Understanding Different Mandarin Accents

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Have you ever encountered this kind of situation where you cannot understand what a person was saying because of a regional Mandarin accent? You're welcome to leave a comment and share your story with us! 💛

[@janetmissjacksonifyourenas2904]

my friend is from yantai and I could not understand qwq

[@marielamino7888]

In Northern part of China there is also the 'r' (儿) in words ending in "n" specially in Harbin hahaha. It happened to me that I didn't understand at first but later It just stuck on me for example: 一共是多少钱儿? / 我在北门儿 / 你在哪儿

[@anduril2695]

I lived in Chengdu for 6 months and didn't understand anything at all. Thought my Chinese was terrible. Then I traveled to Kunming, Beijing, Xi'an, etc, and understood a whole lot more. My Chinese is still bad, but not as bad as I thought. Still pronounce zhidao as zidao though lol

[@我是一个人-e4p]

Grace Mandarin Chinese hahaha, not really because I understand and I can speak mandarin, so I understand most of it, (I’m from Kunshan, close to shanghai and our elders have a really deep accent.)

[@Aerikku]

So many times it drove me crazy haha It's great to have so many accents and dialects but it's a real nightmare for foreigners haha Taïwan, Guangzhou, Hunan, Beijing, Sichuan, I basically have struggles in every region I visited hahaha

[@---iv5gj]

Comment section: 1% foreigners actually trying to learn about chinese accents, dialects and topolects 99%: Chinese people fighting about accents, dialects and topolects.

[@justalaugher]

funny all chinese are posting in english.

[@joshuaszeto]

I grew up in a Cantonese family and I have always preferred the taiwanese accent mainly because it doesn't sound like pirates like the northern accents... Ni chu narrrr me mateys

[@NN-fk3cs]

I spat out my beer

[@haruzanfuucha]

I have always hated how flat and choppy the Taiwanese accent is. I particularly hate it when Taiwanese women do the high-pitched "dolly voice" and adopt some stereotypical Japanese name like "Yuki". The Suzhounese accent is my personal favourite. It's so sweet and elegant.

[@YJSP893]

Canton is south tho...

[@vedantganesh6923]

oh lord

[@dankmemewannabe]

Nooooooooo I love the rhotic vowels, I find them so pleasant

[@TingyuGu]

As a Shanghainese, I gotta say when I was in elementary school and learning Pinyin, the difference between “in” and “ing”, “z” “zh”,”s” “sh” was always mysterious to me coz I was never able to get it. I guess now maybe the teachers that time could not really pronounce them correctly. 😂

[@dianal1679]

lmao I know what you mean. Half of my Chinese school teachers had accents where their pronunciation wasn't 100% accurate so it was hard for me as a kid. The only thing that saved me was that my parents are from the North so I could hear them pronounce the different sounds.

[@qwerty1874]

*Seller saying the price 44yuan be like: *Sisisi

[@mr.aquarius5688]

As a Beijingnese whose parents are from South. In primary school, only I couldn't pronounce n and l, in and ing clearly.(๑ó﹏ò๑)

[@hiimcortana1568]

In and ing are pretty hard to differentiate when speaking fast tbh... u could just switch them And rarely anyone would notice them.

[@DoubleDiction]

I would love some shanghainese content. 老师会懂吴语吗

[@GaryLePleb]

A former student of mine from Fujian had a very strong Fujian accent that not only interfered with his English pronunciation but also hais Mandarin. I was mostly teaching him English but sometimes I even had to correct his Mandarin. Over time, I got used to his persistently odd pronunciation. Later, we were traveling a bit together and we went to Beijing. Sometimes local Beijing people could not understand what he was trying to say in Mandarin, so I, the white foreigner, would repeat what he just said, and the BJ person could understand my Mandarin better than his. They were so confused because of my white face so kept trying to talk to him even though they could not understand what he was saying. I just found it hilarious.

[@张蛋疼]

LOL so true. Those comments like "He/She 's Chinese is even better than me." are not always joking haha.

[@Amaranthyne]

I started tutoring a little boy whose family is from Fuzhou. I’m just starting to learn Mandarin so it’s super hard for me to understand even the slight change of sh/zh/ch sounds becoming s/z/c sounds 😣 I’m so grateful that I watched this video before I met them or I wouldn’t have understood what was going on!

