Standard pronunciation of "a little"

[Kathy Lu]

so according to my husband who is a Beijinger.. said that if you want to express Time, then you should use 一点。 for example, 现在几点？ 现在一点。however if you want to express the level of interest or the level of pain or the amount.. use 一点儿。 an example would be 你头疼吗？有一点儿。

 

I am a southern Chinese, and I know for a fact that we do not add 儿字 to words, mostly because many south Chinese dialects have flat tones...aka we are not used to rolling our tongues... if you can‘t speak 儿化音 then just say 一点点， but if you say 一点 in the northern China people might think you are talking about time. 

 

Also if you do some research, you will know that the standard pronunciation of Mandarin is originated from the pronunciation of Beijing dialect. so I think it's better to learn it from the northern Chinese that way no matter where you go in China, people can understand you. 

 

when Beijinger add 儿字 to a word it doesn't pronounce as another character. for example, 饭(馆儿) is actually just two characters when a Beijinger pronounce it.  here（馆儿）is actually pronounce as one character.  But Southern Chinese have the tendency to pronounce the 儿 as another character 饭馆儿... so to northern Chinese, this pronunciation sounds super weird.

 

I hope this is helpful.

[陳德聰]

I feel like it’s the last thing you want to hear, @Christa, but the official standard pronunciation of some characters also undergoes or has undergone changes over time. So while “一点儿” shows up in 表一 of the 普通话水平测试, perhaps one day it won’t anymore (relatively unlikely though).

[stapler]

@Kathy Lu

 

this is is my experience too. The southerners I know (most Chinese I know in fact) will never use 這兒 (though will use 這 without a 裏) and when they use 兒化 to pass the Mandarin exam prounounce it as a seperate syllable. 

 

Chinese TV definitely disproportionately favours northern accents. So it wouldn’t surprise me if the standard does too. 

[Publius]

2 hours ago, stapler said:

Chinese TV definitely disproportionately favours northern accents. So it wouldn’t surprise me if the standard does too. 

That's because 「普通話是中華人民共和國中央人民政府認定的現代標準漢語。普通話以北京語音為標準音，以北方話為基礎，以典範的現代白話文著作為語法規範。」

The geographical term 'southern' usually refers to the area to the south of 秦嶺-淮河 where rivers don't freeze during the winter. Much of southern China is outside of the Mandarin-speaking area. People there speak Wu, Min, Yue, Gan, Xiang, Hakka etc natively. Of course standard Mandarin doesn't favor their accents. Their accents are not Mandarin accents.

[Publius]

And in case you're wondering why Mandarin and not Cantonese for example is chosen as the national lingua franca. Well, that's because for most part of the history, the political center of China is in the north, from Xi'an to Luoyang to Kaifeng. Even when ethnic Han people are forced to move their capital to Nanjing, they bring their language along with them (as a result Nanjing dialect now belongs to Jianghuai Mandarin, significantly different from its surrounding Wu-speaking area). RP is the accent of standard English in the UK. It's based on the accent of southeast England where London is and not based on the accent of, say, Edinburgh. For the same reason, when Mandarin was formed, it's based on the accent of the then capital(s). I've seen ridiculous claims such as when the Nationalist government sat down to decide the national standard, Cantonese lost to Mandarin by just one vote. I just want to say, get a grip folks, non-Mandarin varieties never stood a chance. Because Mandarin, contrary to what some have claimed, does not mean 滿大人. It means official, as in the language spoken by the officials of the Ming dynasty. And as late as the 19th century, standard Mandarin was based on the Nanjing dialect (which also has erhua by the way). As the capital moved to Beijing, naturally Beijing dialect gained prominence and became the new standard. The Nationalist and Communist governments in establishing the Guoyu/Putonghua standards, were just giving the de facto standard an official stamp.

[Christa]

12 hours ago, yueni said:

To answer your question, @Christa, based on the list that imron posted, 一点儿 is standard in Mainland China. This is true only for that specific word that you asked about. For other erhua words, you'll have to look it up yourself to see if it is considered standard or not!

 

Just the answer I was looking for. Thank you!

[Christa]

9 hours ago, Kathy Lu said:

so according to my husband who is a Beijinger.. said that if you want to express Time, then you should use 一点。 for example, 现在几点？ 现在一点。however if you want to express the level of interest or the level of pain or the amount.. use 一点儿。 an example would be 你头疼吗？有一点儿。

 

I am a southern Chinese, and I know for a fact that we do not add 儿字 to words, mostly because many south Chinese dialects have flat tones...aka we are not used to rolling our tongues... if you can‘t speak 儿化音 then just say 一点点， but if you say 一点 in the northern China people might think you are talking about time. 

 

Also if you do some research, you will know that the standard pronunciation of Mandarin is originated from the pronunciation of Beijing dialect. so I think it's better to learn it from the northern Chinese that way no matter where you go in China, people can understand you. 

