Taiwanese Mandarin to Chinese Mandarin

[jinjin]

Hi, I grew up learning Taiwanese Mandarin (phrases such as mom "ma ma" are both sound one where as I think in China they pronounce the second ma with a dot above it or something). But simple things like this (other than on simple words) confuse me when spoken too quickly.

Another example, in Taiwanese mandarin, I didn't learn pingyin but I learned the bu-pu-mu-fo (not sure how to write it out). And words like garbage can (lu-shu-tong in Taiwanese Mandarin) is pronounced (la-shi-tong). Smoking in Taiwanese Mandarin is tso yiang and in China it's shi yiang? (blow smoke v. suck smoke)

Has anyone else run into this problem? Are there any other common words I should look out for (anyone else with this same problem?)... I know bicycle is different in China than in Taiwanese Mandarin (both mandarin, just different idioms and accents).

It's like comparing SoCal english to New Jersey English...and I know the accents in China/Beijing vary greatly, but just watching Mainland Chinese cooking channels and news channels, it's more difficult for me to understand (unless I read the captioning--but I also learned traditional chinese characters and I forgot alot of them anyway).

[smalltownfart]

Maybe you were taught non-standard Mandarin?

smoke - 烟 - yan, not yiang. (Wade-Giles: yen)

垃圾桶 - lajitong

I too am more used to the Taiwanese style of Mandarin. Watching TV programs from China, I find that the speech speed is way faster and it takes a while to get used to it.

I suggest you take a little time to learn hanyu pinyin, it will make it easier for you to communicate with other mandarin learners.

[jinjin]

I'm not sure what you mean by "non-standard mandarin." I was taught mandarin by my parents and at Chinese School in the U.S. I understand my relatives in Taiwan perfectly (and they me) and I do fine in Taiwan. I'm positive I speak proper Mandarin (Taiwanese pronounciation). I also tested verbally in Mandarin in undergraduate and placed very well.

Like I said, I did not learn pin ying (as in, my pin ying in this post is going to be incorrect)

There is no point in even knowing Wade-Jiles--that's just another failed attempt of westernizing Chinese and of Brittish Imperalism in China.

When was a "d" sound ever a "t" sound? ts? and Zhang, the most common Chinese surname is Chang (with a "ch" and long "a" sound?!) I could go on, but I'll stop myself.

But yes, I found that Mainland Chinese is very very fast and they are a little less careful with their enunciation--makes it very hard for me!

[md1101]

i always saw the wade-giles system as a way for foreigners to learn chinese or at the least pronounce chinese cities names... pinyin seems to be the preferred model now but i wouldnt say it was an attempt (the wade giles system) to force a westernized system on china... unless there is something evil going on that i dont know about.

[imron]

I'm not sure what you mean by "non-standard mandarin."

It's possibly because your way of romanising the Chinese words is non-standard, which causes confusion.

For example, when you write "shi" for smoking, I'm guessing you probably meant for it to rhyme roughly with the English word "he", making the word for smoking 吸烟. This is written as xi1 yan1 in pinyin, and unfortunately, when using pinyin, the "shi" sound is a completely different sound. Compare shi and xi.

Also, you've added a 'ng' ending to several sounds that in pinyin would only have an 'n' ending, which would again give cause for someone to think that your Mandarin would be non-standard - even if your pronounciation was quite standard, and the misunderstaning was caused only by a difference in romanisation.

These being the case, it's not unreasonable for someone familiar with pinyin to think that the word "shi yiang" for smoking would be non-standard, even though you actually meant xi1yan1, which is completely standard. Also, on mainland China, both 抽烟 (pinyin chou1yan1) and 吸烟 (pinyin xi1yan1) are used, although the former is more often used in spoken language.

I agree with smalltownfart. If you spend a little bit of time familiarising yourself with hanyu pinyin, it be of great benefit and lead to less misunderstandings when communicating with other learners of Mandarin.

[gato]

This thread will probably be helpful to you:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/80-how-many-chinese-characters-are-there48&highlight=taiwanese+mandarin

Characters with different pronunciations on Mainland / Taiwan

[zixingche]

Not distinguishing between "-n" and "-ng" (also s and sh etc), and less use of the neutral tone are very common in Southern China. I suppose these features have become sort of "standardised" in Taiwan.

[atitarev]

Both 吸烟 (simplified) / 吸煙 (traditional) xīyān and 抽烟 (simplified) / 抽煙 (traditional) chōuyān are OK in both mainland China and Taiwan but please use some standard romanisation (hanyu pinyin), Wade or type in Chinese characters. Otherwise, we start discussing what we hear (d, t, ts) and how we should spell it.

[Lu]

Mainland Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin are a little bit different, but not in an extent that it would be problematic to understand each other. If you're learning Chinese now, don't worry about this difference, if you go to either the Mainland or TW you can just adapt when you get there.

Pronounciation is a bit different: Taiwanese tend to speak more clearly, but they also tend to leave out the retroflexes (zhichishi becomes zicisi), the erhua (never dianyingr or yidiar, always dianying and yidian), and some Taiwanese say l instead of r (rong is pronounced as long).

