温家宝第一次上网跟网友聊天

大家你好

我第一次来参加这种评论来说：真是很有用也是很有意思

滕文武同志，

不好意思，我也不懂什么是心系国家、什么是爱戴人民。是不是30.40年代德国和日本的样子？

请你来给我们无知的人弄清楚

具体说说吧。

你们都不懂，什么才是心系国家，什么才是爱戴人民！

changye, unfortunately it's either my connection or the site but the sound i'm getting is speeded up so that it's closer to chipmunk (or 帰ってきたヨッパライ...) than nice baritone, so i've given up. but will remember this name, and the term 国嘴. thanks again!

Hi zhenlijiang

There is a word "国嘴" (national mouth) in Chinese, and this indicates a very popular announcer in China, who usually has an attractive voice. The famous announcer 赵忠祥 has long been called 国嘴 here. He has a nice baritone voice (not a handsome guy, though). I also like his voice too. I don't know if you can access this Chinese website from Japan. Please try it. These days some download sites block access from Japan due to complaints from Japanese intellectual property right holders.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTc0NTE1NzY=.html

changye, ok i've hijacked long enough. i guess i wanted to know who is considered 好听 in people's hearts, more than who is "correct", but understand that would be a personal matter. so i'm satisfied w/your answer. from all accounts i see 大山's the man. and Edith Hanson is our 大山 (wonder what she's doing these days). though she speaks Kansai, not standard, J.

Hi zhenlijiang

You can hear the most authentic (?) pronounciations of 普通话 here at 中央人民广播电台, which is something like Japanese NHK (radio) broadcasting company. Even the pronunciation of 北京话 (北京土话) is not necessarily the same as that of 普通话, so who actually speak the pure (?) 普通话 except for announcers in China? 大山？haha

http://www.cnr.cn/china/

ilearnben2,  i guess "accent tolerance" is perceived differently from person to person:

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/bad-cell-reception/discussion#comment-112292

well maybe trax's concern is more mannerism than pronunciation, but it still leads me to believe there is a definite "model" 普通话　in people's minds.

speaking of Australian Prime Ministers' accents, saw the lesson on Kevin Rudd and i'm sure the Chinese people think 他很棒 (even with his accent).

changye and zhenlijiang,

There was a good example of this a few years ago in one of our Prime Ministers Bob Hawke.He was a Rhode's scholar to Oxford ,and yet when he returned he still had a very broad Australian accent,which would have extra appeal when he became a leader in the trade unions representing the workers and then as leader of the Labour Party.Some thought this was a deliberate attempt to appeal to the common man.He then was elected PM,and the rest is history..

I think there are 3 main reasons: 1. education, children are mostly taught in mandarin; 2. TV and movies; 3.travelling between areas are more frequent now.

so lovveu, are schoolchildren taught that any specific person's Mandarin pronunciation is ideal or model?  and are young people are now ashamed of accents?

changye, your point about it being politically astute for a leader to "not sound too elite" in speech is so true.  the masses love stories of their leaders being real folk from modest backgrounds.  either way it's something of a miracle that someone like GWB could actually become US president, and stay for the second term.

Dialects in China is disappearing slowly. In my hometown, the younger a person is the more portion of mandarin  in his language.

Hi zhenlijiang

This is not a direct answer to your question. I know that 胡锦涛 is not a Chinese speaker that you should emulate, but at the same time, hearing his speech in Chinese just encourages us foreign learners of Mandarin. And I agree with you, 温总理 speaks an ideal Chinese for us foreigners, and maybe for southerners whose mother tongue is not 普通话, which I think is an important skill as an political leader.

thanks ilearnben2,

it's encouraging to know that (myself, i don't worry so much about pronunciation like many Japanese students do. my major problem is 听力. btw premier 温 i usually understand--very nice and slow).

and while i'm hijacking this thread--so the Chinese are tolerant of accents. could you give me an example of a famous person whose speaking foreigners should try to emulate if they can? in other words, what you consider the "ideal" 普通话? either male or female.

hi zhenlijiang,

we Chinese are tolerant of accented Chinese, since most Chinese are not native Mandarin speaker but accented Mandarin. So, don't worry.

Generally, Japanese are good at reading and writing Chinese, while not good at speaking Chinese. Just keep practising, don't worry about your mistakes and accents, every Chinese are born with one of the Chinese dialects.

熟能生巧。呵呵。

hi changye,

thanks for that--very interesting!  it actually took me a little time to read and get what mora is as opposed to syllable etc.  pitch accent 很难!  found myself getting confused about 牡蠣-垣-柿.

i think pronouncing foreign languages is difficult for us because we just don't move our tongues that much or exert much around the mouth and throat (sorry for the very in-expert description) when we speak J.

i have heard Chinese people say speaking J is hard because they have to make an effort to pretend almost, that they're a little under the weather.  also the  "っ" generally seems to be a challenge.  john says diligent Chinese students obsess more than necessary, but i think i understand why they do--we Japanese are very demanding.

many people speak beautiful Japanese w/an accent, which is obviously much better than natives w/out an accent but also no vocab, no style, no class.  i know it isn't necessary to sound like a native. yet i think even i am secretly rather insistent that learners try for a "real" accent.  harsh, i know.  but do you think Chinese are more tolerant of foreigners' accented Chinese, if it's otherwise completely 地道?

