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Best city to learn standard Mandarin? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| jaliyah Newbie United States Joined 4903 days ago 20 posts - 22 votes | Message 1 of 8 17 July 2012 at 11:36am | IP Logged |
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I've done some research into this, and as far as I can tell, there isn't one single city where people actually speak standard Mandarin without some kind of accent or local colloquialisms...
Is this possible?? I knew that both Beijing and Taipei have pretty strong accents. Singapore is a non-starter, as are Hong Kong and Macau. Shanghai people normally speak Shanghai-hua, and have an accent when they speak Mandarin. I'd also heard that Harbin, in the far north, had very standard pronunciation, so much so that Chinese TV and radio announcers were trained there to acquire a standard, clear Mandarin. But when I checked out Wikipedia's page on Harbin-hua, it seems that they have a pretty strong accent there as well! So now I'm totally confused. Is there anyplace in China where the typical people you meet with here and there speak very standard, clear Mandarin as their everyday (and preferably ONLY) language? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Beysic Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4844 days ago 20 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 2 of 8 17 July 2012 at 5:27pm | IP Logged |
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Anyplace you go is going to have a regional accent. The Northeast supposedly has the most standard accent, so
Harbin is a fairly good choice. I would recommend Beijing though, the universities there all have good Mandarin programs and a a substantial part of the population isn't actually from the city. Non- 老北京人 tend to have extremely standard accents in my experience. Plus, 北京话 is the prestige dialect so if you pick some up from the locals it really doesn't hurt. Edited by Beysic on 17 July 2012 at 5:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ZombieKing Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4305 days ago 247 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin* | Message 3 of 8 17 July 2012 at 9:11pm | IP Logged |
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I agree with Beysic, Beijing is your best bet. I think all varieties of Putonghua are appealing in their own ways, and are worth learning, but if you want a standard accent then Beijing is a good place to acquire that.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4449 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 8 18 July 2012 at 9:08am | IP Logged |
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It depends on what you want. Bejing is too dirty for me to enjoy for an extended period. Of the places I've been, I
think Dalian was the best. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Wormwood Diglot Newbie Singapore Joined 6573 days ago 9 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 5 of 8 09 August 2012 at 5:27pm | IP Logged |
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Are you studying traditional or simplified script? On the mainland, you'll be learning simplified script, while Taiwan uses the traditional.
I would pick Taiwan. Taiwan dominates Mandarin media, so most popular and/or high quality music and films use Taiwanese-style Mandarin. If you intend to get into Mandarin media, you'll find it more useful to familiarise yourself with the way Mandarin is spoken in Taiwan. There are some discrepancies in vocabulary, but these should not pose a problem. Think of the relationship between Mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin as being akin to that between British and American English. I personally have found Taipei to be far safer and more efficient than the Mainland. Edited by Wormwood on 09 August 2012 at 5:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| airedale Newbie Canada Joined 5091 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 8 10 August 2012 at 4:19am | IP Logged |
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As long as you aren't in the rural hinterlands, most of the Mandarin you encounter will be close to standard with some regional flavour. Even in SW China there are large cities with fairly standard pronouncation; Kunming is one that comes to mind. But if you are looking for a city where ALL of the inhabitants speak "standard" mandarin with no regional accent, colloquialisms, etc. you will be looking eteranlly because such a place does not exist. To use an imperfect analogy, in the United States there is a lot of regional variation when it comes to accents, but in the larger centres there are a lot of people who speak with relatively standard pronounciation and vocabularies.
e: also, young people in Shanghai speak excellent Mandarin. Edited by airedale on 10 August 2012 at 4:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5411 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 8 24 August 2012 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
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Here's another vote for Taiwan! As well as the wider availability of certain media, it's way simpler to live in Taipei for an extended period (from a bureaucratic point of view) than it is in mainland China. As Wormwood said, it's safer and more efficient. I find people are also way more approachable, and this will help you excel in the language a lot quicker.
This is only based on 3 months in Taipei and 2 months travelling in China though, so veterans would have a much better idea. As stated before, you will get the dialect everywhere. If you can afford lots of private lessons or to attend a school, then no matter where this is, you will likely get the exposure to standard Mandarin you desire. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4446 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 8 of 8 24 August 2012 at 10:02pm | IP Logged |
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Singapore.
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