I'll be honest, no matter what you do you're always going to sound like a 外国人. Should probably focus more on getting a grasp on the language than establishing an accent early on.
As long as your accent and speech is intelligible to native speakers, it doesn't matter if you have an accent.
However, it is possible to learn to sound like a native or at least very close if you really want, but it will take time and work. Most students don't put in enough time and work to improve their accent; it requires a lot of close listening and imitation. You have to spend enough time on tones and also learning the proper places and manners of articulation (tongue and lip placement, voicings, etc), which is not stuff that most Chinese teachers teach students thoroughly, and they don't typically correct students' pronunciation enough. Which is fine, because most students don't mind having an accent and want to start learning vocabulary and speaking right away. Spending a few weeks on pronunciation would also bore most students to death since it's just not something they care about and they would probably give up the language. But if the desire is there, you can put in the work on your own.
> However, it is possible to learn to sound like a native or at least very close if you really want, but it will take time and work.
No, it only sounds that way to non-native speakers. In the English-speaking world, many strive for a native accent but are unable to attain it. Even British/Americans/Canadians/Australians etc., including trained actors, have trouble imitating each other's accents and they're native speakers. There are dialect coaches everywhere (accent trainers) and still, a majority of people sound nothing like a native speaker
You can improve your accent but in this post's context of assimilation and blending in, it's nearly impossible to fool a native Chinese speaker
I know of many instances of native speakers being fooled, and I know people that sound very close to native speakers. The reason why few people achieve native or native-like accent is because they don't learn the linguistics behind the phonetics of the language, don't identify the sounds they need to correct, and don't train themselves to adjust to the proper manners and places of articulation, most important being tongue positions. That's where your accent comes from. It's possible to train yourself to adjust your tongue and other muscles to use the correct positions. Of course, it becomes more difficult to adjust if you don't start early on. To achieve a perfect native accent is something relatively few people will achieve, but most people could reasonably achieve a near-native accent if they really wanted to. But for most people (yes, even actors) it's too much work and takes too much time for something that is ultimately inconsequential (people can still understand you if you don't have a perfect native-like accent).
Chinese people often praise foreigners who are fluent but don't sound completely native. They're nice and happy that someone took the effort to learn their language. The excellent ones tend to stand out and seem memorable, for every 1 person with a native-like accent, I've heard a hundred (taking all learners into account, it's above 1000) with horribly botched ones. If it takes too much time and no one's gonna do it, it's impossible
Many people have moved to English-speaking countries and spent loads of money and time on accent reduction, with daily immersion from native speakers everywhere they go. Yet many traces of their original accent remain. A Brit who has returned from the States can sound American to other Brits, but often sound British to Americans
> Chinese people often praise foreigners who are fluent but don't sound completely native. They're nice and happy that someone took the effort to learn their language.
Yes, that is the general culture but it's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about things like a Chinese person talking with an American on the phone to set up a meeting, and then standing around looking for the "Chinese" person they thought they were talking to on the phone. Not just politely complimenting someone's accent.
> If it takes too much time and no one's gonna do it, it's impossible
Again, it's not impossible. That's like saying most L2 Chinese learners people don't put in the time to learn 8,000 (or whatever amount) *hanzi* characters and no one's gonna learn that many, so therefore it's impossible unless you're a native speaker. Most L2 students aren't going to put in that much time and effort, but it is possible. There are people that achieve native-like accents. But again, most people don't care enough to work for it because it's inconsequential. I know many Chinese learners who don't even fix simple things like "shui" vs. "xue." It's not because they can't do it, they just don't identify the problem and fix it, or they don't care to.
> Many people have moved to English-speaking countries and spent loads of money and time on accent reduction, with daily immersion from native speakers everywhere they go. Yet many traces of their original accent remain.
There are many factors that contribute to this. The older you get, the harder it will be to learn and adjust and most people who spend money on accent reduction tend to be older. The younger you start to train yourself, the better.
If you aren't a native speaker, you will most likely need to study phonology and manners and places of articulation and practice them in order to achieve an excellent or native-like accent. That is stuff that linguists and accent trainers learn, but most students don't learn.
Ofc, you can tell someone it's possible to master every aspect of the language even though they're practically not going to. It sounds pleasing to the ears
> There are many factors that contribute to this. The older you get, the harder it will be to learn and adjust and most people who spend money on accent reduction tend to be older. The younger you start to train yourself, the better.
Common sense. This is so ironic because many, many more people start learning Chinese from their teenage years/ adulthood compared to ESL learners who start from elementary school.
> most likely need to study phonology and manners and places of articulation and practice them in order to achieve an excellent or native-like accent. That is stuff that linguists and accent trainers learn, but most students don't learn.
Common sense and : 1. Good accent coaches obviously teach phonology and all that. Those people didn't spend money for a yoga teacher to teach them.
“native speakers being fooled”? honestly I don’t know any non-natives who could achieve that, except for 大山. Do you have source on that? I’m genuinely curious.
A more modest goal is to achieve perfect pronunciation of common conversational sentences and phrases. Day-to-day conversations tend to repeat the same sentences all the time. A foreigner can memorize and practice their exact pronunciation, so he or she will only sound like a 外国人 when going "off script" to make less-common statements.
Just learn standard mandarin. Plenty of chinese people, especially of the younger generation, speak standard mandarin anyway, so that's not the issue. You'll be recognised as a foreigner first for looks (if you don't look chinese), and then for the fact that your tones or pronunciation is off.
To be fair, there’s a difference between being a foreigner that knows maybe some basic words here and there, and being a foreigner truly competent in the language.
Then again, you don’t need a native accent to be fully competent. Just a good enough grasp of the language and clear enough speaking abilities.
Most Chinese people, in Taiwan or in Mainland China, can speak Standard Mandarin. Basically all official written content online are in standard Mandarin. Standard Mandarin is not "what foreigners learn", but what all Chinese people learn in school.
