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benlehman at 10:47pm on 21/09/2004
benlehman at 10:47pm on 21/09/2004So, today, I signed up for the Chinese Students Association at the little table they have on the main drag of the Berkeley campus. One of the girls at the table asked me, "So, why are you interested in the club,"
"Oh, I'm interested in Chinese culture and language."
{Can you speak Chinese?}
{I can speak a little bit.}
{Oh! He has a mainland accent!} This was followed by a good deal of talk about my accent, before finally deciding that it is a northern accent.
Dude. I have an accent.
"Oh, I'm interested in Chinese culture and language."
{Can you speak Chinese?}
{I can speak a little bit.}
{Oh! He has a mainland accent!} This was followed by a good deal of talk about my accent, before finally deciding that it is a northern accent.
Dude. I have an accent.
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(warning: Long, meandering babble about Standard Mandarin follows.)
Whilst everone *outside of Beijing* says that standard Mandarin is a Beijing accent, people who live inside the city know tht the Beijing accent has nothing to do with standarad Mandarin, and that the Beijing accent is, in fact, almost totally incomprehensible to a standard Mandarin speaker. Although it does sound rather jaunty and piratical (you commonly replace any end consonants with a rolling "r.")
The only people who speak standard Mandarin as an actual local dialect are Manchurians and (correct me if I'm wrong on this, Eileen), parts of Taiwan.
It makes good sense to teach standard Mandarin for a couple of reasons -- first, it is the formal language but, perhaps more importantly, most other dialects are defined by dropping or transforming standard Mandarin sounds. For instance, a convincing southern accent can be made by turning r->y, sh->s, ch->c, zh->z. It is really easy to make this transition one way (in fact, I started speaking in a southern accent when I was visiting the south), but not the other way (which requires you to make new sounds.)
In any event, I'm just happy that I have an accent that isn't "dumb American."
yrs--
--Ben
I'm authentic!
Re: I'm authentic!
Still, a Nanjing accent, eh? Do you turn your shi into si?
yrs--
--Ben
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Dude. I have an accent.
Either that or none of them are from northern China and so arrived at that conclusion by process of elimination. <grin>
Whilst everone *outside of Beijing* says that standard Mandarin is a Beijing accent, people who live inside the city know tht the Beijing accent has nothing to do with standarad Mandarin, ...
Reminds me of how everyone says that the "standard" American TV English accent is from Ohio. If you ever spend time around people with actual Ohio accents you know that isn't true.
It's more west coast, but then not even that. So far as I can tell, it's an honest-to-Betsy hybrid.
But this thread is about Chinese, not English.
Grats on your creds!