Why Do Speakers of Chinese Languages Have An Accent In English? | Improve Your Accent

[@ImproveYourAccent]

Check out my Online English Pronunciation Course. It's tailored to your native language. Try a free lesson: improveyouraccent.co.uk/course/ Some people have commented that Jackie Chan is a native Cantonese speaker and he does not exhibit accent features that are representative of Chinese people in general. I would disagree. I have taught many Chinese speakers (native languages/dialects include Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Southern Min) and most people show the accent features that I describe in the main section of the video. Also please see the disclaimers in the video description.

[@jingyuhou3037]

I am a mandarin speaker. Jackie Chan's accent is from Cantonese which is quite different from Mandarin.

[@Li.Siyuan]

I don't understand why that is relevant. I speak Mandarin and understand a little Cantonese and still don't get the point.

[@adamonis6052]

Mandarin and Cantonese (Sinotibetian- Sinitic) are related in the same way that Spanish and Portuguese(Indo European- Italic- Romance) are. I’ve actually heard from speaks of Portuguese and Spanish that they can communicate at a basic level, however the Portuguese speakers understand the Spanish speakers better than the Spanish speaker understands the Portuguese speaker. I can read Spanish pretty well and i can tell you that Portuguese and Spanish are mutually intelligible in their written forms. Spanish and Portuguese descended from Latin mandarin and Cantonese from Classical Chinese. It would make sense that you’d be able to understand a little. From what I understand Cantonese has six tones as opposed to the 4 tones of mandarin, so Cantonese speakers understand mandarin better than the mandarin speakers understand Cantonese. I looked it up and according to Wikipedia Cantonese and mandarin split around 600 AD.

[@pirateman2702]

He's Hongkie it's normal

[@yuewenchang]

Mandarin是不是满大人的意思?感觉这个词对中国人有歧视

[@itshry]

@@yuewenchang 已经成为专有名词了，没什么歧视。China也是从"秦"的音译。难道也要叫他们改为zhongguo。

[@ranger2383]

Mandarin speaker --->this = zis, think = sink Cantonese speaker ---> this = dis, think = fink

[@AC9123]

er what about someone who speaks both :')

[@lt4053]

You are absolutely right.

[@pschadlichemlarm311]

Mandarin: I think-> I sinker Cantonese: I think-> I fin

[@FairyCRat]

So a Mandarin speaker will pronounce th sounds like a French speaker from France, while a Cantonese speaker will do it like one from Quebec.

[@ShelliLoop]

Too bad. Both are sloppy. Spit pebbles OUT before you try to speak America English. British talk crappy English so they probably don’t notice. They COINED the phrase “butchered King’s English”.

[@jy1598]

as a Cantonese speaker trying to get rid of my accent while speaking english is very hard. This helps a lot especially the rhythm part. Thanks:)

[@blooddrunk4957]

Hope your progress is coming along nicely! English is a very hard language in the first place. Good luck!

[@lt2064]

youre a champing!

[@howardcheung8304]

每次上堂講英文真係笑死我

[@tomsd8656]

Getting rid of accent is near impossible, but learning to pronounce more correctly is very doable. You just have to make an effort.

[@fearlessali2852]

​​@@tomsd8656it is possible with much effort, observation, practice and interest.Not impossible at all.

[@promurderer293]

As a chinese, this video helps me to pronounce “action” correctly🙂👍Thank You

[@chengzhisun8944]

成龙说action不说k这个音是因为成龙说的是美语，美语中很多单词中间的读音就是不发音。这哥们是英国人。

[@lirongchan212]

chengzhi sun 即使是美语action这个词也是会发出k的音的。成龙省略k的音是不是受粤语影响我不确定，但中式英语里更常见的情况应该是倾向于在k后面加个元音

[@BenTabulaRasa]

@@lirongchan212 普通话母语者是习惯在k后面加个元音

[@conw_y]

Makes me curious how we English-native-speakers sound to Chinese people when we try to pronounce Chinese words!