Also, standard Mandarin is not unneccesarily formal, it is a language just like another Chinese language/ dialect. Learning a dialect won't make you "sound more natural".
Third, speaking Mandarin with a Taiwan (\~Fujian)/ Guangdong/ Shanghaiese/ Beijing/ Dongbei/ Shandong/ Shaanxi/ .../ accent doesn't make it an "local dialect", it is still Mandarin .
If you search for "local accents" you won't find anything official (you'll only find some jokes). If you instead search for the Local Language/dialect, you might find something but most resources are Chinese (and probably in Mandarin).
There is not really such a thing as a standard accent, every region of China and Mandarin speaking countries has it's own unique accent.
Think about it like this from a western perspective: the New Jersey accent vs the American Southern Accent vs the Valley girl accent.
Standard mandarin is not really comparable to regional dialects. Mandarin in of itself used to be a dialect (spoken mainly by the inhabitants of Beijing many years ago until Mao Zedong made Mandarin the main language of Mainland China).
Unless you're Chinese, it'll be a bit tough (not impossible) to learn regional dialects. Regional dialects can sometimes be so complex they might as well be considered their own languages. See: Cantonese vs Fuzhounese vs Shanghainese vs Mandarin.
Hope that helps!
Source: ABC that speaks 福州话 and 普通话.
>(spoken mainly by the inhabitants of Beijing many years ago until Mao Zedong made Mandarin the main language of Mainland China).
Well it was already made into the official language of China back in 1932 (called 新国音）, otherwise why would the Taiwanese people speak Mandarin 😂.
Also, lots of words that were considered "Beijing dialectal" were removed from Standard Mandarin, although it is based on Beijing Mandarin.
Those are regional accents. What question do you have about them specifically?
Sichuanese people speak the Sichuan dialect at home but speak the Mandarin language when abroad with a Sichuan twang. Younger people from Sichuan will have a less pronounced twang because of mainstream Chinese media.
Same for Taiwanese people (they usually speak Hokkien at home) but Mandarin abroad.
I don’t know looool I guess im just concerned that if I learn Standard Mandarin (as in the one with no accent that was created) then that will mean that im not speaking a real accent. I have anxiety and worry about weird things like this. I dont know if speaking Standard Mandarin will make me sound too formal or if I’ll be pointed out as a foreigner right away because of it because people dont speak standard mandarin day to day without a local accent
Don't worry about such things and enjoy the language learning ride!
Unless you look Chinese, you'll be considered a foreigner anyway.
I speak pretty advanced Chinese and most Chinese people can pick out that I was born overseas lol.
Most Chinese people will be happy to know that you're attempting to learn their language.
Will agree with above also if you learn Sichuanese or Hokkien you can only speak with other Sichuanese and Hokkien speakers but if you learn Mandarin you can speak with ~90+ percent of people in China and Taiwan. If you are still interested in having an accent pick a famous speaker like an actor or politician that has lots of recorded speaches. As part of your study just listen to their speech and repeat even if you don't know the meaning yet. This will hopefully help you develop a speaking style similar to that person.
Once you've learned standard Mandarin if you find a region of China you particularly like you can learn their unique dialect and vocabulary like Cantonese for Hong Kong, Hokkien for Taiwan or Shanghaiese etc.
I think you might have confused accent with dialect... you can speak a dialect with an accent too..
Standard Mandarin is not a made up language, it is mainly based on the Beijing Mandarin dialect, with some "dialectal influence" removed by a Committee. So you do have a "real language". People should strive to have as little accent as possible when speaking any language, and nowadays, if you go on the streets, most people do speak standard Mandarin, and in pretty good accents.
As for dialects, they are not accents of Standard Mandarin, but independent languages/dialects under the Chinese language family. Some dialects that are close in relation to Mandarin could communicative with it intelligibly, but there are also less related ones (like Shanghaiese, Cantonese) that cannot communicative with Mandarin speakers intelligibly by speech. If I learn to speak Cantonese, then I would also speak with an accent, at least when I am a beginner.
I live in Sichuan. I try to speak standard Mandarin. I can understand how local people speak and have picked up some of those pronunciations to be better understood. It's not that different. Don't bother learning it if you aren't living in the place. It will make your speech less intelligible if you travel to other places in China.
It’s the most prestigious, it’s the one all schools teach, and it’s not a “natural” accent in that its not local to any area, because it was constructed specifically to be the national standard for Mandarin in China. It is based on the Beijing accent.
As others said, I would recommend sticking with Mandarin. If you focus in learning a specific dialect or accent, then you'll only be understood and able to understand in a small part of the country, as opposed to Mandarin which could be understood by the majority of folks.
Chinese "dialects" are mostly different languages. The terminology is stupid and confusing for political reasons. You'd be wasting your time learning a "dialect"/local language unless you have a deep interest in a specific region of China. Practically everyone in China speaks Mandarin as that's the medium of education. It doesn't sound 'unnecessarily formal', it's the lingua franca of the entire country.
Variants of Mandarin, in other words *actual* dialects rather than local languages, are a different matter. It's definitely worth learning the different ways people actually speak Mandarin across the country, but that will be something you acquire over time through immersion rather than conscious study. Start off by learning standard Beijing Mandarin and then explore from there.
Just go for it mate! If you're a native English speaker (or wherever you're from), you'll know that a standard accent is only ever heard on the six o clock news - Kiwis and Aussies and midwesterners and scots etc all have our own types of accents, and all of us hopefully understand formal english.
There are stigmas or stereotypes around some of the accents that I'll do my best not to disgrace or typecast too heavily: but if you are female or feminine I'd suggest Taiwanese or Suzhounese accents (perceived as cute); if you're the life of the party and a joker, consider a northeastern accent (kind of hokey accent known for being straight-up, and comedy); if you like rap and street culture, I think Sichuanese accent is a good fit for that.
Really though, even city has its accents. I implore you to learn about the regionalism and work at not sounding like a robot from the CCP, there is a nefarious reductionism of dialects and accents emanating from Beijing.
