Good resources for specifically learning to understand different accents?

[happy_hyaena]

I have friends who, when they speak, I can understand them despite them speaking very fast and using words that are just barely in my passive vocabulary. Then, there are times I meet some other acquaintance who, despite not speaking particularly fast or using difficult vocabulary, I can barely understand on the first listen. The ones belonging to the first group of friends are either from Jiangsu or Shanghai, whereas the others (just off the top of my head) are from others, more centrally located provinces. Hell, even the Taiwanese Mandarin takes a little time for me to pick up. These people are pretty highly educated as well, so it's not simply a matter of them speaking their 方言 - but it's definitely influencing their 普通话, I believe.

 

Is there any specific method, resource or tactic that others on this site have used to deal with this type of listening ability problem specifically? Maybe some resources using sound recordings of people from specific regions so I can maybe systematically work my way through provinces? I am regularly watching native media but a lot of the popular media that I'm able to enjoy tend to have very standard speech. (On that note, I should start consuming media from Taiwan...)

 

Thanks.

[耳耳语语]

A ressource : http://phonemica.net/

 

Also I think that https://glossika.com/courses

uses identical sentences in its 4 chineses courses (mandarin, cantonese, hakka, wenzhou)

[happy_hyaena]

Regarding Glossika, I'm not trying to learn specific dialects (方言). I'm trying to understand people with different accents (腔) of Standard Chinese.

 

Edit: BTW, would you mind explaining your tips in using the first link?

[Flickserve]

Probably you need to target which locality, listen and match up speech to words, get used to local expressions and idiosyncrasies.

 

i would have though watching TV would be good enough. Plenty of Taiwanese material around.

[ouyangjun]

Honestly I wouldn't worry about it.  Instead of spending time trying to systematically go through accents of different regions of China, time is better spent just improving your standard putonghua.  You're always going to run into situations where someone speaks a little different, but if you have a strong base of putonghua you'll be able to pick it up much easier, and through continual exposure you'll just get used to it. 

[耳耳语语]

About http://phonemica.net/ On the map you can filter out the Mandarin, then click on a point and select "stories". Then you have a local speaking, with transcript.

Although it's more an ethnographic ressource than an educative one...

 

I also found this video "13 accents speaking mandarin chinese", though it's not very useful either ^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l48UFfpfczQ

[Flickserve]

Perhaps I should elaborate that I live in South China and the Mandarin accent seems very easy to understand and I find Beijing accent quite difficult with slurring and added erhua yin. So, I try to listen to standard mandarin and Beijing style Mandarin. 

[happy_hyaena]

5 hours ago, ouyangjun said:

Honestly

 

I understand but I feel like I'm encountering the Chinese equivalence of Scottish, Irish, Australian, Southern American English, etc IRL but only hearing crisp transatlantic American in my studies.

 

31 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

Perhaps

 

I feel you.

[Shelley]

1 hour ago, happy_hyaena said:

understand but I feel like I'm encountering the Chinese equivalence of Scottish, Irish, Australian, Southern American English, etc IRL but only hearing crisp transatlantic American in my studie

 

I think this happens with any language you learn.

I was born in Canada, when I moved to Scotland it took a few weeks but then I was understanding the local Dundee accent, when I move to Ohio, USA I learnt to understand that accent, when I moved to England I could not understand the Geordie or other northern accents but eventually my ear became attuned and now I have no problems with any of the accents to be found in the UK.

 

Whilst in Canada we had to learn and indeed speak French in our everyday lives, we learnt Quebec French, When I first heard Parisian French I had to work hard to understand it, but now I don't have any problems.

 

Once you are at a high level in Chinese you will probably find it easier to understand different accents after you spent a little time listening.

[ouyangjun]

3 hours ago, happy_hyaena said:

I understand but I feel like I'm encountering the Chinese equivalence of Scottish, Irish, Australian, Southern American English, etc IRL but only hearing crisp transatlantic American in my studies.

 

But yet you understand the Scottish English, Australian English, etc. because your English language is at a high level.  You don't need to specifically study those accents, because your English already has a very strong base and by hearing it a few times you pick on what they are saying.  Same with Chinese.  The best way to understand the different accents is to have a really strong base of standard Putonghua.  

[abcdefg]

On 8/20/2017 at 1:10 AM, happy_hyaena said:

Is there any specific method, resource or tactic that others on this site have used to deal with this type of listening ability problem specifically?

 

The Yunnan news channel (#6) has an evening show in which all the hosts plus their guests speak Kunminghua 昆明话。I watch it and try to pick up a few recurring phrases, but it's definitely not easy.