[@nicoleraheem1195]

Hahahahahahha man when I try, they look at me like I called them something derogatory but I've only been learning for two months so I'm still in the toddler phase. I get No sympathy and no correction when I mess up 🤦🏾‍♀️😩 😂 There's this white guy, I forget his name, that trolls Chinese people. He's totally fluent in Mandarin and has videos on KZbin. Check him out if you haven't. He inspires me to get going.

[@lindaxiu4915]

I am a Chinese and I can say sometimes the accent seems strange as English speakers always pronounce with more strength in some words haha😉

[@user-pm2eu7rq4i]

@@nicoleraheem1195 haha, I feel you. Check out Chris口语老炮马斯瑞 on youtube, he started learning Chinese at 23, but gosh he speaks Chinese just like a native from Beijing, he really inspires me to learn new languages.

[@JustNuggie]

I don't know

[@relaxwhc]

Their main mistake is making the wrong tones, which distorts the meaning of the words

[@TheRacingWind]

the irony is that you make those statements about how Chinese doesn't have consonants at the end of words then pick a speaker from Cantonese, which is the only Chinese language that has ending consonants lol

[@dickiewongtk]

Yes. But it is also true that we (cantonese speakers, especially Hong Kong cantonese speakers) often skip the last consonants when speaking english. But, aren't there a lot of Mandarin words end with 'ng', which is a consonant?

[@keifyw7444]

@@dickiewongtk good point

[@zizhanwu9036]

Actually a lot of Sinitic languages end with consonants, namely Hokken and balamgu

[@idraote]

@@dickiewongtk I may be wrong, but final -ng usually represents a nasal sound. Nasals are consonants of sorts but they behave differently

[@WCiossek]

@@dickiewongtk In Mandarin, n and ng are nasals. Not really a consonant. In Shanghai the people have troubles to distinguish n and ng. For example: wan wang!

[@songzhong1611]

1:07 For some Chinese people, especially the northerners, instead of deleting the final consonants, they emphasis them, making jump sound like jumper.

[@张雅伦-w5g]

i think jumpoo［pu：］ is more similar(/ω＼)

[@Svorpal]

lol

[@TheLucidDreamer12]

This is more specific to Cantonese speakers. Native Min Chinese speakers have overly nasalised vowels when speaking English.

[@megancress1384]

my parents turn the last consonant into a separate syllable all by itself

[@zijin173]

@@张雅伦-w5g exactly

[@hulenkius]

Chinese here! Have been waiting for this for a long time~

[@marciturner4980]

You could have made one yourself.

[@2chill2]

Jackie Chan learned English in an older age, he did very well. I can totally understand his English.

[@nicoleraheem1195]

I didn't know that. He's been speaking English all of my life lol 😆 and I'm a 90s kid. I just took up Mandarin a few months ago. I hope to speak as good as he speaks English.

[@jeremyxu6178]

I think he grows up in Australia

[@Tabris93]

@@jeremyxu6178 No, he grew up in Hong Kong, living at a Peking Opera training facility for ten years (aprx 8-18 years old). His parents moved to Australia during that time and JC moved to live with them for a short while when he was finished with the Opera training.

[@benjaminau4004]

I am a HongKonger, to be fair it was good effort from him. I reckon he started to communicate in English at his late 40s or early 50s. Especially his lack of education when he was a teenager.

[@AQuestioner]

The title would be better if it was “Why Cantonese speakers sound Cantonese”. Please make a video called “Why Mandarin speakers sound Mandarin”, maybe using Jack Ma (but keep in mind he is from Hangzhou so he also has an accent)

[@yuzhaoguo]

I would say this only reflects how Cantonese people would tend to speak in English.

[@puccarts]

I want to improve my Chinese pronunciation. I'm watching this so I can get some insights into how to help my Cantonese sound better!

[@methandtopology]

Samesies, sneaking in for that

[@queenieyu970]

I am Chinese and Taiwanese, this video is very interesting and good observation. Many thanks.