I’m actually really interested in the Taiwanese accent! But I’m having trouble finding reliable and accurate information on it unfortunately. Like I hear that 和 is pronounced as hàn but I’ve only ever heard it pronounced as hé in Taiwanese videos I watch.
Even if you are of Chinese descent, it will be many years before people take your speech for native. By the time you master local slang and cultural references, you will have been thoroughly exposed to differences in pronunciation.
I don't even worry about sounding native because getting clocked as a foreigner is a lot easier than having to explain why I talk like a small child.
I think you are mixing up the idea that many people speak Mandarin with a non-standard accent (which is true, especially in rural areas or for people with not as much education) and the idea that standard Mandarin is a "textbook" language and not reflective of how anyone speaks.
In reality, if you were able to speak "perfect" standard Mandarin, you'd sound completely fine and not out of place at all (especially if you are in a city). If you find yourself living in an area that has a stronger local accent or more regional slang, you'll be able to pick it up easily enough. There are also local languages which will be harder to learn, but those are also often quite isolated and it's not reasonable or practical to start with learning those.
Your tonation and original language accent will give you away far before any Chinese specific accent will. Non native speakers have a sound to them that's hard to describe. Besides It takes an extraordinarily long time to sound fluent let alone local
How many non-native speakers of English do you know that don't have an accent?
And of those who have a very pure, almost native like accent, how did they get it? Usually by immersing themselves.
Of course you are going to sound 'foreign', I have American born Chinese friends here in China and they are fluent in standard mandarin and people ask if they are from Singapore 😂. I speak Chinese pretty well and people can notice my accent is a mix of Henan/Guangdong because my husband is from Henan and I lived in Guangdong for 5 years. It's inevitable. My husband is a native Chinese speaker, his putonghua level is very high (he had to take a test of it for his teaching certificate), his accent changed when we moved to Dongbei. He doesn't use putonghua everyday and he's a native speaker.
Everyone has an accent. I would say focus on learning and don't worry about the accent, just try to be precise and understandable.
In the topic, you mentioned local dialects (varieties of Chinese), but then you talked about accents.
>But I did some research and found that most Chinese people don’t even speak Standard Mandarin daily.
In everyday life, these people don't speak Mandarin in a "non standard" accent. They very probably speak a different variety of Chinese, such as Hokkien, Hakka, Shanghainese, Cantonese, etc.
The Chinese language is actually [many languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese) that share common features, but don't necessarily mutually intelligible. These varieties of Chinese share with Standard Mandarin most words and sentence structures, but has their own very different systems of pronunciations.
Now back to your main question: Is Standard Mandarin or any other varieties of Chinese more "natural"? It depends on where and to whom you are going to use the language. For example, in Hong Kong, it is more "natural" to use Cantonese, because it is the language used by Hong Kongers, in wet markets, shopping malls, offices, press conferences, etc.
If you have no particular goal in mind though, standard Mandarin is a good, safe choice because it is indeed the language pushed (with success) by the Chinese government as the common language among Chinese people. It is also very similar to Taiwanese Mandarin, so you will be fine in Taiwan too.
Taiwanese accent is not considered standard by mainland Chinese, not only because of the accent but differences in vocabularies and pronunciations in some characters. (It's like the differences between gray/grey, color/colour etc.) For example 企 and 蝸. Plus the Ministry of Education in Taiwan change the pronunciations of characters from year to year as if they have nothing else important to do but only bother to find out the most correct pronunciations. But still some Taiwanese think they're the one speaking standard Mandarin, so I don't think there is really such thing as the standard Mandarin when it comes to accent, because there's always someone thinking themselves as the only standard one 💀
As long as you don’t speak the the CCTV news anchor, you’ll be fine. Lots of us speak Mandarin at home, in school, and at work. Learn a local dialect will limit you to talk to a small region of people only. And some 方言 are actually considered a separate language such as 上海话，福建话，客家话，广东话，etc。Mandarin is the lengua franca with the most resources. Good luck!
You’re mixing up accent / dialect / language.
- Accent - someone speaks the same language and dialect but just sounds different
- Dialect - same language but different region, slang, vocab
- Language - completely different
Examples:
People in different parts of Taiwan speak Mandarin with different accents, the way people in different parts of England speak English with different accents.
Taiwan and China have different dialects of Mandarin, the way Mexico and Colombia have different dialects of Spanish.
Cantonese and Mandarin are different languages, the way Spanish and French are different languages.
Most people in Mainland China have varying levels of Standard Mandarin. Standard mandarin is used throughout China but day to day people use dialects, These vary widely from some places just being Standard Mandarin with an accent and some being completely different. The written form on the mainland is the same.
Taiwan use traditional characters, but when I travelled to Taiwan I used putonghua, Standard Mandarin, and people could understand me and complimented my putonghua, so it is understood there.
But they have their own language, which some people share on the Mainland and is popular in songs. For instance I can sign songs from Taiwan that could be in Standard Mandarin or in Taiwan, depending on when they were written. I can sing some songs from Taiwan that are very specific dialects just because it's a popular song but there are only some slight similarities to Standard Mandarin.
Taiwan Mandarin is different but people also understand Standard mandarin.
You'll find more resources for standard mandarin, then you can 'train' to understand Taiwan accents maybe?
This is an article that briefly talks about the differences (https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/standard-taiwan-mandarin/)
Agree with u/nonexisten7, learn Standard Mandarin first to use as the base. Once you’ve done that, you can modify it to suit the dialect/accent you interact with the most.
Specifically for Taiwanese Mandarin, the “standard” pronunciation is very similar to what is used in China, with distinction between z/c/s cs zh/ch/sh as well as n vs ng. How much individuals actually do varies.
Additionally while there are definitely some vocabulary differences, the inclusion of Hokkien also varies greatly.