 

when Beijinger add 儿字 to a word it doesn't pronounce as another character. for example, 饭(馆儿) is actually just two characters when a Beijinger pronounce it.  here（馆儿）is actually pronounce as one character.  But Southern Chinese have the tendency to pronounce the 儿 as another character 饭馆儿... so to northern Chinese, this pronunciation sounds super weird.

 

I hope this is helpful.

 

Yes, definitely very useful. Thank you!

[889]

"It's like how Americans like to get a kick out of asking a Brit to pronounce the word 'squirrel'."

 

Actually, according to a British linguistics expert, Jeremy Clarkson, it's the Germans who have difficulty saying squirrel. He said that "asking people to pronounce the word would be a surefire way to identify undercover German spies. 'No German, no matter how well they speak English, can say 'squirrel.'"

 

https://www.livescience.com/18932-germans-squirrel.html

[Shelley]

2 hours ago, 889 said:

British linguistics expert, Jeremy Clarkson,

ah you don't mean that, do you? 

 

"In an episode of the British TV show "Top Gear," host Jeremy Clarkson jokingly suggested that asking people to pronounce the word would be a surefire way to identify undercover German spies. "No German, no matter how well they speak English, can say 'squirrel,'" Clarkson asserted."

 

The quote above is from the article in your link.

 

"Carlos Gussenhoven, a phonologist — a linguist who studies the sounds used in different languages — at Radboud University in the Netherlands, believes the challenge lies in squirrel's syllable structure."

 

This Is the linguist mentioned in the article.

[889]

Oh, I think Clarkson is a man of many talents.

[Shelley]

1 hour ago, 889 said:

Oh, I think Clarkson is a man of many talents.

I think you may be in a minority or just pulling my leg

 

[Dawei3]

Christa – A few stories may help give additional context to the answers you’ve been given (and please forgive the length of the below).

 

If you use Beijing pronunciation, you’ll often have people react to you favorably, even from people from the south who don’t normally use 儿.  Many people see erhua as a favorable standard accent.   To emphasize, in the examples below, no one was saying I spoke Chinese well, they were purely commenting on my accent in regards to using erhua.

• When I was still new at learning Chinese, the owner from a local Chinese restaurant in the US said something I didn’t understand.  He had a Guangdong background, but also spoke Mandarin.  I asked him what he said and he said “I said you have a good accent.” 

• When I was escorted across our site in Hangzhou (i.e., in the south), a coworker from the area noted “Your Chinese is very standard.”  (你的中文很标准.) 

• A Taiwanese friend in the US noted “You have a good accent.”  I questioned this and he went on to say that while he was born in Taiwan, his father was from Beijing.  He had been convinced that the Beijing accent is the “correct” one. 

• Someone from Fujian I had just met noted “Your Chinese is better than mine.”  He had been speaking Mandarin almost his whole life and graduated from college in China using Mandarin.  His Mandarin was a million-times better than mine!  However, many from Fujian have been taught their accent is “bad”, hence his comment.  (other Fujianese made similar comments about their "bad" Mandarin)

One counter example to the above:  Also when I was very new at learning Chinese, I used 一点儿 with a Cantonese & Mandarin speaking colleague from Hong Kong who lived in the US.  She said “That’s wrong!  It’s 一点, not 一点儿.”  I mentioned my lessons teach 一点儿 and they said it was common in the north.  She said “I’ve never heard 一点儿 in my whole entire life.”  At the time, I actually believed  her.  However, later I realized she couldn’t have gone thru life without ever hearing 一点儿 (particularly since she lived in the US and interacted with Chinese from across China).  I think she just wanted my Mandarin to fit her idea of standard, so she used an extreme criticism.

 

One thing to add about erhua use:  When a native Beijing friend of mine called a waitress “fuwuyuan” 服务员, not 服务员儿, I asked about why she didn’t use 儿.  She said “I feel that 儿 is rude to use with titles of people.”  Hence, even though I sometimes hear 儿 used with the title of people, I follow her lead and don’t. 

 

(Finally, I absolutely agree with DavyJoeslocker about Beijing cab drivers seemingly using erhua with every word.  Also, as Abcdefg alludes to 玩儿 has become  common across the country.  玩儿 is seen as a “fun” way to say “fun,” even for people in the south). 

[GregO]

1 hour ago, Dave1 said:

One thing to add about erhua use:  When a native Beijing friend of mine called a waitress “fuwuyuan” 服务员, not 服务员儿, I asked about why she didn’t use 儿.  She said “I feel that 儿 is rude to use with titles of people.”  Hence, even though I sometimes hear 儿 used with the title of people, I follow her lead and don’t. 