 

On 8/20/2017 at 5:15 AM, happy_hyaena said:

I'm not trying to learn specific dialects (方言). I'm trying to understand people with different accents (腔) of Standard Chinese.

 

OK, I now see you don't care about dialects, just regional accents. Not sure what to advise about that beyond doing lots of listening in situations where you can easily stop and ask for people to repeat or rephrase as needed. I bought a small digital voice recorder several years ago, but never did find it useful for projects like this (outside the classroom.)

 

[jobm]

You can listen to 锵锵三人行。 You can hear a variety of accents there.

 

Chinese listening practice with 锵锵三人行

[陳德聰]

I'm a bit thrown off by some of the suggestions here.

 

I have found I am able to "pick up" accents dramatically faster if I have been able to find an explanation of systematic sound variation that differs from the Standard accent. This should go without saying, and is true for any phonological change that occurs in natural speech in Mandarin, accented or not. For example, knowing that the /sh/ sound weakens into something almost non-existent in words like 多少 (approx. duo'ao) very much so makes it easier to learn to recognise and optionally reproduce that pronunciation.

 

There are sometimes one-to-one mappings of pronunciations that can be helpful: e.g. Knowing that many if not all /t/ initials in "Standard" Cantonese are pronounced as an /h/ sound in Taishanese makes it a million times easier to catch that my grandmother is saying 跳舞 when she says "hiu mou". Perhaps a better example is knowing that people from 湖南 may mix /h/ and /f/ sounds, so you're not completely in the dark when someone asks you if you "fuì" speak Chinese.

 

I am not aware of a resource that would specifically help with this type of study, but the idea that somehow just exposure is more efficient than analysis + exposure has me scratching my head.

[happy_hyaena]

55 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

thrown

 Yes, I totally agree. I'm thankful for everyone's willingness to chime in, but I'm already improving my listening ability in regards to perfectly standard Mandarin.

 

English is not my first language. When I was about 16, my father and I went to visit my aunt in the UK for her birthday. She had invited, besides us two, an English woman, a White South African man and a Jamaican couple. My English was already very good, but it was almost impossible to understand the Jamaican and South African men, but as they kept on talking I eventually made some progress as my aunt and her friend were there to help guide along the conversation and so I could comfortably analyze their accents from the side. On one hand, if my English was not so good already I would never have been able to make progress, but on the other hand, it was only by doing the hard work of actually trying to figure it out that I made progress. In other words, I did not just automatically understand their way of speaking.

 

I've had similar encounters in China. One of my good friends is from Chongqing and she regularly mixes up L and N when they are initials. I first noticed it when she said Lantong instead of Nantong (the city). Then, when we were speaking English, she said "Low" instead of "No". I sat down with her then and there and tried to get her to separate the two but it was tough. Most of the time it was like she didn't hear herself say one or the other. 

 

This issue also exists in Nanjing, where you'll even hear the natives refer to their city as Lanjing. I was talking to a hotel receptionist and couldn't understand what she was saying until I mentally corrected for it.

 

When I was in Guangzhou previous to that I went to a massage parlour for a foot massage. The guys there tried to engage me in conversation but it went slow (not that my Chinese was very good at the time). One of the guys there didn't pronounce the r sound in 瑞典 (Ruidian, Sweden, where I'm from) as you should, but rather said it with a sort of buzzing s sound. Of course, that's more correct because originally Ruidian was pronounced Suidian, and it's similar to how it is in Cantonese. 

 

My feeling is that by specifically studying for this, I can make greater leaps in my listening ability over a short period of time, rather than if I just continued to study the same accent. I suspect that I would also be able to, for example, better understand Chinese spoken at lower sound levels. And rather than dealing with the social awkwardness that comes with repeatedly asking for someone to repeat themselves - or even worse! Having them switch to English to accommodate me (I'm not in China anymore) - I would like to deal with it preemptively.

 

I will definitely switch to watching more Taiwanese stuff since that seems to be the most obvious thing to do now. After that maybe something else will come up. I'll be attending a Chinese language cafe at my university and there they will have to keep repeating themselves...

[happy_hyaena]

6 hours ago, jobm said:

You can listen to 锵锵三人行。 You can hear a variety of accents there.

 

Chinese listening practice with 锵锵三人行

 

 

I didn't know they have transcripts for the show! Unfortunately, the links seem to be broken.