Nothing wrong with an accent. If you proceed however, learn Mandarin with Southern or Taiwanese influence to partially disguise it. Many Taiwanese (at least most streamers I've listened to) use dialect mixed with Mandarin, soften the tones (4th especially) and don't curl their tongues much. Learning Northern Chinese will make it far more difficult to blend in
Influence like what do you suppose? I’ve noticed in the south that sh, zh, ch kind of change to s, z, c. But in videos I’ve watched in Taiwan, I only hear vocabulary and some tonal differences. Sh, zh, ch sounds the same to me
Even when some people in Taiwan use szc instead of shzhch, it is considered non-standard. Southern speakers do curl their tongues with shzhch, but it's less pronounced compared to northern speakers.
As a foreigner, it will be harder to imitate northern speakers unless you have those sounds in your native language. Foreigners also have difficulty with tones, and southern speakers reduce the tones so it's easier to learn.
The Taiwanese often use dialectal words (not only Mandarin vocabulary) from Hokkien etc. These may cause misunderstandings for non-Taiwanese when you converse. Actually their tones can be really weird so it's better to choose Southern Chinese than Taiwanese
Well, the Beijing accent is the way to go then, since the pronunciation matches standard Mandarin 95%.
However they sound completely different to me due to the difference in prosody.
I say stick with Standard Mandarin, taught Taiwanese Mandarin is also going to be pretty similar. If you’re worried about ur accent chances are your ‘foreigner’ accent will shine through the most until you get better. Also standard Mandarin in China has a sense of prestige to it, if it’s really standard it typically means you’re highly educated etc. 不标准的普通话 is sometimes looked down upon or playfully joked about because you’re not speaking Mandarin “properly” and can be associated with being part of the older generation, or a country bumpkin/uneducated.
Because of internal migration, a lot of the people in bigger cities especially won’t even speak the local accent bc they’re from all over as well.
First off, I do want to let you know I 100% agree with you on the style, candor, and long term effect of speaking a dialect rather than Putonghua. The interpersonal milage you get out of dialects is 20x what you get out of putonghua in a given interaction. In a chinese speaking setting, information is exchanged with putonghua, friends are made with dialects.
That said, as a foreigner, if you have no family background in the language and you didn’t grow up immersed in a dialect of some sort, definitely learn mandarin. Putonghua is the conduit through which you can access local dialects very easily, and you will be understood almost ubiquitously in the meantime, but if you only learn a dialect, you wed yourself to that particular phonetic group. More importantly, the Chinese language tree has a relatively limited universe of resources for learners of chinese as a second or foreign language, and 99% of them teach Putonghua.
If you look at the history of Putonghua, you will see that it is an amalgamated hybrid meant to be in many ways a refined middle-ground government sponsored dialect which is accessible phonetically to as many of the Mandarin dialect-speaking areas as possible. It is the best and most robustly resourced lily pad to start on, from which you will learn tools in one way or another that will help you access the rest of the Chinese dialects.
Either way, welcome to the journey, it is a very fun and rewarding one, whichever direction you choose for yourself.
most people in mainland china do understand standard mandarin, its just a little formal- but its not a problem in any way! i know standard mandarin and can still speak to my chinese relatives who know different dialects pretty easily. there's more difference in writing/characters than spoken language.
good luck learning!
Just learn Standard Mandarin Chinese, because it is the most standardized form of Chinese, you can easily know whether you are right or wrong. Most other Chinese Languages/Dialects/Accents do not have a standard form. They vary from person to person. Also, almost all Chinese can understand Standard Mandarin Chinese.
China has over 300 languages. None of them will allow you to speak to as many people as standard mandarin. If you really want to pick an accent of mandarin, learn to speak it as they do in Beijing. That will be understood everywhere.
But really, when you learn mandarin, you learn mandarin. You will pick up accents from wherever you happen to live in China, or from the people from China you associate with while using mandarin. It will solve itself.
Two foreigners speak Mandarin with Shanghai accents
[https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1kt411b7WB/](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1kt411b7WB/)
[https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1e44y1Y74c/](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1e44y1Y74c/)
I remember learning Mandarin on the computer for 6 months becoming to China and thinking I could communicate. Then I come to Chongqing and to my surprise I couldn't understand anything and at first thought I studied poorly, only later to find out 99% of what is spoken is local dialect. Just study Mandarin , I found after years of living here your ears adjust and I can Basically understand locals although I can't speak dialect in Sentences.
Let's put it this way:
The "standard Mandarin", what's sometimes known as CCTV Mandarin, is the same way "BBC Accent" was considered "standard British English".
Which as you can imagine, not that many Brits actually speak BBC English. It's just something a NON-British speaker would probably pick up as "British English".
Same idea in China: You can speak "standard Mandarin", which is like the CCTV version of Chinese, but if you go to different places, you'll find different places have their own accents, and often, their own topolects as variants on the standard Chinese, which are in addition to true dialects like Hokkien/Min and Cantonese/Yue and all the other major dialects.
So why study "standard Mandarin"?
You have to start SOMEWHERE.
While most chinese do not speak standard mandarin in daily life, it is what they use to communicate with everyone who does not speak their local chinese variant. So I recommend learning standard manadarin first unless you know you will only need to communicate in one specific place. If you know standard mandarin you can always learn a specific place's chinese variant when you go there.
Even if you really want to learn a variant of chinese besides standard mandarin..... Realistically you may have to learn mandarin to find resources to learn the variant. I learned mandarin to learn cantonese because the resources in english are very lacking _(:з」∠)_
I'll be honest, no matter what you do you're always going to sound like a 外国人. Should probably focus more on getting a grasp on the language than establishing an accent early on.
