Learning Chinese in Hangzhou

You'll be fine. Go ahead and do it!

I lived in Hangzhou for 3 and a half years. It's basically where I learned Chinese. Hangzhou is GREAT. Yes, you will run into some substandard Chinese occasionally, but honestly, it's not that big a deal. Just be aware it will happen, and look up new words in a decent dictionary to confirm the standard pronunciation. Do it! You'll love it.

There is a special dialect there. Your accent will almost certainly be affected by it. My girlfriend and I watched a movie the other night called "Crazy Stone" (English translation). Neither of us could understand the actors who spoke horribly accented Mandarin. Most of the main characters were southerns. My girlfriend is a native Harbiner (NE China). If you want the "standard" accent, your best option is the NE. And while almost any university program will offer "standard" Mandarin in the classroom, its what type of exposure and practice you get outside of the classroom that will solidify your sound and learning progress.

Thanks Kyle. There I was thinking Hangzhou would be perfect, not too far from Shanghai but yet not overrun with westerners! Any further insight on Hangzhou accents would be really useful as I'm going to start making arrangements - flights etc etc.

新疆,新疆,新疆,hey!! Most standard 普通话 in the country, of those who can speak it!!

Hangzhou is lovely. I was there two weeks ago and didn't find the accent problematic. If you're going to go somewhere, it may as well be nice.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm thinking of going in October. I hope to get through some of the Newbie and Elementary lessons before then.

Thanks for all your messages of support and advice. I've booked the flights and I head out to Hangzhou (via Hong Kong) at the end of September. Just in time for the National Day celebrations!

Andrew I am going to HZ in Aug. to study Chinese at Zhejiang University. The city is wonderful and they mandarin is fine. I never had a problem with it. They do speak a regional dialect that i hope to learn some of while I am there. I lived there for two months back in the summer of 2005 and it is a great city. Like they say 上有天堂， 下有苏杭。 I also hate winter so no matter how "perfect" the dialect of the north is I still have no plans to ever live or go to school there. Like 75% of the foreign students in the north are Korean anyway. If you are looking for someone to show you around I would be more than willing. Good luck.

Take it from someone who is married to a Northeasterner (from Shenyang), their accent is FAR from standard. The only thing about the accent of southerners is that it's marred by the sounds of their native dialect, which can sometimes make their accent VERY FAR from standard Mandarin and it's a strain on the ears to understand them. For example, instead of saying "hui" people from Guangdong say "kui", but that's GUANGDONG. We're talking about Hangzhou, and the accent of people from all the areas around Shanghai (including Su Zhou and Hang Zhou) is fairly close to the standard, but keep in mind the only way to really acheive the perfect accent is to live in Beijing and yet most Chinese people speak 普通话 with the accent of the region their from anyway, and 99% of learners of Chinese speak with Western accent (just look at Yuan Yuan on Kuai Le Zhong Guo, he speaks wonderfully but with a strong American accent) so it doesn't really matter all that much. The only thing that really matters is that you can communicate with the Chinese people. I'd say just go to a place that you really like, and environment that jives well with you is very important in the learning process, and Hangzhou is BEAUTIFUL!

I studied for a semester in Hangzhou. Sure many have a southern accent, but a lot of people speak perfectly good mandarin. In fact, after I moved to Guilin I discovered that Hangzhou was a much better environment in terms of accents. Why? Well the local dialect in Guilin sounds a lot like Mandarin but with some different pronunciation and completely different tones. Talk about confusing sometimes. At least in Hangzhou when people talk to you they're not going to try and talk to you in Hangzhouhua, they'll speak Mandarin. Here some people figure "Hey it's close enough to Mandarin" so they won't bother trying. BTW, in "Crazy Stone" they speak either Sichuan or Chongqinghua.

Good luck!