[ouyangjun]

I agree that if you study the accent you will learn it quicker.  My point was only looking at if from an opportunity cost standpoint.  Is someone's standard putonghua is not where they want it to be, then in my opinion spending all of the time  studying standard putonghua is more valuable, as it will yield higher returns.

 

That's what I've done at least.  I never studied the accents, but after exposure and asking questions I've picked up on what I need.  It's more of an encounter, ask, learn versus a structured study program.  

 

[TheBigZaboon]

There is a series of listening (聴力) texts published in China consisting of 3 volumes called something like Say it Right (see edit, below). The books are written by somebody named Meng, and were part of a movement that thought listening materials should get out of the recording studio and into the wild. So they use live recordings of real people in a variety of situations that get progressively more complicated over the course of the series. Excellent idea, in my opinion. I'm out right now, so I can't give you the isbn, etc., but I will add it to the post later. This series is not a region by region breakdown of accents, but more than adequately covers the real Chinese you will hear around you every day. I think it might better suit your needs than what you asked for in your original post.

 

The Japanese word for an accent is namari (訛り). Twenty years ago in Japan there was a series of about 5 privately published booklets on Chinese regional accents called Namari-ing, accompanied by about 10 cassettes. Each booklet addressed the accent of a major region. I don't think there was any analysis of the regional accent, just about two hours of essays, speeches, radio programs, and the like, spoken in the regional accent in a natural setting, with a written transcript for each, as the material did not overlap in any way. I don't know if it is still available, though. You can look on major second-hand book sites in your home country, but I couldn't find a set, new or second-hand,  in Japan.

 

I personally think the first alternative is better for you, but it is your call. 

 

My wife just showed up, so I will finish this later.

TBZ

 

 

Edit:

My wife is off somewhere again, so I have time to add that the first series might, in fact, be called Listen to it Right. That sounds more logical. I will have more to say about it later, when I can check my copies. I have some opinions on the recordings, and how you might get more user friendly copies. Good thread. Hope more good tips follow.

TBZ

[Geiko]

18 hours ago, happy_hyaena said:

I didn't know they have transcripts for the show! Unfortunately, the links seem to be broken.

 

For recent transcripts, have a look at here: https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/50361-transcripts-for-recent-锵锵三人行-episodes/

 

If you're interested in Taiwanese Mandarin, I think there's a lot of webpages comparing it to Mainland Chinese. I used a textbook for intermediate learners called Taiwan Today, and it listed the main differences in phonetics, grammar and vocabulary (I attach some pictures). When I was in Taiwan I was only shocked by the r>l, a friend of mine was constantly saying 很lè, 很lè! And at first I thought she meant 累，but it didn't convince me either... In the end I realised she meant 熱 . 

I've watched a few Taiwanese dramas, but I'd say that their Mandarin is pretty standard, except for the retroflexes (there's this drama called 愛你就宅一起, with a pun in the title if I'm not wrong). 

[happy_hyaena]

11 hours ago, TheBigZaboon said:

Listen to it Right

Thanks for the tip, it's good to know that the some kind of resource available that is trying to take this into account in it's teaching. Right now I've got a backlog of textbooks I'm working through though so I won't go down that route just yet.

 

55 minutes ago, Geiko said:

12 hours ago, happy_hyaena said:

I didn't know they have transcripts for the show! Unfortunately, the links seem to be broken.

 

For recent transcripts, have a look at here: https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/50361-transcripts-for-recent-锵锵三人行-episodes/

 

If you're interested in Taiwanese Mandarin, I think there's a lot of webpages comparing it to Mainland Chinese. I used a textbook for intermediate learners called Taiwan Today, and it listed the main differences in phonetics, grammar and vocabulary (I attach some pictures). When I was in Taiwan I was only shocked by the r>l, a friend of mine was constantly saying 很lè, 很lè! And at first I though she meant 累，but it didn't convince me either... In the end I realised she meant 熱 . 

I've watched a few Taiwanese dramas, but I'd say that their Mandarin is pretty standard, except for the retroflexes (there's this drama called 愛你就宅一起, with a pun in the title if I'm not wrong). 

 

Thanks for the link to the transcripts, and the pics are really interesting! Some of what they say is obviously common to Southern Chinese in general, like the 子 and 儿 switch. I'm not sure I quite understand the significance of how 有，说 and 给 are used, just from the sentences given.

 

Also, what's in Lesson 12? 

[jobm]

To add, I downloaded the app  酷我听书 and it has a special feature where there will be a question and you will reply via voice message. It is very natural and you could hear authentic Chinese and you will be exposed to different accents as well