Some words are also different (like tudou: on the Mainland a potatoe, on Taiwan a peanut), or pronounced a bit different (like lajitong is lesetong, yanjiu has a different tone on jiu), but these are things that one can get used to quite quickly.

And do try to pick up some pinyin, it's not difficult, especially if you already know some Chinese and bopomofo.

[skylee]

like tudou: on the Mainland a potatoe, on Taiwan a peanut

Really? Peanut?

[hetkende]

And another one: using "有" in a sentence like this below, which seems to be uncommon in Beijing Mandarin:

你昨天有沒有看到他？

(Did you see him yesterday?)

Would anyone in Beijing say that?

[owen]

I can confirm that 土豆 is peanut in taiwan... Got a very long session of laughter when i called a potato as such in front of students.

Also don't ask for a 出租车 in taiwan. Despite the fact that its kind of a descriptive term, it just doesn't compute (Taiwanese people are all made by Acer ).

Using a chinese dictionary in Taiwan one definitely encounters these problems, but as mentioned before, its nothing that really impedes communication.

[gato]

I think they call potato 马铃薯 and taxis 计程车. Don't know if they'll understand “打的”.

“打的” seems to be borrowed from HK Cantonese. I couldn't understand why people used da3di1 to refer to taking the taxi until I went to HK, where I saw lots of 的士 (taxi) signs.

[sjcma]

In Taiwan, you'll very likely encounter 吸菸 for "smoking" instead of 吸煙.

煙 means smoke.

菸 means tobacco leaf.

Same pronounciation for both.

[Kenshin_87]

It is best to stick to either Mainland or Taiwan Chinese if you are a new learner...

When you feel that you can handle 1 side... You can try learning the other side... It will benefit you

As a native, I learnt both Mainland and Taiwan Chinese... I myself sometimes gets a little messy with it... But on the average I'm okay... Haha

[Quest]

“打的” seems to be borrowed from HK Cantonese. I couldn't understand why people used da3di1 to refer to taking the taxi until I went to HK, where I saw lots of 的士 (taxi) signs.

I am not exactly sure, but I think in HK they say 截的士 instead of 打的, which is used in Guangzhou.

[jinjin]

now that I'm in BJ, my taiwanese accent is pretty noticeable. I've had professors ask me if I was born in Taiwan b/c I speak mandarin like I grew up there and I am an ESL (can you use ESL as a noun? probably not, apparently my English is going...ha!). The biggest problem is, as someone already mentioned, Taiwanese people don't discriminate between "s" and "sh" much and we rarely roll our tongues. So even the Taiwanese pronunciation of the word for student is different. The second word sounds like it begins with an "s" instead of a "sh" and it is second tone instead. This is especially bad when I go to the markets and try to barter b/c they start higher thinking I'm a tourist from Taiwan visitng... What's really bad is that of the mandarin words I know well, I say very accurately (with a Taiwanese accent), others that are new or I don't use often, I say with an American accent. This is very bad b/c some Chinese students asked me if my parents are in Taiwan and sent me to America as a spoiled brat. This certainly is not the image I want, especially in light of my career goal.

my goal is to work in business, so I want to get rid of all accents and speak like a newscaster (that's just the best example of accurate pronunciation I can think of, but I could be wrong, but you get my drift). So I can move to Shanghai and BJ and HK and Taiwan and people won't know where I'm from. I've been told that in Shanghai my Taiwanese accent is more common but I'd still rather not have it.

[gato]

This is especially bad when I go to the markets and try to barter b/c they start higher thinking I'm a tourist from Taiwan visitng... my goal is to work in business, so I want to get rid of all accents and speak like a newscaster (that's just the best example of accurate pronunciation I can think of, but I could be wrong, but you get my drift). So I can move to Shanghai and BJ and HK and Taiwan and people won't know where I'm from.

For your goals, I think it's of higher priority to improve your vocabulary (reading and speaking) and fluency rather than your "accent." While it's bad to have a completely foreign accent (I'm not sure if there's such a thing as an "American accent" that's common to all American learners of Chinese), it's not much of a barrier, if at all, to have a Taiwanese accent in China if you are in the business world. Bargaining with vendors in the Silk Market is quite difficult from bargaining in the boardroom. The couple of million Taiwanese doing business in China can probably attest to that. For now, if I were you, I would focus on reading and listening to Chinese material of increasing difficulty dealing with business and politics (b/c business and politics are inseparable in China).

CCTV's "Economics Half Hour" 《经济半小时》 would be a good choice if it's not too much of a stretch for your current level. Both the video and an exact transcript of each show is available online so you can follow along and repeat you can understand just about every word.

http://www.cctv.com/program/jjbxs/01/index.shtml

CCTV's "Economics Half Hour" 《经济半小时》: videos (click on the little icon next to the title) and transcripts of many shows are available on the site. A little like a more commercialized version of "60 Minutes." The show covers many subjects, not just the economy, despite its name.

[Quest]

For business, accent is the last thing you'd want to worry about. If you look clean and neat, and you speak fluent and understandable Chinese, you won't have any problems. How many business men in China speak Mandarin without accent? How many politicians speak Mandarin without accent?

[Gulao]

I'm not sure if there's such a thing as an "American accent" that's common to all American learners of Chinese

There is. And boy is it painful to listen to.