[Tetra]

There are 4 tones and 1 neutral tone in Mandarin. And no the � is not a tone. x_X
I don't know why Tetra thinks it's a tone.
"5" is actually considered a "neutral" tone and in pinyin, there is no marking. In zhuyin, it's a dot.

Doesn't matter, it still throws people off

[Tamago86]

ugh, I have a western + taiwanese accent when I speak mandarin.
I hang out with a lot of beijing immigrants, so I've adapted somewhat to accent there, but still...I hate this foreigner's accent.

It's so ghey since they give me weird looks.

I've always thought beijingers sound like retarded pirates

bla bla bla ARRR

[Bandido]

I've always thought beijingers sound like retarded pirates

bla bla bla ARRR

[~*.:Yuki:.*~]

Uhh I made a little chart. lol. xD
The numbers and the accents.

Cool chart xD

Yea... I think when we speak another language eg english, no matter how 'off tune' you sound, ppl still get what ur trying to say whereas chinese is jst impossible... when u (chinese) hear a foreigner speak in chinese, u think "wth is that person saying.." coz of the accents... sorta like spanish. The same word with a different accent has a totally different meaning.

And I dunno y, ppl tend to exaggerate when they speak Chinese, it's like they spell out every single letter.

[shocking88]

I've always thought beijingers sound like retarded pirates

bla bla bla ARRR

Evil Tamago哥哥!

[MeiNing]

I've always thought beijingers sound like retarded pirates

bla bla bla ARRR

..ROFL. XD

o_0 isn't the taiwanese "accent" the most..er.."normal one"? Because Beijingers do that "arrrr" thing...and..the taiwanese accent is more..neutral? <.< I don't think I make sense.

[Tetra]

..ROFL. XD

o_0 isn't the taiwanese "accent" the most..er.."normal one"? Because Beijingers do that "arrrr" thing...and..the taiwanese accent is more..neutral? <.< I don't think I make sense.

We don't really have much of an exaggeration or a heavy slur on words.
Unlike people like Jay Chou, who totally kill the language

I've had beijing people say I have a foreigner's accent just cause I don't speak like them.
Well, no duh, I grew up within a taiwanese-accent-oriented household

[xinfinite]

..ROFL. XD

o_0 isn't the taiwanese "accent" the most..er.."normal one"? Because Beijingers do that "arrrr" thing...and..the taiwanese accent is more..neutral? <.< I don't think I make sense.

the taiwanese accent loses most of the "ch"/"shi" and the r's become l's....at least in mainland china on all of the tv stations there's at least there's at least those sounds regardless of whether they add the .."er"s. i think proper chinese is something between the beijing and taiwanese accent.

what i find weird is that.. other than jay, lots of taiwanese singers enunciate a lot more while singing.. than speaking.. (eg jolin)

[Tetra]

the taiwanese accent loses most of the "ch"/"shi" and the r's become l's....at least in mainland china on all of the tv stations there's at least there's at least those sounds regardless of whether they add the .."er"s. i think proper chinese is something between the beijing and taiwanese accent.

what i find weird is that.. other than jay, lots of taiwanese singers enunciate a lot more while singing.. than speaking.. (eg jolin)

Hmm...so how would a taiwanese person say 吃飯 =/

I pronounce the "ch"/"shi", although I'm not sure how r's become l's, cause when I went back to Taiwan, there weren't that many differences in speech.

Maybe it's cause I've adapted somewhat to the beijing accent. Who knows.
Is it true that if you hang around people that speak a certain way, you start adapting it to your own speech?

[MeiNing]

LOL. Nobody understands Jay's singing. XD I think Jay once said that even he didn't know. o____0

[pyrochild]

Maybe it's cause I've adapted somewhat to the beijing accent. Who knows.
Is it true that if you hang around people that speak a certain way, you start adapting it to your own speech?

seriously?!?! when I first came to Beijing, I tried the 'errr' thing and my throat hated me for it. It is like the most unnatural sound in the world. I swear everytime I had a heavy 'err' day, I got sick. So, I just stuck with my non-Beijing mandarin. Beijing is the only freakin' place in China where people actually tell other people their mandarin is not "accurate".