Hi zhenlijiang

Here are insightful articles on the issue you raise  from John's blog "sinosplice". I agree that pitch-accent is very important in Japanese, and I always wonder why most Japanese dictionaries don't show accents. According to John, some Japanese dictionaries published in China do so. Chinese people realize the importance of accent and tone better than Japanese, of course.

Japanese pronunciation is quite easy at first. Some people have problems with the “tsu” sound, or difficulty pronouncing vowels in succession, as in “mae.” Honestly, though, Japanese pronunciation poses little challenge to the English speaker. The absolute beginner can memorize a few sentences, try to use them 20 minutes later, and be understood. The real difficulty with Japanese is in trying to sound like a native speaker. Getting pitch accent and sentence intonation to a native-like level is no easy task (and I have not done it yet!).

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/06/25/learning-curves-chinese-vs-japanese

Ever since my ZUCC days I’ve noticed that (diligent) Chinese students make excellent students of Japanese. It’s easy to chalk it up to some similar cultural features and a largely overlapping character set, but it goes beyond that. For one thing, the Chinese meticulously study the pitch accent for every Japanese word. That’s something not often done in the West. Presumably the Chinese do it because the importance of tones in the Chinese psyche carries over to the study of Japanese, even though tones and pitch accent are very different in both nature and importance to their respective languages. In my opinion, the Chinese are obsessing unnecesarily there. In the case of pronunciation, though, the Chinese seem to have a natural advantage when studying Japanese.

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2005/02/01/pronunciation-chinese-and-japanese

if pressed to say which, i think Japanese pronunciation is harder than Chinese.  not saying i find Chinese easy. but if you're talking about nice-sounding pronunciation, Japanese is the more elusive goal. imho!

Hi lovveu

That's very right. Thankfully, Chinese and Japanese have tons of words and characters in common. The problem is that Chinese is much richer in vocaburary such as chengyu, proverbs and sayings than Japanese, and I've already given up the idea of diligently memorizing them, haha. And, of course, pronunciation is another story, which is NOT easy for Japanese. Honestly, I'm a poor speaker of Chinese.

I think it's much easier for Janpanese to learn Chinese. There are lots of characters in japanese with the similar meaning in chinese.

changye,

你真是个中国通啊，呵呵，我对你十分佩服。

我们中国也很多人讨厌温家宝，觉得他有点做作。比如替民工讨薪，帮白血病患儿治病。不过，确实看起来是个好总理。

没错儿。转祸为福，塞翁失马焉知非福！

福兮祸所伏，祸兮福所倚

Hi lovveu

That's right. So I always think that losing a war is not necessarily a bad thing.

Hi Changye

The situation is better in japan. But I think that's because your country was ocuppied by Americans once. Think about your situation before 1945.

Hi miantiao

I'm afraid that your opinion is too ideal in china. The ultimate problem of China is unfair. Persons who have power won't give up automatically. It need a revolution.

lovvue

yeah maybe. but you're right about unemployment and wealth distribution, it's not fair at all. perhaps if every chinese had the right to choose, then policies  based upon public opinion and debate would enable a pathway to greater transparency and freedom, a fairer society. 

Hi lovveu

China has not only "a good actor" but also "good audience". Honestly, sometimes I envy Chinese people for having such capable/practical politians. I readily admit that we have only "poor actors/lousy politians" in Japan, who often make gaffes both verbally and physically .....

But the performance will loss it effection soon. There are so many graduates can't get a job. And the society is not fair.

I agree with Changye that Mr. Wen is a good actor

国家领导人的“表演”似乎很容易打动中国人民的心。淳朴天真的农民比较容易上当的事情我很能理解，但是很多中国大学生都很愿意支持这种花招，还是让人不可思议。看样子中国当局根本就不用担心将来会发生第三个天安门事件。中国孩子们都很乖呀！

其实我个人认为温家宝是一位很能干又有责任心的国家领导人。我很相信温总理整天为祖国认真工作，他自己好像没有贪污的机会。不过大家不用担心，听说他的儿子替爸爸很拼命地挣钱，仗着父亲的权势已经发了大财。这就是中国媒体不可说的禁忌之一。

那一个政府不操纵舆论？我觉得这是一个改进？确凿比监禁好了。

长夜

就是政府的目的。老百姓都会觉得政府一下子变得那么大方，连跟老百姓直接的交流。但是，老百姓没想到这是一抹抹悄悄的手段操纵百姓的观点

中国总理又哭了吗？我看这种表演很受中国老百姓欢迎。