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Regional accents of mandarin
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ZhuGeLiang70 -

I have been studying mandarin for more than 8 years in my spare time. When I listen to the
advanced lessons at chinesepod.com I can understand 98%.

I am now stationed temporary at a university in China. Sometimes when the guys at the lab where I
work speak to each other, my listening comprehension is close to 0%. I can even be difficult to
hear that it is mandarin.

The problem with for example chinesepod and other sources is that most of it is recorded in
perfectly pronounced mandarin. This is good for beginners but not for advanced students. I'm
therefor looking for some study material recording in regional accents of mandarin.

Any ideas?

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calibre2001 -

Just keep talking to people. Listening comprehension will naturally improve. It's all about
getting used to.

imron -

Check out the thread regarding the Grand First Episode Project.

For shows with regional accents, I would take a look at 士兵突击 and 武林外传

You might also be interested in Princess Remy's podcasts.

Lu -

Where in China are you, or where are your colleagues from? Maybe some people here can give you
some pointers on what they would pronounce differently. That's assuming they're speaking Mandarin
to each other: if they are all from the same non-Mandarin-speaking area, they might be speaking in
fangyan and then it'd be strange if you did understand.
Is this your first time in China? If so, I think it's not so strange that you have some difficulty
understanding. Don't be discouraged. Just keep listening, when you get used to their accent
(assuming it's just an accent), things will get better.

zozzen -

bingo! As a member in this forum put it in another thread, bad (accented) mandarin is everywhere
in china and it's almost impossible to communicate with everyone with perfect mandarin accent.

The accents of mandarin can be divided into these categories. If your mandarin is good enough, go
to the following area for a month and you should find it fairly easy to adapt to local mandarin
accent (not dialects)

雲貴川 (Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou) -- The dialects (西南官話) in these areas are very close
to putonghua. My friend from Sichuan often speak Sichuanese to another guy from Kunming and they
are okay to communicate with each other.

廣東/廣西/湖南/ 湖北/ 台灣 (南部) - Their dialects are very different from putonghua
and different from each other, but their putonghua shares many common "southern" characteristics
-- always confused with xi, si , chi, zhi , ji , and "r" sound is very light.

東北, 江浙 should have their accents too, but i have no ideas about it.

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