[@fangtom9128]

well... analyze Jackie's accent is a little bit controversial. not only his mother tongue is Cantonese, not Mandarin, but also those missing letter you pronounced is not that common in chinese speaking. i think the most difficult part to chinese speakers is double vowels

[@hk-ry5ic]

Agree! Sometimes I don’t open my mouth completely when pronouncing double vowels

[@smartwind330]

Thanks so much for the video! I was expecting a lesson based on the mainstream Chinese (Mandarin) which may not be a good reference to me. Surprisingly Jackie Chan is the model who shares the same mother tongue as me. Love from Cantonese speaker :)

[@weirdowhisper]

6:58 fun fact regarding a Northern Vietnamese accent: most of the ppl living in the North of Vietnam tend to pronounce 'l' and 'n' interchangeably when words begin with these letters, eg. the Viet word for '(to) work': Even if it's actually written 'làm', many ppl say 'nàm'.

[@maggieqiu5645]

This is such a helpful video. Chinese audien(ce) here, love your video, so much detail and information that we can never notice ourselves.

[@nicholas9760]

Such a helpful video it is. That we have never be noticed by ourselves before. Sorry, I have changed you sentence

[@vincentliu2110]

As a Chinese, I have to say your analysis is really to the point.

[@-wil2013]

Hello everybody. 7:59, I understand why he said "Engliss", because of the word "so", ha said "English so fast", normally, he pronounce "sh" correctly. In fact, in interview, sometimes Jackie Chan don't pronounce some words clearly, but in movies, he does his best.

[@einodmilvado5436]

It was a very good video! So easy to understand, so practical! Thank you so much!!!🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@glennextics]

I'm of American-born Chinese, speaking clearly with an American accent, and I do understand Chinese accent growing up.

[@jasminhussein149]

thank you for your special info about the Chinese accent because I find difficulty with this accent..

[@qizhang5905]

I speak Mandarin and your video is super helpful.

[@winonadaphne6445]

ahhh makes sense. i never thought about it that way. my parents do the same thing and when i try to teach them how to properly pronounce a word, they really struggle

[@jeff__w]

One feature of the Chinese accent that I wish you had mentioned is that the initial _d_ in English as in _dog_ is partially voiced but Mandarin and Cantonese native speakers tend to pronounce it as unvoiced. It’s a noticeable but hard-to-describe difference. It was an interesting, informative video!

[@-wil2013]

Hello everyone. I think that Jackie Chan used to pronounce the word “action” with the “k”, but when he is speaking too fast, he says “ashon”.

[@c0t556]

Your first point is half valid. Yes, we Chinese people don’t like consonants at the end of the word, but we don’t just delete it, instead, we add a vowel like sound to it, kinda like what the Italians do. I have no idea why Jackie Chan delete it, maybe it’s a Cantonese thing, and he’s representative of Hong Kong accent at best, definitely not how the majority of Chinese people in mainland China speak.

[@kschell286]

Jackie Chan betrayed Hong Kong , so I blame mainland China for any of his faults...

[@Bdmaurice]

I think another fascinating concept about this is how different the English language can be pronounced yet still be understandable.

[@huggle684]

OMG I genuinely love this so much!! I'm obsessed with accents and this is so flippin' interesting!!!

[@misteranswer]

You should do a comparison between Jackie, a cantonese speaker vs Jet Li, a northern mandarin speaker.

[@wangsamuel9733]

You are such an expert. Really appreciate your break down explanation for the accent.I am from China and surely will keep an eye on these problems in the future when I speak English.

[@LLN858]

Trust me,Jackie Chan's accent is better than 90% of Chinese who can speak English.

[@TalaySeedam]

Very accurate observations. Thank you for your work.

[@artugert]

0:43 "Chinese languages usually don't like consonants at the ends of words." Generally true, but words in Mandarin commonly end in N or NG. In Cantonese, which Jackie Chan (being from Hong Kong) speaks, in addition to N and NG, words also end in P, T, K, and (I think) M. I don't speak Cantonese, so not sure if I'm missing any. It should also be noted that some of these features apply to Cantonese speakers, but not to speakers of Mandarin, which is the majority language in Chine.