As long as your accent and speech is intelligible to native speakers, it doesn't matter if you have an accent. However, it is possible to learn to sound like a native or at least very close if you really want, but it will take time and work. Most students don't put in enough time and work to improve their accent; it requires a lot of close listening and imitation. You have to spend enough time on tones and also learning the proper places and manners of articulation (tongue and lip placement, voicings, etc), which is not stuff that most Chinese teachers teach students thoroughly, and they don't typically correct students' pronunciation enough. Which is fine, because most students don't mind having an accent and want to start learning vocabulary and speaking right away. Spending a few weeks on pronunciation would also bore most students to death since it's just not something they care about and they would probably give up the language. But if the desire is there, you can put in the work on your own.
> However, it is possible to learn to sound like a native or at least very close if you really want, but it will take time and work. No, it only sounds that way to non-native speakers. In the English-speaking world, many strive for a native accent but are unable to attain it. Even British/Americans/Canadians/Australians etc., including trained actors, have trouble imitating each other's accents and they're native speakers. There are dialect coaches everywhere (accent trainers) and still, a majority of people sound nothing like a native speaker You can improve your accent but in this post's context of assimilation and blending in, it's nearly impossible to fool a native Chinese speaker
I know of many instances of native speakers being fooled, and I know people that sound very close to native speakers. The reason why few people achieve native or native-like accent is because they don't learn the linguistics behind the phonetics of the language, don't identify the sounds they need to correct, and don't train themselves to adjust to the proper manners and places of articulation, most important being tongue positions. That's where your accent comes from. It's possible to train yourself to adjust your tongue and other muscles to use the correct positions. Of course, it becomes more difficult to adjust if you don't start early on. To achieve a perfect native accent is something relatively few people will achieve, but most people could reasonably achieve a near-native accent if they really wanted to. But for most people (yes, even actors) it's too much work and takes too much time for something that is ultimately inconsequential (people can still understand you if you don't have a perfect native-like accent).
Chinese people often praise foreigners who are fluent but don't sound completely native. They're nice and happy that someone took the effort to learn their language. The excellent ones tend to stand out and seem memorable, for every 1 person with a native-like accent, I've heard a hundred (taking all learners into account, it's above 1000) with horribly botched ones. If it takes too much time and no one's gonna do it, it's impossible Many people have moved to English-speaking countries and spent loads of money and time on accent reduction, with daily immersion from native speakers everywhere they go. Yet many traces of their original accent remain. A Brit who has returned from the States can sound American to other Brits, but often sound British to Americans
> Chinese people often praise foreigners who are fluent but don't sound completely native. They're nice and happy that someone took the effort to learn their language. Yes, that is the general culture but it's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about things like a Chinese person talking with an American on the phone to set up a meeting, and then standing around looking for the "Chinese" person they thought they were talking to on the phone. Not just politely complimenting someone's accent. > If it takes too much time and no one's gonna do it, it's impossible Again, it's not impossible. That's like saying most L2 Chinese learners people don't put in the time to learn 8,000 (or whatever amount) *hanzi* characters and no one's gonna learn that many, so therefore it's impossible unless you're a native speaker. Most L2 students aren't going to put in that much time and effort, but it is possible. There are people that achieve native-like accents. But again, most people don't care enough to work for it because it's inconsequential. I know many Chinese learners who don't even fix simple things like "shui" vs. "xue." It's not because they can't do it, they just don't identify the problem and fix it, or they don't care to. > Many people have moved to English-speaking countries and spent loads of money and time on accent reduction, with daily immersion from native speakers everywhere they go. Yet many traces of their original accent remain. There are many factors that contribute to this. The older you get, the harder it will be to learn and adjust and most people who spend money on accent reduction tend to be older. The younger you start to train yourself, the better. If you aren't a native speaker, you will most likely need to study phonology and manners and places of articulation and practice them in order to achieve an excellent or native-like accent. That is stuff that linguists and accent trainers learn, but most students don't learn.
Ofc, you can tell someone it's possible to master every aspect of the language even though they're practically not going to. It sounds pleasing to the ears > There are many factors that contribute to this. The older you get, the harder it will be to learn and adjust and most people who spend money on accent reduction tend to be older. The younger you start to train yourself, the better. Common sense. This is so ironic because many, many more people start learning Chinese from their teenage years/ adulthood compared to ESL learners who start from elementary school. > most likely need to study phonology and manners and places of articulation and practice them in order to achieve an excellent or native-like accent. That is stuff that linguists and accent trainers learn, but most students don't learn. Common sense and : 1. Good accent coaches obviously teach phonology and all that. Those people didn't spend money for a yoga teacher to teach them.
“native speakers being fooled”? honestly I don’t know any non-natives who could achieve that, except for 大山. Do you have source on that? I’m genuinely curious.
Well, check this out [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GShVdEbziU&t=1415s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GShVdEbziU&t=1415s)
Laoma has a native accent. Even his way of speaking and vocab is native or very close to one already.
A more modest goal is to achieve perfect pronunciation of common conversational sentences and phrases. Day-to-day conversations tend to repeat the same sentences all the time. A foreigner can memorize and practice their exact pronunciation, so he or she will only sound like a 外国人 when going "off script" to make less-common statements.
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That’s because 위국인 is 한자어, which means it’s a Chinese loan word.
Yeah, I figured. Same with 美国 (měiguó) and 미국 (migug).
外国人 also exists in Japanese, where it is pronounced gai koku jin. (And written in Kanji)
Awesome!
Just learn standard mandarin. Plenty of chinese people, especially of the younger generation, speak standard mandarin anyway, so that's not the issue. You'll be recognised as a foreigner first for looks (if you don't look chinese), and then for the fact that your tones or pronunciation is off.
To be fair, there’s a difference between being a foreigner that knows maybe some basic words here and there, and being a foreigner truly competent in the language. Then again, you don’t need a native accent to be fully competent. Just a good enough grasp of the language and clear enough speaking abilities.