[@izzyneubs]

​@@Amaranthyneomg, I've had the same problem! I've been learning Mandarin for like 3 years in school but it's SO hard to understand my Chinese boyfriend's dad from Fuzhou... my bf is trying to learn Mandarin but keeps pronouncing all of the "sh" sounds like "s", so 十becomes 四 or 死 and it's so funny lol

[@MegalopsykhiaLIN]

I’m a native Sichuanese, and I didn’t begin learning standard Mandarin until 6 years old in the school. But except in Chinese class, teachers and students communicate mainly in regional dialect. As a result, my Chinese test is terrible because the first three questions are always pronunciation related, I can’t differentiate the nasal sound like en/eng, in/ing (till now). Therefore, when I wanna type a Chinese word of which both characters have a nasal sound as 神聖（圣），I have to try serveral times.

[@张蛋疼]

输入法有模糊音，打开试试。

[@MegalopsykhiaLIN]

@@张蛋疼 我用五笔了哈哈哈哈

[@张蛋疼]

@@MegalopsykhiaLIN 那可真是大工程2333

[@MegalopsykhiaLIN]

去年学的， 现在已可以了

[@sovietwizard1620]

Question: Do the Sichuanese pronounce "an" differently compared to the northeastern accent? I've always thought they pronounce it like "en" not "an".

[@anw9485]

Very interesting. I was born and raised in the US to Cantonese speaking parents from Guangzhou. All my Mandarin was learned from a nanny we had as a kid, she was from Taiwan. Up until a few years ago, I was not aware that I spoke Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent until a colleague pointed it out. It's just how I've always spoken Mandarin.

[@Weejee456]

I love your English accent, it's soothing.

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Weijie Yao Thank you! 💛

[@nicoleraheem1195]

@@GraceMandarinChinese with some english words, you don't have an accent. I think with X's , S's, R's you have an accent but I think it's because you're use to your Chinese tongue and I noticed with chinese, the x,r,s is more compressed than in english. English is more of an rounded 😮 Language.

[@Kateyangyuqing]

I agree, her voice is very pleasant to listen to! I also like the way she pronounces "zh, ch, sh, r". In fact I really like the sound of Taiwanese Mandarin accents, it's got a sort of smoothness to it while remaining clear (to my learner's ears, compared to say southern accents or Malaysian accents etc where something like "shenme" sounds more like "simma" to me). I have SO much admiration for people like her who learn a language vastly different to their mother tongue to such an advanced stage. It's my dream to get anywhere near there in Chinese.

[@Kateyangyuqing]

@@nicoleraheem1195 Haha on the other hand as an Australian English native, I find it hard to compress my speech from being "rounded" like Australian English with a big, wide, moving mouth when speaking Mandarin! When Chinese speak their mouths seem to move a lot less than Australians speaking English, so it's hard to try to break those habits! Either way, I think a native sounding accent has little to do with language proficiency. If you learn a language older than the age of about 13 (when we lose the ability to simply pick up a language just by being surrounded by it like children do) you'll pretty much never sound 100% native even if you live in that country. But as long as you speak clearly and people can understand you, I think that's excellent. My lecturer from my first year Chinese course at uni, an Australian who had started learning Chinese in his early 20s, had a high level of mastery of the Chinese (Mandarin) language, and from a literary perspective, had a perhaps even greater level of proficiency than many Chinese natives, but you could still always hear an Australian-ness when he spoke even though he spoke very fluently. On the other hand, my friend from China showed me a video of a Chinese celebrity speaking English who had spent several years studying in the UK. My friend couldn't hear any Chinese-ness in his English at all - she showed me the video saying that he was 100% fluent with no Chinese accent. But to me, I could still hear a definitive accent even though his English was indeed excellent and ALMOST sounded native, but not quite. But in my opinion it doesn't matter at all that he had a slight Chinese-ness to his English accent. He was 100% fluent, speaking comfortably and naturally, and very easy to understand. That's what mattered :) l That being said, I still try hard to improve my Mandarin pronounciation, because while I know I will never sound like a native I do want to sound clear and easy to understand (one day! I've got a long way to go though 😅)

[@shaggyemmett3512]

@@KateyangyuqingAs an Australian whos started learning Chinese somewhat recently im having a lot of trouble trying pronounce sounds that i would usually skip over when im trying too speak and breaking those habits are probably the biggest struggle im having with learning the language.