[@cmtwei9605]

As an ex-British Hong Konger who went to Britain in teenage I had great difficult pronuncing 'little'. I can tell the difference between mainland Chinese (and Taiwanese) Mandarin speakers speaking English from Hong Kongers. If you listen to Lang Lang (esp. with heavy rhotic sound from the north) he sounds quite different to Jackie Chan. In the past, that was decades ago in British HK schools English were taught by local teachers and even then I knew they couldn't pronounce English properly! One of my teachers would say loof for roof! One noticeable difference between Chinese and native speaker is Chinese people usually put the stress towards the end, so 'plasma becomes plas'maah. The monotonous rhythm pointed out in the video is because the Chinese spoken language puts almost equal stress on each word.

[@winonadaphne6445]

everyone keeps pointing out that the guy mistook jackie's canto accent for a chinese one, but regardless this is very helpful and true information.

[@RitenVagadiya-lb7lz]

Very insightful! Would like a similar video on insight into the Indian accent!

[@9000leo]

I believe the reason a Cantonese speaker dropping the r from Bruce is more because of the way the accent handles r. They got dropped or turned into a /w/ sound.

[@cadidaddy]

This title reminds me of a Uber driver😂 Me: Be honest with me, do I have a weird accent? Uber driver: No, you don't have a weird accent, you have a Chinese accent. 🤣🤣🤣

[@jingcui1612]

Rainey Miracle haha

[@SnivyO.O]

*Oof, That hurt.*

[@2chill2]

Accents are normal. Nothing weird.

[@xihou1954]

@@SnivyO.O that hurts. 不用谢。

[@SnivyO.O]

@@xihou1954 I know chinese, lol

[@Eric-nh2yb]

Haha great vid! Love how you consistently used Jackie Chan through to demonstrate the problems

[@jaquelineandrade6839]

It's a very interesting video, is good to know about it, it's a new knowledge, but... it's no problem at all, we all have accents even in our country in different regions. even native English speakers, Americans, British, Africans and us foreigners too, the accent makes us unique, it's beautiful and what matters is the "communication" to be understood and understand people speaking. A lot people are afraid to talk cause of their accents and that's sad, and the judgement is ridiculous, learning another language is already hard, but we learn to be able to communicate. If you know another language that's what matters.

[@mq46312]

I left China when I was 10. The people that can sometimes tell I'm from an Asian background are usually Asians themselves or people who's had a lot of exposure to the international environment. However most people from a purely English speaking country or with less international exposure cannot tell that I'm from an Asian background. For Chinese in my opinion it's not necessary the pronunciation of the words (contrary to the video), but rather it may be the pitch and tone of the person's voice that gives it away.

[@TheLittleColumbus]

The jump and stunt examples were not great because those stop consonants are not aspirated for native speakers as well.

[@dannyslammy4379]

then how would we hear the difference between stun and stunt?

[@bryanlam3412]

I speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English, all without an accent. I strongly believe that most Chinese have an accent when speaking English, but certainly not all of them; much of my school is Chinese yet all of us speak English fluently, some with an accent, some without; if I had to hazard a guess, I would say the ratio is about 50:50.

[@sellalau2491]

Actually this is more like features of Cantonese speakers rather than Mandarin speakers. The most obvious distinction is Cantonese speakers tend to delete consonant after vowel, especially consonant ‘b’ ‘p’ ‘t’ ‘d’ ‘k’ ‘g’, while Mandarin speakers tend to add a vowel ‘ɛ’ to consonant.

[@FromDarkness2Light203]

I am learning Mandarin Chinese and I am always watching Videos about The Chinese Language. I stumbled into this Cute and Sweet Video. Thank You for The Video, the audience should remember the Native American Saying “Good Humor-Good Medicine”..lol..

[@Aasenzeng]

There are so many dialects in China and the majority of them are so vastly different from one another (I'm a native Chinese and most other dialects sound like foreign languages to me). You can't just take a Cantonese speaking person and generalize it as a whole. There are at least one hundred types of Chinese accents.

[@movieis-the-best8364]

4:19 this is such a good example of how if you can't pronounce properly people won't understand you. btw i work at a pharmacy and many Chinese customers look at my asian face assuming i'm Chinese and just speak Chinese to me straight away without asking politely 'can you speak Chinese'? so even if i know how to speak it depends on my mood whether or not to say yes. Some would then try to speak english but i'm really having trouble to understand because of the accent.