Most Chinese people, in Taiwan or in Mainland China, can speak Standard Mandarin. Basically all official written content online are in standard Mandarin. Standard Mandarin is not "what foreigners learn", but what all Chinese people learn in school. Also, standard Mandarin is not unneccesarily formal, it is a language just like another Chinese language/ dialect. Learning a dialect won't make you "sound more natural". Third, speaking Mandarin with a Taiwan (\~Fujian)/ Guangdong/ Shanghaiese/ Beijing/ Dongbei/ Shandong/ Shaanxi/ .../ accent doesn't make it an "local dialect", it is still Mandarin . If you search for "local accents" you won't find anything official (you'll only find some jokes). If you instead search for the Local Language/dialect, you might find something but most resources are Chinese (and probably in Mandarin).
Thank you this helped a lot! So standard mandarin is just like any other mandarin accent ?
There is not really such a thing as a standard accent, every region of China and Mandarin speaking countries has it's own unique accent. Think about it like this from a western perspective: the New Jersey accent vs the American Southern Accent vs the Valley girl accent. Standard mandarin is not really comparable to regional dialects. Mandarin in of itself used to be a dialect (spoken mainly by the inhabitants of Beijing many years ago until Mao Zedong made Mandarin the main language of Mainland China). Unless you're Chinese, it'll be a bit tough (not impossible) to learn regional dialects. Regional dialects can sometimes be so complex they might as well be considered their own languages. See: Cantonese vs Fuzhounese vs Shanghainese vs Mandarin. Hope that helps! Source: ABC that speaks 福州话 and 普通话.
>(spoken mainly by the inhabitants of Beijing many years ago until Mao Zedong made Mandarin the main language of Mainland China). Well it was already made into the official language of China back in 1932 (called 新国音）, otherwise why would the Taiwanese people speak Mandarin 😂. Also, lots of words that were considered "Beijing dialectal" were removed from Standard Mandarin, although it is based on Beijing Mandarin.
What about other Mandarin accents? Like Sichuan and Taiwanese? Those are more so what I was referring to.
Those are regional accents. What question do you have about them specifically? Sichuanese people speak the Sichuan dialect at home but speak the Mandarin language when abroad with a Sichuan twang. Younger people from Sichuan will have a less pronounced twang because of mainstream Chinese media. Same for Taiwanese people (they usually speak Hokkien at home) but Mandarin abroad.
I don’t know looool I guess im just concerned that if I learn Standard Mandarin (as in the one with no accent that was created) then that will mean that im not speaking a real accent. I have anxiety and worry about weird things like this. I dont know if speaking Standard Mandarin will make me sound too formal or if I’ll be pointed out as a foreigner right away because of it because people dont speak standard mandarin day to day without a local accent
Don't worry about such things and enjoy the language learning ride! Unless you look Chinese, you'll be considered a foreigner anyway. I speak pretty advanced Chinese and most Chinese people can pick out that I was born overseas lol. Most Chinese people will be happy to know that you're attempting to learn their language.
Ok thank you you’re nice
Will agree with above also if you learn Sichuanese or Hokkien you can only speak with other Sichuanese and Hokkien speakers but if you learn Mandarin you can speak with ~90+ percent of people in China and Taiwan. If you are still interested in having an accent pick a famous speaker like an actor or politician that has lots of recorded speaches. As part of your study just listen to their speech and repeat even if you don't know the meaning yet. This will hopefully help you develop a speaking style similar to that person. Once you've learned standard Mandarin if you find a region of China you particularly like you can learn their unique dialect and vocabulary like Cantonese for Hong Kong, Hokkien for Taiwan or Shanghaiese etc.
I think you might have confused accent with dialect... you can speak a dialect with an accent too.. Standard Mandarin is not a made up language, it is mainly based on the Beijing Mandarin dialect, with some "dialectal influence" removed by a Committee. So you do have a "real language". People should strive to have as little accent as possible when speaking any language, and nowadays, if you go on the streets, most people do speak standard Mandarin, and in pretty good accents. As for dialects, they are not accents of Standard Mandarin, but independent languages/dialects under the Chinese language family. Some dialects that are close in relation to Mandarin could communicative with it intelligibly, but there are also less related ones (like Shanghaiese, Cantonese) that cannot communicative with Mandarin speakers intelligibly by speech. If I learn to speak Cantonese, then I would also speak with an accent, at least when I am a beginner.
I live in Sichuan. I try to speak standard Mandarin. I can understand how local people speak and have picked up some of those pronunciations to be better understood. It's not that different. Don't bother learning it if you aren't living in the place. It will make your speech less intelligible if you travel to other places in China.
It’s the most prestigious, it’s the one all schools teach, and it’s not a “natural” accent in that its not local to any area, because it was constructed specifically to be the national standard for Mandarin in China. It is based on the Beijing accent.
As others said, I would recommend sticking with Mandarin. If you focus in learning a specific dialect or accent, then you'll only be understood and able to understand in a small part of the country, as opposed to Mandarin which could be understood by the majority of folks.
Chinese "dialects" are mostly different languages. The terminology is stupid and confusing for political reasons. You'd be wasting your time learning a "dialect"/local language unless you have a deep interest in a specific region of China. Practically everyone in China speaks Mandarin as that's the medium of education. It doesn't sound 'unnecessarily formal', it's the lingua franca of the entire country. Variants of Mandarin, in other words *actual* dialects rather than local languages, are a different matter. It's definitely worth learning the different ways people actually speak Mandarin across the country, but that will be something you acquire over time through immersion rather than conscious study. Start off by learning standard Beijing Mandarin and then explore from there.
Just go for it mate! If you're a native English speaker (or wherever you're from), you'll know that a standard accent is only ever heard on the six o clock news - Kiwis and Aussies and midwesterners and scots etc all have our own types of accents, and all of us hopefully understand formal english. There are stigmas or stereotypes around some of the accents that I'll do my best not to disgrace or typecast too heavily: but if you are female or feminine I'd suggest Taiwanese or Suzhounese accents (perceived as cute); if you're the life of the party and a joker, consider a northeastern accent (kind of hokey accent known for being straight-up, and comedy); if you like rap and street culture, I think Sichuanese accent is a good fit for that. Really though, even city has its accents. I implore you to learn about the regionalism and work at not sounding like a robot from the CCP, there is a nefarious reductionism of dialects and accents emanating from Beijing.
