Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Wenzhou Dialect

  Tags: China | Dialect
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
27 messages over 4 pages: 1 24  Next >>
standtorise
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5433 days ago

12 posts - 13 votes
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, Mandarin, Norwegian, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 17 of 27
14 September 2010 at 6:47am | IP Logged 
Asiafeverr wrote:
For anyone interested, I am currently building a Wenzhounese Anki
deck with the scarce
mp3s I managed to find online. Each card has standard Chinese on one side and 温州话
script with audio on the other side. I am not too sure how to share it online since I do
not think Anki can share audio decks. Any suggestions welcome.


I would most certainly be interested in using it if you can find a way to share it.
1 person has voted this message useful



OneEye
Diglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 6850 days ago

518 posts - 784 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin
Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French

 
 Message 18 of 27
14 September 2010 at 7:00am | IP Logged 
Asiafeverr wrote:
I am not too sure how to share it online since I do not think Anki can share audio decks. Any suggestions welcome.


You should be able to archive the entire audio folder and host it somewhere like megaupload, then post a link to the audio in the description of the deck when you share it.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Asiafeverr
Diglot
Senior Member
Hong Kong
Joined 6342 days ago

346 posts - 431 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German

 
 Message 19 of 27
19 September 2010 at 6:59am | IP Logged 
I just uploaded a zipped file containing an anki deck and over 100 sentences recorded as
mp3s. Megaupload is not available in Hong Kong so I uploaded it on Google Sites instead.
Please tell me if there is any problem and feel free to create mirrors to this link:
https://sites.google.com/site/learnanasianlanguage/Home/shar ed-1284871908.zip?
attredirects=0&d=1
1 person has voted this message useful



SSalvestrini
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5174 days ago

33 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: Italian, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 20 of 27
27 September 2010 at 1:57am | IP Logged 
Interesting discussion. I myself was wondering about the Yixing dialect. I spent about 5
weeks in China this summer and the friends I met there all speak Yixing. It was actually
quite irritating, because I have trouble with Mandarin as it is, and they were all
speaking a dialect I had never heard. I had to ask for them to translate from Yixing to
Mandarin for me, which I in turn had to mentally translate :)

So, I was just wondering if anyone on this forum can speak Yixing? It's a very uncommon
language, so I doubt many westerners, if any, can actually speak it fluently.
1 person has voted this message useful



Ari
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 6582 days ago

2314 posts - 5695 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

 
 Message 21 of 27
27 September 2010 at 8:19am | IP Logged 
SSalvestrini wrote:
It was actually
quite irritating, because I have trouble with Mandarin as it is, and they were all
speaking a dialect I had never heard. I had to ask for them to translate from Yixing to
Mandarin for me, which I in turn had to mentally translate :)

Yeah, a lot of people sort of think that the mother tongue of all Chinese is Mandarin, which is sort of equivalent to thinking that the mother tongue of all Europeans is English. And just as you can't go to France and expect people to speak English with each other, you can't go to for example Canton and expect people to speak Mandarin to each other. Mandarin is a lingua franca in China, much as English is in Europe. If you can't speak their language, they'll speak it to you, but it's not their language.

The difference with Europe, however, is that people who move to France will generally learn French, whereas the majority of people who move to Guangdong don't learn Cantonese (this includes both Westerners and Chinese), let alone moving to Wenzhou and learning Wenzhouhua. To me it's a bit disrespectful, but it's easy for me to say, since the language of the place I'm living in at least has materials to learn the language. If you move to Wenzhou, it'll probably be hard to learn even if you wanted to.
3 persons have voted this message useful



SSalvestrini
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5174 days ago

33 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: Italian, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 22 of 27
28 September 2010 at 1:01am | IP Logged 
Well said, Ari. I was certainly surprised that Mandarin is not more commonly spoken in
China. In addition to that, I was under the impression that many people would be fairly
fluent in English, but that's really only true in the central districts of big cities,
like Shanghai or Beijing. I spoke English on only one occasion the whole five weeks I was
there, and that's simply because a friend of mine was in China as well :)
1 person has voted this message useful



Ari
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 6582 days ago

2314 posts - 5695 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

 
 Message 23 of 27
29 September 2010 at 3:02pm | IP Logged 
Yeah, during my seven months here I've only met a handful of people who can speak English, though most make a valiant attempt when they see a white face (heck, a lot of people shout "Hello!" from the other side of the street when they see a white face). They're usually relieved when you can speak a Chinese language.

Here's the thing with Mandarin: it's not just one language. There's Standard Mandarin and then there's the Mandarin dialects of Chinese. The former is heavily based on the latter, but it's standardized and a lot of local expressions used in the Mandarin dialects are not part of Standard Mandarin.

The non-standardized varieties of Chinese (such as Cantonese) usually encompass pretty much the entirety of Standard Mandarin (though with different pronunciation), as most speakers will know it and use it for formal occasions. This means that all the local languages are richer than the standardized, constructed Standard Mandarin. Any idiom you can use in Standard Mandarin you can use in Cantonese, but in addition Cantonese has a wealth of its own idioms you cannot use in Standard Mandarin. I assume it's the same for the other local languages. While in a place like Beijing a Mandarin learner will probably be unable to separate the local expressions from the Standard Mandarin, if you're going to a place where the local language is not a Mandarin variety and you only learn Mandarin, not the local language, you'll be stuck with the standardized, constructed, limited language, which is the lowest common denominator amongst the Chinese languages. This is why I strongly encourage people to learn and support the local languages, as Standard Mandarin, while a good tool for communication and the lingua franca of China, leaves something to be desired when it comes to being a living, breathing bearer of culture.

Unfortunately, Standard Mandarin is also pretty much the only written language in China (you'll find some written Cantonese online and in Hong Kong, but not a lot), which makes most Chinese literature pretty dull.
1 person has voted this message useful



Asiafeverr
Diglot
Senior Member
Hong Kong
Joined 6342 days ago

346 posts - 431 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German

 
 Message 24 of 27
05 October 2010 at 7:14pm | IP Logged 
I agree with Ari, I believe dialects are a big part of the Chinese cultural heritage and
learning them helped me appreciate many facets of China a lot more. Did you have any luck
getting started with Wenzhounese, standtorise?


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 27 messages over 4 pages: << Prev 1 24  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3594 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.