The 'sh' discrepancy...

Welcome to Sichuan! I'd say. I have studied Mandarin in Sichuan and now live and work here. When I study Cpod lessons I subconciously substitute the sh with s and the zh with z and the ch with c. That's the way we talk here. And Sichuanese whose Mandarin may be pretty good, still mix up those sounds a lot. Even in public settings. For example there is a street in Chengdu called 芳草街。 We all duly call it "fancaojie". But the people who put the pinyin under it, maybe aware of Sichuanese using far too many c when there should be a ch, wrote "Fanchaojie". It's meanwhile been replaced. But I found it funny. When I started learning most of my teachers had really good putonghua. But one, she was a replacement teacher, was really hopeless, constantly mixing up those sounds - which is no problem after a few years. But for beginners it makes the learning experience really difficult. Sichuanese also have their own tonal system and it took me a while to figure out that I gave the wrong tones to my own name, because said teacher had taught me wrong...

Oh yes - and then there is k and h confusion. I have a friend who insists that to drink is ke, and that a meeting is kui!

Thanks, wildyaks, that clears up a lot. Do the natives have any problem understanding you if you pronounce said consonants 'correctly'?

Cool...thanks johnb.

Southerners seem to speak a lot faster to my ears than northerners. I've always wondered if it has something to do with dropping those hs. Seriously.

sparechange I consider myself sort of a native Mandarin speaker (born in Taiwan) and from off the top of my head, my thought is that words that begin with "x" cannot be replaced by "sh" and have the same meaning or remain the same word. (Perhaps I am misunderstanding your question?) As wildyaks says, it's ch for c, she for s, and zh for z; I believe this is a regional differences. Taiwan Mandarin routinely substitute a soft "s" for a thick "sh", a soft z for zh, etc.

sparechange, it helps understanding if you use the same sounds they do. They do understand standard Mandarin, no problem. But one sounds awfully sophisticated (if not snobish) when speaking it in certain settings. I had to relearn a lot of my language when I got into actually working with people in order to understand them and be understood.

well you might as well add the N and L substitutions to this conversation. My ex gf always used to say 我佬子一片迷茫 instead of 脑子。 I used to bug her about having an old man live in her head that was always making her not understand things clearly. Maybe he was smoking opium.

I suppose this is not at all unlike variation in English. Just the other day, I was noticing that many Brits and Scots do not always pronounce "explosive" t's that are in the middle or end of words. For example, in the U.S. we'd enunciate the t in "Stop it!", but in England, it's common to hear, "Stop ii!" where the "it" is sort of a fourth tone, short i sound :)

Up here in Harbin we say that people who speak like that have a 大舌头 (big tongue). 老师, for example, generally comes out lao3si1

People in Shanghai, and much of south China do the same thing. Once you hear it enough, you don't even really notice it anymore.

Here's an article on Chengu dialect that describes some phonetic changes: http://chengdoo.com/chengdu/index.php?page=news&news=1181099995&action=more&title=Chengdu+Dialect I have no personal experience of the dialect myself, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of this description.

AZERDocMom, - The 'x' wasn't really a problem, it was mainly the 'sh' that sounded different. Like you (and others) said, it sounded more like a soft 's'. wildyaks - That actually translates very well to my situation. I live in southern Missouri, and I have to relax my English pronunciation a little if I don't want to sound like a snob to the locals. tianfeng - I work with a Chinese woman who switches 'l' to 'n', and it comes through to her English. "Actually" routinely comes out as "Actuany". amber - That is very interesting. Maybe that's why this Chinese dialect thing seems so very intimidating to me. It only takes a little adjustment to understand most variations in English, since they apply mostly to vowel sounds. Chinese, on the other hand, can change consonants, vowels, and tones. 哎哟！

This topic rings true to my current situation as well. I am studying with a teacher who is adamant in pronouncing words in proper biao1 zhun3 mandarin. She has been trained to teach mandarin in Beijing schools. She will admonish the class dramatically when we do not speak correctly. Luckily, I have able to adapt to the straight and narrow path she has defined for us, knowing well that other academics might defiantly disagree. As I have been exposed to speech patterns from Shanghai, Taiwan and elsewhere, of course I am confounded by my choices. My best solution is to learn both Northern and Southern style pronunciations and hope that I can apply them as the situation demands. I feel that the "southern" dialect mandarin is a bit softer and more pleasing to my ear. The "sh" sounds better than soft "s", etc. But what do I know? "Wo3 jiu3 shi4 ben3 dan1 de wai4 guo2 ren3". Si Yao Lastly, since I am a native New Yorker, I can turn on the local accent when I'm back home and with friends and relatives. But when I'm here on the West coast, I only use my New York accent when with other native NY'ers or some one asks me to talk New York style.

aeflow, that's a pretty accurate description, Only I am not at all convinced that "xia" changes to "sa" as he says. I will listen out for it. Sometimes when you travel on long-distances busses around here you are treated to a viewing of old Charlie Chaplin videos in which he speaks Sichuan hua. I love those!

I have new news to report on the sh situation. My 阅读 teacher not only has the sh and s switch but she adds a fake beijing r accent to go with it. So it is so strange to hear because I know she is forcing the r sound to sound more professional but still, correct your sh to s problem first. Some of the students were really confused by it but I was used to it. I have had teachers who are the same before. I just don't understand why.

Not long after I got to XinJiang a friend from Hubei asked me "你喜欢吃狼吗?", took me a little while to figure out she meant, "你喜欢吃馕吗?". One thing I can say is after being in the north, where there is usually a distinct difference between sh and s, then coming here to Guangzhou; it helps your tones! I have also started exchanging h for f in taxis as many drivers in Guangzhuo are from Fulan. The dialects are part of what makes china interesting, and like all languages are an important thing to learn to deal with. It would seem that "standard"普通话, just like "standard" English, is not very 普通 at all.

Amber I have noticed exactly the same thing! I think it accounts for the fact that the number 8 is lucky! How could an English speaker think fa and ba were alike! It also seems to be embedded in the character phonetic components who seem to change consonant more often than vowel from character to character.

As for the sh /s thing. It just makes the redundancy of chinese sounds even worse. There are already tons of shi sounds - in the South they are confused with the s sounds too. Same problem with n and l. Well, it certainly isn't an easy language for us. As said above, it seems to me that the tones (and vowels of course) and much more important than the consonant sound to Chinese ears.

OK, has anyone else noticed something I have though... which is: the variations that take place within English speakers' accents usually occur with the vowel sounds (case in point: about vs. aboot; get vs. git; been vs. bin, no vs. noi etc.), whereas in Chinese, it seems to be the consonant sounds that vary with accent. I find this so interesting.