread.

 

I have found I can discern words spoken on the Beijing Story Radio but street talk is beyond me. I need to work out how to download the dialogue to listen to phrases repeatedly. I might be going to Beijing in a couple of months for my first trip and need to prepare a little for it

 

Any other recommendations?

[jobm]

I have heard before that the characters in the show 家有儿女 use a Northern Chinese accent.