 

This is particularly interesting to me. Having lived in a village south of Beijing, I do not believe I ever heard 服务员 without the 儿。 I probably heard 美女 and 帅哥 just as much which are certainly rude by many western standards but none of these seemed to have a negative or rude connotation. That said, where I lived was a bit 落后。 Also, it is my understanding that the 儿化音 is stronger in the southern reaches of Beijing. Some of my favorites are 碰瓷儿 and 没地儿  when used in 我肚子没地儿 ：-）

[stapler]

1 hour ago, Dave1 said:

(Finally, I absolutely agree with DavyJoeslocker about Beijing cab drivers seemingly using erhua with every word.  Also, as Abcdefg alludes to 玩儿 has become  common across the country.  玩儿 is seen as a “fun” way to say “fun,” even for people in the south). 

 

I've encountered trouble when using 玩儿 in the south. On numerous occasions it's caused a break in the conversation and I've had to restate what I just said as 玩 in order to be understood. This is usually with older people, but sometimes younger people too. I don't believe the younger people don't know what this sound is. Rather I believe that using an 儿化 word when the rest of my speech has no 儿化 is somehow jarring or off putting for the native speaker. Because of this I've been trying to eliminate the 儿化 artefacts in my speech (词儿 causes me particular trouble for some reason) to make the way I speak more consistent.

 

Another difference to your experience is that I've never been praised for using 儿化, nor have I had favourable reactions. I have also found the statement that "your Mandarin is standard" is a commonly used piece of hollow praise (and indeed a euphemistic way to imply that your Chinese is very stilted) used by Chinese when talking to foreigner beginners regardless of whether or not you use 儿化.

[Shelley]

My second (and I think my best) teacher said she was teaching us about 儿化 so we would recognise it and be able to understand what was being said to us , not necessarily for us to use it. There were a couple of exceptions one of which was 玩儿 which we were taught to use as if it was just a word meaning to play.

 

She said that until we had progressed to an advance level, we should not try to add 儿 to avoid getting it wrong. If you have lived in the north eg Beijing you would then be in a better position to learn the correct usage.

So to the beginner or even intermediate learner I would learn it, recognise it, understand it but don't use it until you are confident in the usage.

 

@Christa again I notice your desire to know the standard use/pronunciation of something, again I say I think this is not so easy to pin down, in English there are many accents, dialects, and usages, very few speak "standard English" sometimes know as BBC English (which now is as diverse as the UK so is not an example of a standard). When I first arrived in the UK I could not understand the accent from the north (Geordie) and had a hard time believing it was the same language as I had heard in films, TV etc when I lived in Canada. So try to absorb things and realize that there is no real standard among the ordinary people of such a large country with many different ways of speaking. I think you will drive yourself up the wall trying to pigeon hole everything.

 

[DavyJonesLocker]

7 hours ago, GregO said:

This is particularly interesting to me. Having lived in a village south of Beijing, I do not believe I ever heard 服务员 without the 儿

 

Same  here. I never heard 服务员儿  and i eat out about 5 times a week, the 员 is very emphasised. There is no question as to the tone as its highly stressed ,... given you usually have to yell it out to get their attention 

(but i don't eat in posh places)

[889]

Back in the days, hotels had 服务员儿 more or less permanently stationed on each floor and you'd have to call out to one to get the door to your room unlocked. So it was a call you heard again and again in China, always with an 儿 at the end and an 服 at the beginning, but with 务员 really crushed inbetween, turning four syllables almost into one.

[Dawei3]

The examples I gave were explicitly about the use of 儿化, not on my speaking ability.  In my experience, Chinese are extremely supportive & encouraging of those learning and saying just a few words will often elicit praise (in a warm genuine way).  The commentary on accents is a very different thing.   

 

The discussion of standard accents is somewhat common, particularly among college educated individuals.  If you ask someone who isn't from Beijing "why do you have a standard accent?", odds are they'll have an immediate answer as to why - they know exactly what you are asking about.  That is, the issue of standard accent isn't just a thing with foreigners, it's a discussion amongst Chinese as well.       

 

GregO - When I asked my friend about not using 儿 with people's titles, the way she said her answer implied that she recognized other people may think differently, but she thought 儿化 with people's titles was rude, so she doesn't.  I went with her personal observation since she is an educated polite person.  However, I don't know if her view is common/uncommon.   

[js6426]

What an interesting thread!  Thought I would add what I was taught at uni here in Harbin (all the teachers also have to pass the Putonghua test that was mentioned) - the 'er' sometimes results in a change in meaning, but other times just softens the sound of the word.  Basically what Kathy Lu's husband said.  For example you would use 哪 if you were going to follow with some sort of object, or 哪儿 if you were going to follow with a place. 

 

We were also taught that often you still add the 'er' sound, even if it wasn't written.  I remember this specifically in our first midterm - we had to write the correct pinyin, and one of the words was 聊天, written just like that.  I wrote it down as 'liao tian', and lost points for not adding the 'er'！Again, exactly as Kathy Lu's husband said.

[Flickserve]

10 hours ago, GregO said:

Having lived in a village south of Beijing, I do not believe I ever heard 服务员 without the 儿

 

8 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

I never heard 服务员儿

 

Opposites in same part of the country equals headaches