[@JD-uj5cp]

I am honestly watching this video just to watch Jackie Chan and learn how to do a Chinese accent. I figure if I learn a Chinese accent in English, when I try to speak Chinese it will be easier.

[@Cornflak3]

the nicest most imformative way...of explaining something we all laugh about.

[@mohmeegaik6686]

So happy to see this video on my youtube feed. Thanks!!!

[@jerryarcher9489]

That goes for any non-native English speaker. Why do Italian-language speakers sound Italian? Or Why do French-language speakers sound French? etc etc

[@evasuser]

Jackie Chan is favourite actor and too many people like him, that makes his accent tolerable though not unnnoticed. Can you do a video for Germans, Georgians, Russians etc?

[@cyber1991]

I agree with most of what you said except that ending 'n' and initial 'w'. Chinese do have these sounds and can pronounce perfectly. Most Chinese except for Wu speakers can't pronounce 'v' . Chinese can also distinguish between initial 'n' and 'l' perfectly except for Hong Kongers with lazy tongue so don't generalise.

[@ImproveYourAccent]

1) Most Chinese students I teach (from various language backgrounds) cannot pronounce final /n/. Even though it "exists" in the mind of the speaker, it is not actually pronounced as /n/. I have asked my students to pronounce words in Chinese with final /n/ and they agree that it is not pronounced. 2) Chinese languages (like Standard Mandarin and Cantonese) tend not to have /v/ as a phoneme, so /w/ and /v/ may be confused. These languages do have /f/ but not /v/. Again, this is what I hear with Chinese students. 3) As I said in the video, only some Chinese dialects will not distinguish between /n/ and /l/. I specifically said that not all Chinese speakers will have this problem.

[@popolynn2]

I don't have an accent but im subscribing

[@weizhou5626]

0:15 I like that you mentioned the variety of Chinese languages and dialects.

[@taroimoapple4718]

I'm Japanese and found some of your observations are true for Japanese, too. However, there seem to remain unrevealed characteristics that are unique to Japanese English speakers. I hope you'll make them clear from a native's view.

[@neilhunter5893]

Yes he cuts out a lot of letters. But he is 100% understandable. Not perfect English, but understandable.

I think that some Filipinos saying some words beginning with S come from Chinese pronounciation... It usually starts with an I (ee sound). I-style I-spaghetti I-school. Just an observation.

[@aayushsharma8735]

Pleaseeeee do Indian, Korean and Japanese accent too....

[@OPTIONALWATCH]

I'm in the US, so I'm curious about this guy's accent. It is very thick imo to be talking about Jackie Chan's accent 😂

[@等待春回大地]

very very instructive！I can not thank you enough！surely we are not sensitive to the sentence stress. hope you can teach us Chinese more on that.

[@Franciscoluche]

Very good 🤗 but... You forgot to explain it's because in China (and here in Vietnam 😊🇻🇳), they often didn't pronounce the last syllable in their language (it stays "in the mouth!"). I'm myself an English teacher here, and it's the most common Vietnamese mistake. 😅 Good video anyway, especially with my idol Jackie Chan. 😍😍😍 I'm impatient to see your next video... 😉

Nice to meet you.

[@rabanoemi3915]

I am crazy about your videos! Please, do a video about hungarian accent!!! :))

[@Shao-wen_Wu]

Cantonese accent and Mandarin accent are completely different. It's like Australian accent and British accent are different.

[@daniellez.3580]

I think it’s important to note that mandarin and Cantonese are very different. I can immediately tell when a Cantonese person is speaking English and vice versa.

[@linzhao998]

u r really so experienced! thanks for your video,I found many problems I haven't noticed before, thank you soooo much!!! 💛

[@-wil2013]

Hello everyone. 7:57, he said the word "don't" , it sounds like "tong".

[@trevorjames7490]

Oh yeahh..

[@OmikronZeta]

I vote for Japanese next.

