Speaking a "standard" accent vs "non-standard accent"

[Desmond]

There was a recent post (about DaShan) that intrigued my interest. I was about to reply there with this question, but decided to make it a poll instead.

In that post, one person was talking about how he was learning with a more taiwanese-style accent, saying more of an "n" sound in place of "ng". I'm curious how common this is.

My question: How many Chinese learners out there (non native-speakers) are learning Chinese with the "standard" accent (differentiating between n and ng, csz and chshzh, etc), and how many are not?

I know of some people who prefer to speak a "standard" style of accent (the kind promoted by China, not necessarily the Beijing accent). I know of others (who, for example, may be living in Shanghai or Taiwan) who decide to speak with more of a local style accent of Mandarin.

Remember, I'm saying speak, not learn. Many people do learn the words as "shang" and "cheng" but say them more like "sang" or "san" or "ceng" etc.

As for me, I'm learning the standard. My reasoning is, even though I went to Hangzhou and was influenced by a non-standard style, was that it can only help me as a foreigner to be understood wherever I go. As I have no plans to stay in any particular location in China for years on end, the standard is probably the best for me.

On the other hand, one of my friends went to Taiwan to teach English and has adopted a more taiwanese style, because it was more applicable for her stay there. Another has parents from Shenzhen, so she prefers that accent as it is in her family.

I invite your comments and opinions!

[Joei Villarama]

Unfortunately, I am in such a beginners' level that I can't even distinguish the present accent where I am immersed here in Tianjin. I have difficulty recognizing the words but eventually, I hope the nuances of various accents from different parts of China will be distinguishable. It might take some time though. : )

[wai ming]

Hmm... I'm not really sure whether the way I speak would be classified as standard or non-standard under your description, Desmond. I think my current way of speaking would probably be somewhere "in between", if such a thing exists.

When I first started learning Chinese, I definitely had a non-standard accent, influenced by my Malaysian-Chinese mother, who couldn't distinguish s/sh etc, n/ng, b/p (sometimes), n/l (sometimes) and h/f (sometimes), and who definitely did not do the Beijing 儿化 thing.

As I got further into my Chinese studies, I learnt pinyin, and my speaking consequently became more standard. I could distinguish n/ng, b/p, n/l, h/f and s/sh. However, I still had a lot of trouble distinguishing c/ch and z/zh, and my sh was never as strong as a Beijing person's (think the kind of sh sound produced by Taiwanese singers). And I still wasn't used to the whole 儿化 thing.

In my last year of high school, I went to Beijing. People told me I sounded native/fluent, but also commented that I had a 南方口音, which I think was due to my lack of distinction between c/ch and z/zh, and the fact that my sh sounded somewhat closer to an s sound when speaking quickly. I also couldn't say 儿 the way Beijing people pronounce it; when I tried to say "不儿道" (不知道), it sounded "standard", but not like real 北京话.

My first year of university saw me learning Chinese with a Beijing native, which meant I finally mastered the whole 儿化 thing. My tutor also helped me to be more conscious of the distinction between sounds such as chi/che and zhi/zhe, but she never really bothered about my c/ch and z/zh distinctions. By the end of the year, I could speak in an accent quite close to the "standard" accent.

Nowdays, I'm not really learning Chinese anymore, and most of the time I speak Mandarin, I'm speaking to Malaysian/Singaporean people. This means that I tend to let things such as c/ch, z/zh and even s/sh slide, especially when I'm speaking at normal conversational speed. On the other hand, it's sometimes difficult for me to understand their Mandarin, because I'm not used to mixing up n/ng, n/l etc. I tend to avoid using 儿化, unless I'm speaking to someone who uses it themselves, although I still say "你去哪儿？" rather than "你去哪里？” (my 哪儿 tends to sound like 'naa' with a long 'a' sound) and sometimes I say "zhèi ge" for "这个" and "nèi ge" for "那个".

So, go ahead and classify my accent as you will

[Desmond]

This isn't a highly scientific, so I'm not gonna worry about being objective For the purposes of this poll, you sound like you'd be in the non-standard category, because you still have a fair number of non-standard influences. Plus, even though you _can_ speak more standard, you choose not to, and that was the purpose of my poll, to figure out what you actually speak, not what you know.

Thanks for all the comments! You're Chinese-learning history has been really interesting, all these loops!

How did you like your stay in Beijing? I'm most likely headed there at the end of next summer.

[wai ming]

Hehe... scientific or not, I voted for non-standard, in light of your reply , although I wouldn't necessarily say I "choose" to speak the way I do (apart from consciously leaving out 儿化), it's just the way I seem to speak naturally - unconsciously. Whether it's due to environment or other factors, I'm not really sure.