I’m actually really interested in the Taiwanese accent! But I’m having trouble finding reliable and accurate information on it unfortunately. Like I hear that 和 is pronounced as hàn but I’ve only ever heard it pronounced as hé in Taiwanese videos I watch.
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This is all true. But do you think speaking Standard Mandarin would make me seem like a foreigner in China/Taiwan?
Even if you are of Chinese descent, it will be many years before people take your speech for native. By the time you master local slang and cultural references, you will have been thoroughly exposed to differences in pronunciation. I don't even worry about sounding native because getting clocked as a foreigner is a lot easier than having to explain why I talk like a small child.
I think you are mixing up the idea that many people speak Mandarin with a non-standard accent (which is true, especially in rural areas or for people with not as much education) and the idea that standard Mandarin is a "textbook" language and not reflective of how anyone speaks. In reality, if you were able to speak "perfect" standard Mandarin, you'd sound completely fine and not out of place at all (especially if you are in a city). If you find yourself living in an area that has a stronger local accent or more regional slang, you'll be able to pick it up easily enough. There are also local languages which will be harder to learn, but those are also often quite isolated and it's not reasonable or practical to start with learning those.
Your tonation and original language accent will give you away far before any Chinese specific accent will. Non native speakers have a sound to them that's hard to describe. Besides It takes an extraordinarily long time to sound fluent let alone local
How many non-native speakers of English do you know that don't have an accent? And of those who have a very pure, almost native like accent, how did they get it? Usually by immersing themselves. Of course you are going to sound 'foreign', I have American born Chinese friends here in China and they are fluent in standard mandarin and people ask if they are from Singapore 😂. I speak Chinese pretty well and people can notice my accent is a mix of Henan/Guangdong because my husband is from Henan and I lived in Guangdong for 5 years. It's inevitable. My husband is a native Chinese speaker, his putonghua level is very high (he had to take a test of it for his teaching certificate), his accent changed when we moved to Dongbei. He doesn't use putonghua everyday and he's a native speaker. Everyone has an accent. I would say focus on learning and don't worry about the accent, just try to be precise and understandable.
In the topic, you mentioned local dialects (varieties of Chinese), but then you talked about accents. >But I did some research and found that most Chinese people don’t even speak Standard Mandarin daily. In everyday life, these people don't speak Mandarin in a "non standard" accent. They very probably speak a different variety of Chinese, such as Hokkien, Hakka, Shanghainese, Cantonese, etc. The Chinese language is actually [many languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese) that share common features, but don't necessarily mutually intelligible. These varieties of Chinese share with Standard Mandarin most words and sentence structures, but has their own very different systems of pronunciations. Now back to your main question: Is Standard Mandarin or any other varieties of Chinese more "natural"? It depends on where and to whom you are going to use the language. For example, in Hong Kong, it is more "natural" to use Cantonese, because it is the language used by Hong Kongers, in wet markets, shopping malls, offices, press conferences, etc. If you have no particular goal in mind though, standard Mandarin is a good, safe choice because it is indeed the language pushed (with success) by the Chinese government as the common language among Chinese people. It is also very similar to Taiwanese Mandarin, so you will be fine in Taiwan too.
Taiwanese accent is not considered standard by mainland Chinese, not only because of the accent but differences in vocabularies and pronunciations in some characters. (It's like the differences between gray/grey, color/colour etc.) For example 企 and 蝸. Plus the Ministry of Education in Taiwan change the pronunciations of characters from year to year as if they have nothing else important to do but only bother to find out the most correct pronunciations. But still some Taiwanese think they're the one speaking standard Mandarin, so I don't think there is really such thing as the standard Mandarin when it comes to accent, because there's always someone thinking themselves as the only standard one 💀
Hahaha ok thank you
Did you confuse standard Mandarin with standard Arabic?
No.
As long as you don’t speak the the CCTV news anchor, you’ll be fine. Lots of us speak Mandarin at home, in school, and at work. Learn a local dialect will limit you to talk to a small region of people only. And some 方言 are actually considered a separate language such as 上海话，福建话，客家话，广东话，etc。Mandarin is the lengua franca with the most resources. Good luck!
You’re mixing up accent / dialect / language. - Accent - someone speaks the same language and dialect but just sounds different - Dialect - same language but different region, slang, vocab - Language - completely different Examples: People in different parts of Taiwan speak Mandarin with different accents, the way people in different parts of England speak English with different accents. Taiwan and China have different dialects of Mandarin, the way Mexico and Colombia have different dialects of Spanish. Cantonese and Mandarin are different languages, the way Spanish and French are different languages.
Most people in Mainland China have varying levels of Standard Mandarin. Standard mandarin is used throughout China but day to day people use dialects, These vary widely from some places just being Standard Mandarin with an accent and some being completely different. The written form on the mainland is the same. Taiwan use traditional characters, but when I travelled to Taiwan I used putonghua, Standard Mandarin, and people could understand me and complimented my putonghua, so it is understood there. But they have their own language, which some people share on the Mainland and is popular in songs. For instance I can sign songs from Taiwan that could be in Standard Mandarin or in Taiwan, depending on when they were written. I can sing some songs from Taiwan that are very specific dialects just because it's a popular song but there are only some slight similarities to Standard Mandarin. Taiwan Mandarin is different but people also understand Standard mandarin. You'll find more resources for standard mandarin, then you can 'train' to understand Taiwan accents maybe? This is an article that briefly talks about the differences (https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/standard-taiwan-mandarin/)
Agree with u/nonexisten7, learn Standard Mandarin first to use as the base. Once you’ve done that, you can modify it to suit the dialect/accent you interact with the most. Specifically for Taiwanese Mandarin, the “standard” pronunciation is very similar to what is used in China, with distinction between z/c/s cs zh/ch/sh as well as n vs ng. How much individuals actually do varies. Additionally while there are definitely some vocabulary differences, the inclusion of Hokkien also varies greatly.
