Understanding Heavily accented Mandarin?

[Yihui]

As a Mandarin learner, I'm wondering if others like have run into problems of difficulty understanding heavily accented or dialectal varieties of Mandarin? For me, because of the people I'm used to talking to, I can only understand perfectly spoken Mandarin, and I have almost immediate difficulty with regionalects.

I was watching a Chinese movie "A World Without Thieves", and I was able to understand everything spoken by most of the main characters, However, one of the characters spoke in a heavy regional dialect/accent, of which I could understand nothing. I didn't even think he was speaking in Mandarin, but my Taiwanese friend assured me that he was. Another is listening to old speeches by Mao Zedong or Chiang Kai-shek. To me, they sound nothing remotely like Mandarin, yet my friends who are native Mandarin speakers are able to understand most of it.

Edit: I seemed to have posted in the wrong forum. Can a moderator please move to "Speaking and Listening"? Thanks

[Long Zhiren]

That is a frustration that comes with learning any language.

Don't worry. The comprehension through heavy accents comes with time and practice. Even native speakers have some difficulties.

Dialects are a different beast though. They are not simply different accents or different pronunciations. They are arguably different languages.

Accents & Pronunciations: Beijing Mandarin--Hunan Mandarin--Szechuan Mandarin--Taiwan Mandarin is like UK English--US Midwest English--US Southeast English. Mao Tse-tung spoke a Hunan Mandarin. Chiang Kai-shek spoke a southern Mandarin. Beijing Mandarin speakers often complain that southern speakers' Mandarin is as annoying to hear as machine gun fire. Even worse are non-native Chinese speakers when they often speak Mandarin with very heavy foreign accents and randomly messed up tones. Talk about difficult to understand! However, the non-native Chinese speakers often get more slack and their efforts are better understood and appreciated.

Dialects: Mandarin--Cantonese--Hakka is like English--German--Norwegian

[FSO]

An old linguist's joke:

Q: What is the difference between a language and a dialect?

A: The language is spoken by the people who have the guns.

Like Long Zhiren noted, with practice and exposure your ear will become acustomed to heavily-accented spoken language.

[Lu]

I'm not sure about Chiang but Mao did not speak Mandarin, he spoke Hunanese, and even many Chinese had (have?) trouble understanding it.

[Long Zhiren]

he spoke Hunanese, and even many Chinese had (have?) trouble understanding it.

As best as I am familiar with it, Hunanese is just heavily accented (different pronunciations) Mandarin. Much of my first learned Mandarin was oral and of Hunan origin. Yes. Many Chinese have trouble understanding it. But Hunan Mandarin, like Szechuan Mandarin, is for all intensive purposes...Mandarin. All I had to do was make "minor" adjustments to pronunciation.

Examples of Hunan Mandarin:

garbage: 垃圾 la1 xi1 (la1 ji1)

foot: 脚 jiou2 (jiao3)

of (possessive): 的 di4 (de5)

"Standard" Mandarin (pinyin in paranthenses) speakers will be confused to hear all of these.

IMO, pinyin is wonderful, you can use it to describe heavily accented Mandarin!

I'm looking forward to brushing up on Szechuan Mandarin again. IMO, that's a cool beast.

[roddy]

Edit: I seemed to have posted in the wrong forum. Can a moderator please move to "Speaking and Listening"? Thanks

use the icon rather than a note in the thread, and the response time might be a bit quicker than 2 weeks

[Language Guy]

It's true that even native speakers can have trouble with both accents and dialects.

A few years ago I had a French exchange student, and we were watching Comedy Central's the Kings of Comedy. He couldn't understand most of what they were saying, especially Bernie Mac, who was speaking his quickest and most slurred ebonics to an entirely black audience. The more I tried to notice, the more I realized that even I was not understanding every word he said.

[Roee]

I used to spend a lot of time in a specific city in China, after awhile I've brought along some Chinese friends there. I had to translate for them as they could not understand the "local Mandarin". Plenty of Chinese have a problem understanding one another. It takes some time to get used to the influences of the local dialect on the spoken Mandarin.

For sure as you advance and expend your knowledge you can make educated guesses by conext and such.

[melas]

i stayed in Changsha (hunan) for a month. At first, it's a little bit difficult to understand their speech, they often confuse "H" sound with "F" sound, but as time goes by, it's not that difficult to get used to what they're speaking. I think what is really difficult to learn a regional accent without living in a region.

[self-taught-mba]

Just one word: taxi-driver