Mandarin speaking ability

[ala]

This is a typical Shanghainese conversation:

[extremely fast syllables in a rush][followed by uh....][extremely fast syllables in a rush][mm....][extremely fast syllables in a rush][en.....][extremely fast syllables in a rush][some transition word like 但是呢 deizine, with the ne pronounced for a long time.....][extremely fast syllables in a rush]. It can get kind of annoying.

Modern Shanghainese and Ningbohua are probably the two fastest dialects in Chinese. There is a Ningbohua radiostation I used to listen to, and the hmm... and en... are always present, because people simply need to pause and think. In Shanghainese at least, the number of possible sounds is extremely limited and most syllables are pronounced briefly.

But I disagree with the basic premise that Chinese is monosyllabic, so the entire discussion was moot. In Shanghainese, there's even tone sandhi word parsing and the words are usually two or more syllables. 猪肉 tzi'nyuk = pork, period. The tones and speed pronounced for 猪肉 is different from 猪 and 肉 pronounced separately. Besides, pig is 猪鲁 tzilu in Shanghainese. To say "pig meat" in Shanghainese we say: 猪鲁肉 (tzilu nyuk), and to say "meat of pig", we say 猪鲁额肉 (tzilu e nyuk). In the "pig meat" case, the 肉 is pronounced as if the character is independently pronounced (without tone sandhi), while 猪鲁 is still pronounced as one word unit: tzilu. The same goes for the "meat of pig" case. Shanghainese is clearly not monosyllabic. And the insult 猪头三 (tzidousei) for idiot is definitely one word too (-sei being a root suffix for person); the 头 for one is not the same as that in the two word 猪鲁头 (tzilu dou). So the example with 猪肉 in the article doesn't apply for at least one Chinese dialect. If Chinese had spacing, a Shanghainese would know exactly where to space.

[Quest]

*猪头三*

“猪头炳"?

[skylee]

丙 = No. 3

??

[Quest]

is that how they are related?