OT: I had a great time in Beijing, although I was only there for a month, and it was the middle of winter, so very very cold! It was a great chance to speak Chinese outside of the classroom, and it also made me realise that not everyone speaks beautifully-clear classroom-standard Mandarin (read taxi drivers here! ), even in Beijing! Anyway, I'm sure you'll have an amazing time there

[Desmond]

It seems the way you describe it, that your Mandarin has pretty much solidified. That's one experience I'm curious to see what is like. Because I'm still learning so much, my Mandarn is still heavily affected by my prof, my visit (and future visits) to China, and my sources of practicing (right now it's heavily based on Chinese television, which is what I think I really tie my learning of a fairly standard accent to).

I find at the drop of a hat I can change my accent to one without ch/sh/zh and with little distintion between n/ng.... thanks to my stay in Hangzhou. But it doesn't feel natural.... so maybe that's just like my (not very good) ability to imitate a British accent.... will always be there but just isn't the dominant, sit-back-on-the-couch-and-have-a-relaxing-chat kind of accent...

I think that's another reason for me to learn the standard... It's probably much easier to imitate a converging accent (ie ch/c converge and n/ng converge) than it is to learn a diverging accent (taking all your c's and speaking them as either c or ch, and taking all your converged n/ng and trying to figure out which is which). In another thread a person said his taiwanese prof said 从 as chong2. Maybe that's a result of a faulty diverging attempt?

[Lu]

I learned standard Mandarin, then went to Beijing and continued speaking very standard (with a bit of extra erhua) there. Last year I went to Taiwan, lived there for 9 months. I didn't like the people there asking me if I had studied in Beijing because I had a Beijing accent, so I asked how I could sound more native. Drop the zhchsh and erhua, I was told, and I did. So after 9 months Taiwan I spoke Taiwan guoyu rather than standard Putonghua, sometimes even not distinguishing -n and -ng. Just after coming back to Holland I spoke with a guy from Beijing and within a few sentences he could hear I had just returned from Taiwan.

Strangely, now my Beijing accent is back. The zhchsh is still a bit zcs, but the erhua is back, and I spoke with a guy from Nanjing today and he told me I sound Beijingnese. I guess my 'basis' Chinese is standard Mandarin, but I can accomodate to other accents easily.

[笨笨德]

i rather like the sound of a taiwanese accent, but its hard to comprend sometimes, especially the lack of n/ng differeniation. when i head south travelling, where more people speak taiwanese, the accent is so thick, i often find myself saying, sorry i cant speak taiwanese to someone, then they reply, hey im speaking mandarin!

here is a common joke in taiwan...

笨德: 我要一個瘦肉刈包

老板: 加蛋嘛？

笨德: 好！

老板: 加蛋要加十塊喔！

笨德: 那我到外面等好了！

get it? no neither did I until someone pointed out jia dan sounds like 這等 in taiwanese...

誰打開冷氣？

[necroflux]

Yeah I would be the guy who started n/ng discussion on the 大山 thread. I would characterize my speech as taking some cues from the "standard" beijing dialect and some from Taiwanese style speech. There are some in my opinion objectively nasty Taiwan-style Mandarin practices such as SI instead of SHI, to my it just sounds.. ack. So I would say that I speak a standard dialect with the exception of most of the -eng words sounding more like -en words (-ang all remain as -ang however). Fu and Hu are clearly distinguishable (should be easy for any native English speaker to emulate, so why not). I don't use those sexy Beijing legs (known to most as 儿) and stick with 這裡, 那裡, etc. So looking at my pinyin chart, the only non-Bejing aspect of my language is -eng related.

In the end I learn whatever my language instructor teaches me, and as his family is very well educated and originally from China/Taiwan I have to trust in that until I actually go overseas next fall (to Taiwan, as a matter of fact).

[Desmond]

Sexy Beijing legs, that's the funniest thing I've heard on here yet! I think I'm gonna have to use that from now on!

Yeah, so by the sounds of it, you seem to speak with a pretty standard style of accent.

Your point of "we can say the diff between f and h, so why not say it?" is the same mentality I have. We can say the diff between "n" and "ng", so I may as well say it, it's not going to make me any less clear! And as a foreigner with a small vocabulary and struggling grammar, I may as well make myself as clear as possible, in as many facets as possible. If everyone can understand the standard accent on TV, then they should be able to understand me if I use that accent.

Those are just my personal reasons of course. I'm not criticizing others' reasons for using other accents.