[YAYAYAHH]

can anyone translate this for me? please~~


ngo lam...ngo jan hai jung yi jor nei
nei ji um ji doh...nei hai bin gor?

[Tetra]

^dammit the only cantonese word I know in there was like "ngo"
Maybe if it were written in chinese script..

seriously?!?! when I first came to Beijing, I tried the 'errr' thing and my throat hated me for it. It is like the most unnatural sound in the world. I swear everytime I had a heavy 'err' day, I got sick. So, I just stuck with my non-Beijing mandarin. Beijing is the only freakin' place in China where people actually tell other people their mandarin is not "accurate".

Well, I don't know about other parts of China, but I get a lot of "you can't speak mandarin properly" from beijing'ers cause they say "beijing people speak perfect mandarin".

Ya, half the time I have to struggle to understand what they're saying. I always though enunciation was KEY to language

[boom]

can anyone translate this for me? please~~
ngo lam...ngo jan hai jung yi jor nei
nei ji um ji doh...nei hai bin gor?

I think this is the first time I've met you.
Do you know ... who you are?

I'm a little iffy on the first line, but I'm positive on the second.

[xinfinite]

^ does anyone else speaking mandarin find cantonese hard to learn? since there's so much conversational slang, i actually find it easier to read along lyrics to a song rather than reading the subtitles of a tv show.. there's 8 tones in cantonese right? and since there's also no correct phonetic/pinyin... i always wondered how cantonese people typed traditonal chinese on computers..

words like 吃／是, beijing/mainland tend to use their curl their tongue more? 舌音比较重? lol.. some one feel free to correct me.

[Tetra]

My friend counted 11 tones.

Eh?

[putasmileon]

I think this is the first time I've met you.
Do you know ... who you are?

I'm a little iffy on the first line, but I'm positive on the second.

ngo lam...ngo jan hai jung yi jor nei
I think.. I really like.. jor nei? To be you? Uhh..

^ does anyone else speaking mandarin find cantonese hard to learn? since there's so much conversational slang, i actually find it easier to read along lyrics to a song rather than reading the subtitles of a tv show.. there's 8 tones in cantonese right? and since there's also no correct phonetic/pinyin... i always wondered how cantonese people typed traditonal chinese on computers..

words like 吃／是, beijing/mainland tend to use their curl their tongue more? 舌音比较重? lol.. some one feel free to correct me.

I don't. Well, I grew up with both. Sure there's slang, but you don't write it.. Most Cantonese speakers don't know the tones (natives). They're so similar anyway. They do have phonetic.. Jyutpung or Yale. They write the same way all Chinese people do. The only difference is conversation. You really don't need to know Cantonese since they all speak Mandarin anyway.

[alicimoo]

^ does anyone else speaking mandarin find cantonese hard to learn? since there's so much conversational slang, i actually find it easier to read along lyrics to a song rather than reading the subtitles of a tv show.. there's 8 tones in cantonese right? and since there's also no correct phonetic/pinyin... i always wondered how cantonese people typed traditonal chinese on computers..

words like 吃／是, beijing/mainland tend to use their curl their tongue more? 舌音比较重? lol.. some one feel free to correct me.

My friend tried teaching me, and it was SO hard. I repeated something after her, and she was like, "not like that like this." It sounded exactly the same...but noooo it was wrong. xD

[Aziraphale]

can anyone translate this for me? please~~
ngo lam...ngo jan hai jung yi jor nei
nei ji um ji doh...nei hai bin gor?

If I'm not wrong, the translations should be:

I think... I really like you

Do you know who you are?

My Cantonese isn't great, so I stand corrected.

[Lene]

^the first sentence, to be more exact, should be
"i think..i really liked you before."
since "jor" is used to show that it happened already? idk. That's how i use it. haha.