大山

[笨笨德]

你們太龜毛啦，他好厲害。我覺得他的口音就是一個特色。

Look at it this way, if you speak english with, for example, a slight french or irish accent but with a colloquial and generally correct grammar, you can communicate perfectly but you have the extra quality of a special characteristic that does not interfer with your communication.

You obviously dont want the foreigner accent where the tones are following the native language's phrasing, which I have to admit I too now find rather amusing, but hey being able to "spot he is a foreigner after 2 sentences" is no different that spotting a beijinger after 2 sentences.

incidently, when i asked some friends about him, they all said that he is amazing, but that they prefer to listen to foreigners with silly accents, as it provides much more entertainment

[hakkaboy]

What channel and at what time is Dashan's TV programme helping foreigners to learn Chinese on?

[Ncao]

What channel and at what time is Dashan's TV programme helping foreigners to learn Chinese on?

It's on CCTV-9

[Desmond]

When looking at what I want out of my Mandarin studies, what kind of accent I want to strive for, how strong a grasp I have on my grammar, and the breadth of my vocabulary, then I just look at what I appreciate and what bothers me about talking to foreigners in my own country.

When someone's grammar is too poor, I find it akward to piece together what they're saying, and it takes too much work. My desire to talk to them goes down.

When someone's vocab is too poor, either they don't understand words that I say (explaining too many words to them during a conversation) or they are using the wrong words when speaking, confusing me, the I find them harder to talk to.

When someone's accent is poor (saying "th" like "s" is ok, but then if they can't seem to pronounce a lot of our phonemes, or perhaps they are really inconsistent, pronouncing words wrong all the time) then I find them harder, and less desirable, to talk to.

Point is: an accent doesn't need to be like DaShan's. I originally wanted a perfect accent, as it would be a thing of status in my mind, but it's too much work that can be spent on a wider vocab and better grammar. I discovered this when I went to Hangzhou this summer. My pronunciation was by far better than my vocab or grammar. When I wasn't understood, I got annoying, thinking "I worked to hard to pronounce things right, and now they can't understand me?" It wasn't till my friend pointed out that, sure, my pronunciation was great, but I just wasn't using grammar very well and that was what was confusing everyone. As well, with more vocab I could have made things a heck of a lot clearer.

So don't place one of these three qualities way above the others! If two of them are great but one is terrible, then it is gonna bring the rest of them down!

[Desmond]

That was my posting about the Suzhou/Hangzhou accent

One thing I'm curious about, how many Chinese learners out there (non natives) are learning Chinese with the "standard" accent (differentiating between n and ng, c and ch, etc), and how many are not?

I know some people who want to speak a "standard" whereas others (if, for example, living in Shanghai or Taiwan) decide to speak more with the local mandarin accent.

-----

I've made a poll about this! So please don't reply to this in here, go here instead!

[bomaci]

Thought I'd revive this old thread by providing some more in-depth analysis of what makes Dashan sound "non-chinese". Below are two example sentences taken from "Fan Yunnan".

I have also attached sentences from an interview with beijing actor 傅彪 saying some of the same words for comparison.

1. In this sentence there is actually a tone mistake. Dashan pronounces 也得 as 3-1 instead of the correct 2(modified 3rd tone)-3. Compare with the sentence where 傅彪 says 也得. (example1.mp3).

2. In this sentence Dashans second 真实 overempazises the second tone of 实. Compare dashans sentence final 真实 with 傅彪s. When he says it the 实 is reduced to a neutral tone.

example1.mp3

example2.mp3

[gato]

Thought I'd revive this old thread by providing some more in-depth analysis of what makes Dashan sound "non-chinese".

Native Mandarin speakers (Beijingers, at least) also slur their words a lot more in everyday speech than Dashan does, which is probably why non-native-Mandarin speakers (including southern Chinese) find them somewhat hard to understand. Dashan tends to enunciate every character very clearly, which unfortunately gives him away as a non-native.

[heifeng]

completely random thought:

do you guys think that dashan would pass the putonghua exam that chinese teachers have to go through? that is exam seems pretty tough....very picky.... if he's over emphasising certain characters (i.e. if one is suppose to be qingsheng or something like that) then maybe he wouldn't....

ok, random thought over for now...

