Jump to content
Chinese-Forums
  • Sign Up

Speed or accent?


Recommended Posts

Posted
4 hours ago, realmayo said:

she sometimes wondered if she'd understand the news without subtitles.

Erm, let me put it this way, I'm not a big fan of Chinese news programs. Even if the TV is on, I'd only half listen. Missing a word or two or a whole sentence doesn't really matter. You know what they're trying to say. :roll:

 

EDIT: CCTV news is several orders of magnitude more predictable than this spoof BBC news report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI

Your friend probably said that just to make you feel better.

 

  • Like 1
Posted
13 hours ago, Publius said:

His pronunciation of 似的 (sìde) is wrong, if you ask me. The correct pronunciation is the same as 是的 (shìde)

 

I think both sìde and shìde are correct. My pleco ABC dictionary says they're variants of each other. Also, my pleco Cross-Straits says

 

【臺拼】sìde

【陸拼】shìde

 

And "sìde" is how I learned it in Taiwan. Not that the speaker is Taiwanese, but with regional accents and such...

Posted

My point wasn't to critise the speaker, merely to point out that even native speakers have difficulty understanding his sentence and thus we as learners shouldn't be too hard on ourselves for failing to hear it with ease. 

 

4 hours ago, realmayo said:

Does this only happen when you're watching shows with accents? I remember a friend telling me she sometimes wondered if she'd understand the news without subtitles.

 

I too have been told similar things about the news. Specifically "sometimes I don't understand what they're saying, though I have the general idea" from educated Chinese.  Mind blowing

Posted
33 minutes ago, Yadang said:

【臺拼】sìde

【陸拼】shìde

Hmm, I wasn't aware of that.

Anyway the actor is from Shandong, and seems to have no problem with the sh sound, his 似的 is just weird.

Posted
6 hours ago, Publius said:

No major problems for understanding except proper nouns.

 

You, have a major unfair advantage....:nono:shock:

 

 

Posted
4 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

You, have a major unfair advantage....:nono:shock:

'Course I have :mrgreen:

But some phrases still throw me off. And if I listen without seeing the pictures I guess I would miss a lot more.

Posted
6 hours ago, roddy said:

After three listens: she wants someone to sit down and stop complaining on and on? It'd take quite a few more listens to accurately transcribe it. 

 

爸爸,你坐会儿好不好?唠唠叨叨个........没完了 Sorry, I missed the 没完了 when I cut the up the recording.

 

Very interested in the 坐, it sounds (to me) like she is saying s-uo  (instead of z-uo) which is combined with 会儿. Any comments on that? Is it quite typical?

 

Hadn't realised but this thread is more helpful than I first anticipated. It helps me from going mad.

 

 

Posted
10 hours ago, mlescano said:

Just wanted to thank you for the heads up on this app.

 

It's famous in this forum. Look up TysonD's threads.

Posted
58 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

Very interested in the 坐, it sounds (to me) like she is saying s-uo  (instead of z-uo) which is combined with 会儿. Any comments on that? Is it quite typical?

To me it's more like English z (/z/) than Chinese z (/dz/ but unvoiced). Since /z/ is not a valid initial and no common character uses the sound suo4, it will be interpreted as zuo4. (Just like in 籠, ong is not a valid pinyin syllable, so l- cannot be "silent".)

Whether it is typical I cannot tell. Nobody would intentionally do that I believe, but like I said, 曲筱绡's pronunciation can be very lazy. Can you hear the 人 in 人家 shortly after this sentence? I couldn't.

  • Like 1
Posted

I have learned to just accept it. There is a reason for the subtitles, and I have never believed it is simply "regional" differences. Often they are used to "correct" grammar as well. I find the whole experience rather annoying, because I feel it connects to people who speak in an uncooperative way in real life where there are no subtitles.

 

曲筱綃's accent and affected speech drive me up the wall.

Posted

Dubbed movies have clearer speech, so maybe Hollywood movies dubbed to Mandarin could be much easier practice material "for the rest of us" (and in general Hollywood movies are more entertaining). The problem is that the Chinese subtitles don't match the Chinese dub, so you'd need to either:

 

1) Try to transcribe it yourself, and then check with a teacher

2) Pay someone to do the transcription

 

Another problem is finding the dubbed movies in the first place. Chinese video sites often have only the movie with original English audio and Chinese subs. The short-lived Chinese iTunes movie store was a dream come true, but it's no longer available. Netflix has a few titles dubbed to Chinese (you can see them if you change the language in your account), but they're few and far between.

 

Ideas?

