Podcast Idea: Lesson on Accents
generalzod
March 14, 2008 at 06:30 PM posted in General DiscussionJust an idea for an upper intermediate (?) podcast: accents. When I say "accents" I mean the Mandarin accents of native speakers. Since probably 70% of Chinese don't really speak "standard" Mandarin, it would be helpful to showcase the regional differences in accent and pronunciation. In the real world, most Chinese don't speak CCTV Mandarin -- just as people in Boston or Mississippi don't speak CNN English. Maybe you could have three different speakers with different accents read the same text, etc.
sebastian
April 01, 2008 at 03:19 PM
Has already been done on advanced level. The lesson name is: Advanced - 中国的口音
zeoblade
April 01, 2008 at 01:46 PM
southern bird language is quite unorthodox and the beijing dialect does sound rough. i do think CCTV pronounciation sounds the best and we should strive for a standard like that.
Joachim
March 31, 2008 at 10:11 PM
Is this accents or dialects that you are talking about? An accent would be someone from Shanghai speaking Mandarin.
Anyway, when reading the title, I was thinking of foreigners trying to speak Chinese and having some kind of accent. What are the differences in pronunciation etc. between people from the US, Europe, Japan?
John
April 02, 2008 at 06:23 AMActually, we have already recorded a lesson (Intermediate) on different Chinese accents, and it will be released soon. The accents we covered are Northern, Southern (Shanghai area), and Taiwan. Look for it later this month!