Pronunciation differences in Shanghai

[stewie]

After repeated listening to the "standard Beijing accent" audio samples at the talking dictionary website, I heard these differences while in Shanghai:

"no problem/it's nothing"

I was hearing "mei si" for "mei shi", the "si" starting with a distictive "s" rather than "shi"

"not"

I was hearing "bu si" for "bu shi", the "si" starting with a distictive "s" rather than "shi"

"this one"

I was hearing "dse ge" for "zhe ge", the "ds" sounding like that in "suds" rather than "j"

So do these differences indicate the speakers were raised in Shanghai, or in any particular region?

[ala]

It indicates they were raised somewhere south of Shandong. Taiwan Mandarin speakers do the same thing.

[ala]

BTW, the Shanghainese word (not to be confused for Shanghai Mandarin accent) for 是 is pronounced like the "ze" in "to haze"... 不是 in Shanghainese is "vezu" (like English vuh + haze)There are no retroflexes in Shanghainese. Most sh's, ch's in Shanghainese are pronounced as the English z.

Most young people can pronounce the Pinyin "shi" perfectly.

[malinuo]

Is this pronunciation limited to South of Shandong? I met a lady who claimed to come from up North somewhere, and she had the same pronunciation. She may have been from Shenyang or there around.

[xiaocai]

I think it is just an overall tendency, exceptions do exist.

But to me it would be quite surprising that someone from northeast of China cannot curl his or her tongue.