[@MikeS]

Thank god the best channel uploaded

[@matheuswerly5320]

Try making a video like this with Brazilian Portuguese speakers as well. I attended an event yesterday, and the Brazilians were speaking with a very strong accent, that I enjoy, but I think it may hinder the ability to speak fast. Great channel, by the way. Cheers

[@user-bc2nz6xw6k]

He speaks like my stats professor oml

[@aichujohnson8444]

It might've been more fair if you would've shown Jackie Chan ANNND Jet Li. Because Jackie Chan's first language is Cantonese, while Jet Li's is Mandarin. The phonology between these two Chinese languages is different. Mandarin speakers would have more difficulty pronouncing consonants at the end of a syllable, since mandarin only had "y", "w", "n", "ng", and "r" as the end of syllable. Mandarin would be more lengthy in its vowels, while Cantonese would be sound "choppy" die to various consonants at the end of syllables. Cantonese also has exotic vowels, similar to those of French, whereas Mandarin has mostly pure vowels, like Spanish. I know you gave a disclaimer, but it would've been more interesting to hear both actors. Their English accents are very different, even though Jackie Chan speaks Mandarin well.

[@nathpakkhabongsetemthanapo225]

I agree only the rhythm and the tone. Here's why even Jackie pronounce the word correctly. It will sound Chinese. Just like u can tell someone that the person is British or American.

[@bluesky0515]

Very good! I learnt so much! Thanks!

[@jatt569]

Could you do the video ‘Why Japanese people sounds Japanese?’ please?

[@rjltrevisan]

Do one about Portuguese accent! Preferably Brazilian Portuguese.

[@7star449]

I like your video and I really enjoyed it. Good job...

[@ivyshi9369]

I like this video because it reminds me of the little things I tend to forget and it's very clear. thank you. i like the other video about UK accents too.

[@fanyangcnde]

You may analysis Mr. Lei Jun, one entrepreneur who co-founded xiaomi. He has typical chinese accent.

[@WszystkoToFikcja]

Amazing video!! Please make one about Polish accent :)

[@Angel-pg5jj]

Jackie Chan speaks English very fluently considering the fact that he isn't native English speaker and learned English in old age. How many people can speak language that it didn't really speak before age 40 like Jackie Chan does?

[@MilkByCow]

Suddenly as a native English speaker I’m incredibly self conscious speaking French.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

You're really good. thanks for improving my accent!

[@derekeano]

Don’t obsess with pronunciation. Although harder to learn, rhythm and intonation is much more important for speaking a language in a way native speakers can easily understand.

[@buyungadil1]

Jackie is a Hong Kong Cantonese speaker. Someone from China or Singapore would speak quite differently.

[@cicelyhu]

The thing is, after watching Harry Potter and other British/American films for numerous times, I have no Chinese accent (which I'm thankful for though, even Chinese can't understand Chinese accent.)

[@ReadilanPappe]

You're brilliant! Thank you.

[@HJ-io8hx]

thank you

[@lkishere]

You are awesome dude. I was looking like a video like this

[@roseareroses4]

It’s really good idea for making video

[@minglin2814]

now i finally realised why i hate speaking english, because im speaking it in a perfect way which doesnt have chinese accents, which have tons of consonants that pauses my speech flow

[@xueyang44]

Sorry I can't tell the big difference between the two "Table". Need help here...will anyone illustrate it a bit more?

[@coreconcepts14]

Great finding 👏🏽👏🏽

[@stefanhallman6553]

Great analysis!

[@崔桃琴]

Jackie Chen is from a place where people speak Cantonese which is notably different from Mandarin. Around 80% of the mainlanders speak Mandarin. These from the southeast and HK mainly speak Cantonese and they have a funny tune while they speak Mandarin. I guess the fact makes Jackie not very eligible to represent team China. Actually he reminds me of a friend from Malaysia. She speaks English and Cantonese and has got these features in the video.

[@ql4297]

nice video! I can learn so much!

[@luizalvesRJ]

You should make the same video with Portuguese (Brazilian PT-BR) accent. For example, we don't speak the -th properly (think, thanks, through...).