[necroflux]

Why is that funny, I thought that's what they were really called? Hehe j/k. Yeah I agree with you, if you can differentiate between two sounds that are unquestionably supposed to be different - why not? In this case I think I can easily make the switch to a harder -ng in the future should the need present itself, even after getting firmly entrenched into a non heavy version. In the worst case I'll be in China, tell a cabby to "den3 yi1 xia4!" have them respond "shen2me??" and repeat "dung3 yi1 xia4!". Dung3 because that's sounds like a more accurate translation of the sound to me.. maybe THAT's why I don't like the ng - it makes words sound like shit! ;)

[Desmond]

Sometimes I think of the same thing when I say 等 but that was just when I first learnt it, now the filthy English meaning has pretty much disappeared

The funny thing with saying dun instead of deng is that there is no dun sound, so you can't get mixed up. Just like saying "seng" instead of "sheng". that I don't have problems with. It's when it can be mixed up (many examples, such as saying cou instead of chou, or zen instead of zhen, pin instead of ping).

Of course Chinese people aren't there for my learning benefits. That's like expecting a Jamaican to speak like an American for foreigners to understand. Although I wouldn't complain (joking!)

I was thinking... maybe I'd get better responses of the things I said in this post were more crass? Such as: Do you speak "real" mandarin or "fake, bad, ever-so-naughty" mandarin? And stuff like "what? You speak non-standard? What's wrong with you?" Of course no attention is better than bad attention! (P.S. those were jokes, I don't feel that way!)

[笨笨德]

just incase anyone reading is this thread and has been learning chinese in their own country and is start to quake at the thought of chinese being spoken with no difference between n/ng sh/s sounds, etc... this is not the case, in taiwan at least, its just that the difference is less exaggerated than you will hear in beijing. you soon get used to hearing the difference, at which point, a standard beijing accent, starts to sound harsh and over pronounced...

ask any taiwanese person to impersonate a beijinger for a laugh... they will fit about 300 of necroflux's sexy legs into the sentence, have their tongue rolled up tighter than a beijing ducks arse, and have a 4th tone that will cut you to pieces!

what does the beijing impersonation of a taiwanese accent sound like, anyone?

[LiYuanXi]

ben ben de.. hahaha.. Please don't make me laugh!

Personally i felt that the chinese spoken in the news is pretty standard enough. I speak with an accent but if there is a need, i can speak standard chinese too. Like in my exams, i have to read and converse in perfect chinese.

[carlo]

I have a funny tendency to mimic the way other people speak, no matter the language. It must be a subconscious 'rapport building' strategy, I don't know, I've noticed my parents do that too. As a result I've been asked if I'm from / studied in a variety of places I've barely heard of, the only constant is that I allegedly confuse people.

For Chinese I think 30ish college educated white collar types from N China are a better model than 40ish+ Beijingers, less 土话 and 'sexy legs', sort of more neutral sounding (I guess you can call it 'standard Chinese'). Speaking in public with a strong local flavour is powerful comic relief, but I'm wary of the stereotype 'fluent foreigner = cross-talk show' and I think word choice is far more important than 'accent', as long as you can make yourself understood.

I really like the way some 评书 actors speak (eg. 连丽如), not really the 'accent' but rather their elegant, terse language. It's almost hypnotic. Some Irish writers speak English that way. And I'd kill for a Bollywood English accent.

[Desmond]

I love it when non-American/Canadian English speakers try to imitate our accent. Sometimes it can be extremely accurate, and sometimes it's totally off, which is really funny in itself!

I knew this one girl once, I hung out with her a few times, and it wasn't until one night I was driving her and some friends somewhere, and she had a lot to drink, and she was putting on this really convincing London accent. I asked her how she did it so well, and she replied "I'm from London! I'm just here to study for a couple years, and I didn't want to stand out so I copy a north american accent. I just can't copy it well when I've been drinking". I was shocked... all this while I had never suspected!

This makes me want to go to a place such as Australia or Britain (Liverpool!!) and learn to fake one of their accents. It would be such a fun commodity, a useless party trick to add to the bunch, I guess.

So do 30ish college-educated white collar types speak with more of a TV standard accent? I've noticed that when I chat with some of the Chinese people in various (non-chinese) classes of mine, some try to put on a more standard accent (namely one guy from Shanghai that attempted to Sh/Ch/Zh more with me). But he would have been just as understandable with S/C/Z in my mind, as it wasn't very effective

[ophion]

I prefer the Taiwanese accent.

[LiYuanXi]

erm.. pardon me... but what are 'sexy legs'?????!!!

[necroflux]

Sexy legs refers to the character 儿 - because in my mind (perhaps not the cleanest in the world) that character looks like the legs of a model posing, feet in opposite directions - and female of course. See it now?

And hey we all know Beijing is the fashion capitol of China, so in my crazy world of learning Chinese I'll just believe that's where one can always find "sexy legs" - 在那儿!

I mean look at: 女儿, I think the men of ancient China were obsessed with legs..

[Ferno]

that doesn't look sexy, the right "leg" looks messed up.

In fact, look at 尢, it is the radical/character for "lame" as if the right leg is broken.