[flameproof]

do you guys think that dashan would pass the putonghua exam that chinese teachers have to go through?

Of course not. He has no formal teachers training. I guess most English speakers would fail TOEFL (or whatever) too.

On the topic of accents: Who cares? Most Mandarin speakers are quite far away from standard Mandarin.

I have a "外国" friend who speaks perfect Mandarin, but he learned it in Liaoning and speaks with that accent naturally. Also, his Chinese wife does not speak English. He can use other accents too, but it would be a bit phony, same as when I try Scottish.

[bomaci]

On the topic of accents: Who cares? Most Mandarin speakers are quite far away from standard Mandarin.

It is not a matter of whether you care or not, but some posters were wondering why Dashan sounds non-chinese to some, and I gave some reasons as to why they may feel this way.

[flameproof]

Dashan sounds non-chinese to some, and I gave some reasons as to why they may feel this way.

I think it's completely subjective. They probably saw him. Or were ask a leading question.

Afterall, 100% native speaker fluency can be achieved, if that's the target. But I wonder what for?

I think Dashan's success is not really just about his language. It was the beginning of the TV entertainment age in China. Just remember that in the 80th features about fertilizer production were the highlight of weekend program.

That lucky timing combined with his entertainment skills, language, and highly popular Xiangsheng performance created hi success.

I am sure it would be much more difficult today. Not because o there are more foreigners. Simply there are far more TV programs to choose from. And nowadays you seldom fast risers such as "Supergirl".

[carlo]

I should be analysing my own mistakes rather than someone else's, but you can see there is something wrong from the two pitch tracks.

I'm impressed that bomaci could spot this, it's all over in like 0.25 seconds. I still wonder how many listeners would get it under test conditions (you don't know who the speaker is, you can only listen once etc.)

A few years later I can tell you who the 'pitch perfect' lady was: see www.aihua.net.cn (btw I didn't just mean that she sounds fluent, but that I can't tell if she is native or not).

[hidden12345]

carlo what software program is that?

[crow610]

大山 and sexy in the same sentence.....how dare you!

Ha ha...every American I know hates him because

a) he is Canadian

B) his Chinese is extremely good

But if you really think about it, anyone who studies a language for 10+ years is bound to achieve that level. Well, maybe not as good as DS but at least near fluent. Going aback to the op who mentioned about people practically peeing in their pants if you say 你好 is quite common, so don't let it get to your head.

One day I asked my tutor if my tones are correct. And she responded by saying no. Originally I thought she meant I was mixing my tones up but what she really meant was I pronounce the tones with an American accent. So it's not saying that my tones are incorrect because most Chinese people understand what I am staying, and I really try hard to get all my tones right so I can be fully understood. I then began to think of all my friends back in the US who were born in a foreign country whom although can speak perfect English, yet still carry their native accent.

I guess after coming to this realization I was less hard on myself trying to sound like a native Chinese speaker, and started focusing more on grammar and expanding my vocab.

Good luck all on your studies!

[carlo]

The software is Praat. Free, believe it or not.

I think crow610 has the right attitude. Though from a linguistic point of view, it's interesting to understand why it is so hard for adult learners to develop a native-like accent in the target language.

[赫杰]

A few years later I can tell you who the 'pitch perfect' lady was: see www.aihua.net.cn (btw I didn't just mean that she sounds fluent, but that I can't tell if she is native or not).

Thank you carlo.

***

I just wanted to add, I must say I am very very impressed with the pronunciation of people like 大山 and Charlotte MacInnis, but what impresses me more is what people say. What I mean is, there are some foreigners (some on this forum) that have a gift to write really well or just express themselves really well in the Chinese language, so ridiculously well that it just...well it will just make you crap your pants, and it is these people that truly impress me and leave me speechless. I would really like to see some of like 大山's writings or something...

[randall_flagg]

I started this thread 16 months ago and it seems ridiculous to me now that I had to ask who Dashan is. He is everywhere! Once you see him, you can't unsee him. Is that a good thing? I don't really know. Anyhow, thanks for all the posts and comments!