Posted
1 hour ago, mlescano said:

Ideas

 

In my limited experience in working with srt files, there is much more accuracy if you work with a Chinese film. With western movies dubbed into Chinese, there can be a lot of variation in what is said and what is written.

 

However, the whole point is to increase listening skills with native generated  speech and styles. For me, following the story is a bit secondary.

 

Frankly speaking, I find it a little tricky with this series. Probably I should go back to Happy Chinese and widen my vocabulary first. I do tend to experiment to keep up interest, hence this thread.

 

 

Posted
10 hours ago, Publius said:

Can you hear the 人 in 人家 shortly after this sentence? I couldn't.

 

If you can't hear it, then why are you asking me? LOL

 

 

@roddy , this is for you.

 

 

欢乐颂 Example 02.mp3

Posted

Why me?! 

 

I have no idea what happened with the 爸爸 in the earlier one. I think it's so drawn out I barely registered it as part of the utterance. 

Spoiler

 

Ok, next one, three listens...

1) WTF. VLC started playing before I was ready. Dad again? Has he eaten? Time to go to a meeting?

2) 爸爸你明天不是还开会嘛呢 ( pause to type) ... no idea. 送回去? 

3) Is there a name in there? 让xx送你回去?

Ok, putting it on loop now...several listens later...你让?如如露露续续?送你回去吧,好吗

 

No idea where I got 'has he eaten' from. Maybe just figured there's a 45% it'll turn up in any Chinese utterance...

 

 

Posted
1 hour ago, roddy said:

Why me?! 

 

A present for the administrator.

 

Actually, it serves a bridge from second language learrner to native speakers listening comprehension. It helps me gauge when not to kill myself when I can't make any sense of what is being said. i.e. set myself unrealistic targets.

 

爸爸 你明天不是还要开会呢吗

你让刘叔叔先送你回去吧,好吗?

 

 

Many thanks

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Another speed vs accent: https://youtu.be/8R8VLzT5zcc?t=68

 

What did the girl in pink say here: 每個人的_______ (厚意笑fu?.......何?)Where does it sound like she's from?

 

And https://youtu.be/8R8VLzT5zcc?t=447

 

Just about everything the guy in the middle said was hard or impossible for me to understand. How was it for you guys? I would guess he's from the Guangdong/HK area (edit: confirmed https://youtu.be/8R8VLzT5zcc?t=510 并不是香港那個洋子:lol:)

Posted
6 hours ago, 歐博思 said:

I would guess he's from the Guangdong/HK area (edit: confirmed

 

A HK person would speak slower but it's not really the same as a born and bred HK person speaking Mandarin. Maybe another regional dialect mixed in such as hakka? Mind you, I wouldn't really recognise hakka mixed with putonghua. 

  • Like 1
Posted
7 hours ago, 歐博思 said:

What did the girl in pink say here: 每個人的_______ (厚意笑fu?.......何?)Where does it sound like she's from?

 

So difficult! My ears hear something like "注意笑活儿".  Sounds northern to me (also the way she says 明 in 文明 sounds really northern)

 

7 hours ago, 歐博思 said:

Just about everything the guy in the middle said was hard or impossible for me to understand. How was it for you guys?

 

Likewise. Maybe easier to type the bits I could understand... 所以我们都是。。。对不对。。。什么.。。服务不太好。。。我们应该。。能不能 (with n's switch to l's)。。。。。 At this point I'm starting to think he's speaking another language...

 

-----

I also decided to watch a bit (first few minutes( of 欢乐颂 to join in ! Some of the stuff they're apparently saying seems impossible, even after checking the subtitles!

 

“外企资深人力资源 - In this sentence I don't believe the subtitles are what is being said (edit: Just realised he's saying "HR"! God, no wonder!)

https://youtu.be/4wGpu56WQGQ?t=1m56s

 

"咱俩出去庆祝一下呀" - actually I can kind of hear this after many listens, but god damn is it drawled together!

https://youtu.be/4wGpu56WQGQ?t=3m55s

 

我现在连衣服都舍不得买了 - This drawling also caught me out here:

https://youtu.be/4wGpu56WQGQ?t=5m

 

进商场纯属观光客 -  as with the first sentence, here I just don't even believe the subtitles are what is being said - (edit. Yay I'm right! I just realised she's saying "window shopping" lol)

https://youtu.be/4wGpu56WQGQ?t=5m2s

 

edit: turns out the random English is my biggest challenge in this show...

 

I found that the girl 莹莹, even when she had a mouth full of food (all the time apparently) was 10000x easier to understand than 关关 

  • Like 2

Join the conversation

You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Click here to reply. Select text to quote.

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...