Imitating a Foreign Accent in Chinese

bababardwan

"I think I could do a New Zealand, American, British and maybe Australian accent speaking Chinese"

..impressive ! I'd love to hear everyone speaking Chinese normally and then speaking trying to put on these various accents. And then I'd like to hear the real deal to see how they compare. I think it'd be both interesting and fun.

darkstar94

Yeah, I think the New Zealand one is the funniest for me just because it's based on what I've heard some other students sound like, I hope I don't sound toooo much like them.

bababardwan

I've never heard a New Zealand accent in Chinese. Come to think of it, I'm struggling to think of hearing anyone speaking Chinese that wasn't a native. If you're feeling generous, you could post a short mp3 as a new post in this new group I've set up today:

http://chinesepod.com/community/groups/view/speaking-practice-1585

..even better if we could hear your impersonations of the other accents.

n3buluz

On that note, I had a funny moment of recognition the other day in class when I slipped into my good ol' Kiwi accent when saying 林. To the teacher it sounded more like 冷 (or something else with the pinyin 'e' vowel), since apparently I'm pretty guttural with my vowels. It reminded me if the whole "fush and chups" vs "feesh and cheeps" joke, and gave me a chuckle.

bababardwan

Andrew, 好久不见啊！ Great to see you mate.

"and their accents"

...oh yeah, I meant to throw that in to my question...just how clued in are they to Foreign accents? Of course this is a big generalisation and I guess will often come down to the individual. But am I right in thinking that domestic tourism dwarfs foreign tourism amongst Chinese? I guess it will come down to how much exposure they've had to the various accents. I wonder if they stick out as much in Chinese as they do in English.

"Even if you're French, they'd still rather speak English to you than have to speak Chinese to you"

...I meant a non-English speaking French person, if there be such a thing these days.

darkstar94

Just listen to some French people speaking Chinese? Or you could just speak English in a French accent and then just switch over

orangina

I've heard a few French speaking people speak Chinese and from my perspective, they just seem to have less of a foreign accent than English speaking people. That's not to say a French accent and a Mandarin accent are the same, just that I think some of the Mandarin sounds are easier for people who speak French, such as zh, and the umlauted u.

bababardwan

"Just listen to some French people speaking Chinese?"

...good idea in theory, but while there must be heaps of them, I've never met any round these parts [ I wonder how many native French speakers there are in Brisbane who have started learning some Mandarin...probably not that many I suspect]. Maybe I just need to get out more, hehe. I'll try googling it later.

bababardwan

Thanks orangina. Interesting observations.

bababardwan

"the language power struggle was a non-issue"

..really? Was that in more rural areas? Is it more of an issue in the big smoke? Mind you, as above, I was really just sharing my musings and how I arrived at my question of how to imitate a foreign accent in Chinese. While it does interest me on the one hand, on the other hand I'm not concerned with language power struggle as I'm sure there's ample opportunity to practice in China.

"I think most accents just sound "foreign" to Chinese people and not really that distinguishable"

..interesting comment, though it somehow doesn't surprise me. In English, I usually have a very good idea where the accent is coming from [though I confess, I wouldn't be so flash on distinguishing some Asian accents either...I guess it depends on which one and how much exposure I've had and how strong the accent]. So I'm wondering if Chinese makes it inherently harder to pick the accent, or if there's just less awareness. Perhaps more the latter?

"I can do a Cantonese accent too, but does that really count as "foreign"?"

..I think any accent you can put on is cool. Whether you could pass as Cantonese may be a different question....depends how well you can pull it off I guess, but they're obviously much more likely to be clued in to that one.

bweedin

Outside of some areas of Shanghai and ONLY Shanghai, the language power struggle was not an issue as far as mainland China goes. Hong Kong was a British colony, and people in Macau don't speak a lot of Mandarin. In Taipei I did have to put up a bit of a fight.

I say that accents just sound "foreign" to them, because When I would speak to my friend from England, they couldn't tell the difference between our accents. Also, an average Chinese guy asked me to translate an "English" song for him, and I couldn't, because it was in German. The separation between the West and China has been a pretty big one, my friend. You would be correct in guessing the "less awareness" option. Another thing too, generally speaking, English words may as well be what Chinese characters are to most Westerners. It's almost as if they think each word is a Chinese character and either you know it or you don't. They don't even try to sound it out.

speaking of awareness, I just barely learned to distinguish a Vietnamese accent when speaking Mandarin, Cantonese (sort of), or English. Again, only because I had a Vietnamese classmate last quarter who would speak all three.

Mo4li3xiang2

ah, the language power struggle is can be particularly annoying. I did however find the intermediate podcast on the subject to be greatly helpful, because unless somebody is particularly enthusiastic about speaking english, they will generally, after a while, give up and speak back to you in chinese.

I am in Taipei, and the incidence of this struggle here is much more prevalent than what I experienced during my time in the mainland. However, I think just honesty about your purpose for coming to the county：不好意思，麻煩你我來臺灣就是為了學好中文，你可以說中文嗎？ and hanging out with locals are both well received and tend to help. I have foreign friends whose chinese is at such an level that they will only review complex articles in chinese, and I think at times he has told people 別小看我的中文能力。I have been pissed and almost asked 你怎麼假定你英文比我中文說得好？ but then I remember just how polite the people are here, and how they just want to help me.

Honestly getting pissed is useless, it's like getting pissed at all the scooters here for being annoying dicks haha, but I doing think sincerity will be well received.

feixiangxiaoniao

I've thought a lot about this issue.

Some Chinese folks think that it's a sign of respect when they use English in conversation, whereas a lot of foreigners automatically assume it as belittling them. I think that kind of ego in a conversation is unnecessary.

I can speak 五彩缤纷雄辩滔滔 Mandarin but if someone is capable of using full blown playful English I'm more than happy to go along with that. The language is there

I have had a few people saying they want to make friends for the sake of learning English (once culminating in a rather angry rally of texts) but this seems to part of the modern notion of a friend economy and networking were relationships exist in the plane of merely having a usage or function.

I think a lot of people in China would love the opportunity to study English abroad but that doesn't have the chance to realised for everyone. So in the these conversations using the fact you're in China to study seems a little inconsiderate (and I find a good deal of the people the want to speak English are such students)

calkins

feixiangxiaoniao, I appreciate what you're saying, and I understand that many native speakers speak Chinese "to help" the foreigner who probably doesn't speak Chinese very well.

I do appreciate that, but I have a problem when I speak Chinese first, then the native speaker speaks English, then I speak Chinese again, then the native speaker speaks English again, and so forth. After all, in China or Taiwan, the native language is Chinese. In my opinion, if a foreigner can speak Chinese (even sub-par Chinese), it is disrespectful to continue speaking English to them when they continue to speak Chinese. I don't think anyone wins the English-Chinese back-and-forth tennis match. If you're in an English-speaking country, speak English. If you're in a Chinese-speaking country, speak Chinese.

I hate to admit it, but many Taiwanese do look at foreigners and see nothing but a big English target. I'm all for swapping English for Chinese with my Taiwanese friends, but I want to become friends with someone based on mutual respect and not on "what can I get from you?"

bweedin

My short visit in Taiwan made me realize it wasn't the best place for me to study Chinese. Even at the starbucks in the Beijing airport they spoke to me in Chinese first, same for the airport in Shenzhen. snowball's chance in hell in Taipei.

but if one really likes Taiwan he or she can still be hopeful to get plenty of Chinese practice there. I did meet a lot of young people there who were relieved that I could speak Chinese and they didn't "have to" speak English.