Dailen Study - local language

[Harvey]

Hey guys,

When studying Mandarin in Dalian, would be able to use it with random natives on the street normally? Or is Dalian like Shanghai, with its own distinct dialect that the natives normally use to speak with each other?

[kaifaqu crue]

Like most of the north-east, everyone understands Putonghua (Mandarin). They all speak it as well, with a bit of an accent. This accent is not difficult to get used to after a couple of months and is nowhere as severe as in other parts of the country. There are a couple ways in which the locals stray from conventional pronunciation (对不对 is sometimes pronounced 'dei bu dei' instead of 'dui bu dui', for example), but they are also relatively rare and easy to get used to.

I recall you are considering going to Dalian to study Putonghua. As far as the feasibility of practicing it on the street or wherever with locals, it would be just as easy to do this in Dalian as it would to do it in a place like Beijing. In fact, it's probably easier, as you are going to run into far fewer English speakers.

[stephanhodges]

So are you saying there IS a dialect in Dailen, or just that pronunciation is just bit different, but that everyone "on the streets" usually speaks putonghua?

[Harvey]

as you are going to run into far fewer English speakers.

This is exactly why I'm considering 大外 over BCLU.

Also, I can speak Japanese, I live in Japan now, and I heard that at Dalian there are more Japaense enrolled than westerners. I figure if I'm going to be stuck speaking non-Chinese while I'm there, I might as well get stuck speaking Japanese rather than English ya know?

Are you really sure though about this dialect thing? Won't i be in the streets in Dalian talking with native Chinese, learning things, then going to the class room and being all confused because things sound different?

How would you compare this to learning putonghua in Shanghai? Is it basically the same difference?

[Lu]

The Dongbei (and I suppose that includes Dalian) way of speaking Chinese is very close to standard Putonghua, although not entirely the same. If you know Mandarin you can understand the people on the street, although there'll be a few differences that you'll have to get used to.

Shanghainese and Cantonese on the other hand are very different from standard Mandarin, almost unintellegible if you only know Mandarin.

[kaifaqu crue]

It's like Lu said. Everyone in Dalian speaks Putonghua. There's no local language, dialect, whatever (I don't know much about linguistic terms) like in Shanghai or Guangzhou that locals speak among themselves. There's an accent, of course, but local people's way of speaking is going to be very similar to what you would be learning in class. I studied in Shenyang for a semester and had taken a Mandarin class from a Taiwanese professor before spending a year and a half in Dalian, and it wasn't difficult at all to get used to the accent. No city in China has residents that speak perfect Putonghua, though I've heard that Changchun comes close. So, yeah, I'm sure about the dialect thing or whatever you'd call it. Studying in Dalian would be no different from studying in Beijing in terms of opportunities for putting what you've learned in class to use while speaking with locals and vice-versa.

I've never studied Chinese in Shanghai, but I know that Shanghaiese is widely spoken among local residents and would be nearly useless in a Putonghua class.

There are quite a few Japanese people (students and businessmen) in Dalian, Japanese signage is common, and you'd have plenty of opportunity to keep your Japanese up.