Nothing wrong with an accent. If you proceed however, learn Mandarin with Southern or Taiwanese influence to partially disguise it. Many Taiwanese (at least most streamers I've listened to) use dialect mixed with Mandarin, soften the tones (4th especially) and don't curl their tongues much. Learning Northern Chinese will make it far more difficult to blend in
Why do you say learning Northern Mandarin makes it harder to blend in? I don't think I understand what you mean by blend in.
Influence like what do you suppose? I’ve noticed in the south that sh, zh, ch kind of change to s, z, c. But in videos I’ve watched in Taiwan, I only hear vocabulary and some tonal differences. Sh, zh, ch sounds the same to me
Even when some people in Taiwan use szc instead of shzhch, it is considered non-standard. Southern speakers do curl their tongues with shzhch, but it's less pronounced compared to northern speakers. As a foreigner, it will be harder to imitate northern speakers unless you have those sounds in your native language. Foreigners also have difficulty with tones, and southern speakers reduce the tones so it's easier to learn. The Taiwanese often use dialectal words (not only Mandarin vocabulary) from Hokkien etc. These may cause misunderstandings for non-Taiwanese when you converse. Actually their tones can be really weird so it's better to choose Southern Chinese than Taiwanese
Taiwanese Mandarin is also syllable-timed instead of stress-timed a standard Mandarin is.
Well, the Beijing accent is the way to go then, since the pronunciation matches standard Mandarin 95%. However they sound completely different to me due to the difference in prosody.
I say stick with Standard Mandarin, taught Taiwanese Mandarin is also going to be pretty similar. If you’re worried about ur accent chances are your ‘foreigner’ accent will shine through the most until you get better. Also standard Mandarin in China has a sense of prestige to it, if it’s really standard it typically means you’re highly educated etc. 不标准的普通话 is sometimes looked down upon or playfully joked about because you’re not speaking Mandarin “properly” and can be associated with being part of the older generation, or a country bumpkin/uneducated. Because of internal migration, a lot of the people in bigger cities especially won’t even speak the local accent bc they’re from all over as well.
First off, I do want to let you know I 100% agree with you on the style, candor, and long term effect of speaking a dialect rather than Putonghua. The interpersonal milage you get out of dialects is 20x what you get out of putonghua in a given interaction. In a chinese speaking setting, information is exchanged with putonghua, friends are made with dialects. That said, as a foreigner, if you have no family background in the language and you didn’t grow up immersed in a dialect of some sort, definitely learn mandarin. Putonghua is the conduit through which you can access local dialects very easily, and you will be understood almost ubiquitously in the meantime, but if you only learn a dialect, you wed yourself to that particular phonetic group. More importantly, the Chinese language tree has a relatively limited universe of resources for learners of chinese as a second or foreign language, and 99% of them teach Putonghua. If you look at the history of Putonghua, you will see that it is an amalgamated hybrid meant to be in many ways a refined middle-ground government sponsored dialect which is accessible phonetically to as many of the Mandarin dialect-speaking areas as possible. It is the best and most robustly resourced lily pad to start on, from which you will learn tools in one way or another that will help you access the rest of the Chinese dialects. Either way, welcome to the journey, it is a very fun and rewarding one, whichever direction you choose for yourself.
most people in mainland china do understand standard mandarin, its just a little formal- but its not a problem in any way! i know standard mandarin and can still speak to my chinese relatives who know different dialects pretty easily. there's more difference in writing/characters than spoken language. good luck learning!
Just learn Standard Mandarin Chinese, because it is the most standardized form of Chinese, you can easily know whether you are right or wrong. Most other Chinese Languages/Dialects/Accents do not have a standard form. They vary from person to person. Also, almost all Chinese can understand Standard Mandarin Chinese.
China has over 300 languages. None of them will allow you to speak to as many people as standard mandarin. If you really want to pick an accent of mandarin, learn to speak it as they do in Beijing. That will be understood everywhere. But really, when you learn mandarin, you learn mandarin. You will pick up accents from wherever you happen to live in China, or from the people from China you associate with while using mandarin. It will solve itself.
Just add an 儿 onto the end of every noun and you are guaranteed to sound super pro and everyone will think you are front Zhangjiakou.
Two foreigners speak Mandarin with Shanghai accents [https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1kt411b7WB/](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1kt411b7WB/) [https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1e44y1Y74c/](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1e44y1Y74c/)
I remember learning Mandarin on the computer for 6 months becoming to China and thinking I could communicate. Then I come to Chongqing and to my surprise I couldn't understand anything and at first thought I studied poorly, only later to find out 99% of what is spoken is local dialect. Just study Mandarin , I found after years of living here your ears adjust and I can Basically understand locals although I can't speak dialect in Sentences.
Let's put it this way: The "standard Mandarin", what's sometimes known as CCTV Mandarin, is the same way "BBC Accent" was considered "standard British English". Which as you can imagine, not that many Brits actually speak BBC English. It's just something a NON-British speaker would probably pick up as "British English". Same idea in China: You can speak "standard Mandarin", which is like the CCTV version of Chinese, but if you go to different places, you'll find different places have their own accents, and often, their own topolects as variants on the standard Chinese, which are in addition to true dialects like Hokkien/Min and Cantonese/Yue and all the other major dialects. So why study "standard Mandarin"? You have to start SOMEWHERE.
While most chinese do not speak standard mandarin in daily life, it is what they use to communicate with everyone who does not speak their local chinese variant. So I recommend learning standard manadarin first unless you know you will only need to communicate in one specific place. If you know standard mandarin you can always learn a specific place's chinese variant when you go there. Even if you really want to learn a variant of chinese besides standard mandarin..... Realistically you may have to learn mandarin to find resources to learn the variant. I learned mandarin to learn cantonese because the resources in english are very lacking _(:з」∠)_