[@dirkbraby8458]

Both of my brothers learned Mandarin, but their situations were very different. One brother learned in Taiwan for 2 years, meanwhile the other learned in a community in Boston for 2 years. It's funny to watch my brother that learned in Boston complain about the accent that my other brother who learned in Taiwan uses. I'm planning to learn Mandarin as well, but I want to get better at Spanish before learning Mandarin.

[@RandomGuy-bb6ru]

I'm gonna try and learn Spanish Chinese and Vietnamese all at the same time and just hope my brain doesn't explode. I pretty much already know spanish though just need to get a few more rules down. It helps to speak with natives. I feel like it's a cheat code for learning Spanish that my best friends parent's don't speak English and I talk to them alot.

[@willho4540]

The editing to highlight the divergence between standard mandarin and the accents was really really helpful, specially repeating the clip with the visual aid in hanzi and pinyin! great editing!!!

[@amberwang6437]

My husband’s mandarin is definitely influenced by his native dialect, I think. His Mandarin sounds quite different and his dialect sounds completely different from Mandarin. He’s from Nantong in Jiangsu province.

[@iandavidson471]

You're great at finding these clips and identifying all these examples. It must take you a long time. Keep up the great work! 爱你！加油！

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Ian Davidson Haha it did take ... quite a lot of time😝 But it’s all worth it!! Especially with you guys’ support! 💕

[@kokolexx]

@@GraceMandarinChinese 我知道你的秘密🙊

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Alex Jonathan 我怎麼不知道我有什麼秘密😂😂 （我怎么不知道我有什么秘密😂）

[@danielasat4563]

Grace, in the internet there is a lot of very crazy people. Dont worry, 我們不會注意他們

[@sasino]

@@kokolexx 她的秘密是她偷偷喜欢我。😇

[@MrsKoldun]

Hey Grace, I might be nitpicking but as a linguist I want to clarify and maybe help a little bit: 方言 are topolects (or regional languages) and not dialects, because topolects can be distinct languages and mutually unintelligible. Dialects are part of one language and are mostly mutually intelligible. Thus Cantonese or Shanghainese are topolects, while Guangzhou style Mandarin and Shanghai style Mandarin are dialects of Mandarin. However the boundaries between topolect and dialect are NOT 100% set in stone. Best regards!

[@juliette7151]

THANK YOU!!! This is what I've been telling people!

[@zachguo3374]

Not every linguist agrees with such classification. As a person who can understand several Chinese dialects, I think the difference is overclaimed. Syntax and vocabulary are mostly the same, pronunciation varies but still predictable. They are definitely intelligible in written form.

[@veedee8939]

What’s the difference between dialect and different accents then?

[@Ealsante]

@@zachguo3374 I assure you, Cantonese is not mutually intelligible with Mandarin, and same with the Min languages. A common script does not mean the languages are the same.

[@dolguth]

@@Ealsante He was saying they were intelligible in written form. He prob knows they're not mutually intelligible.

[@teohrex9557]

I am Malaysian Chinese but I leant most of my mandarin in Australia. As a result I developed a distinct Mainland accent. So when I spoke mandarin to my relatives in Malaysia, almost all of them told me that I sound like I am from the mainland. I got really self conscious about my accent especially since I am not fluent and I am proud to be Malaysian (no offence chinese people). Then a few weeks ago, my friend from Shanghai told me I speak like I am from Guangdong which is similar to the Malaysian accent which made me pretty happy. Moral of the story, be proud of your accent and also northern/Beijing accents are hard for me to understand.

[@kytzu2608]

I'm malaysian chinese as well. Sometimes i pronounce stuff like how Taiwanese pronounce their "r"s. It depends however when i speak to relatives or in events. I have more vocal and tonal range when i speak publicly. When i speak to my relatives, i speak in a more monotonous accent and use "l"s for "r" and more "s" sounds as i don't roll my tongue as much. But for some words i do roll my tongue. So my accent is all over the place when i speak to relatives. My relatives also speak in the hokkien dialect, so my accent is also influenced a bit by them. So in short, public speaking is more refined, and with casual speak i speak like a dog. This also happens to my english as well. When i speak publicly, i eliminate all malaysian slang and speak in a slightly british, europian asian accent. And use full english. But when i speak to my friends, i speak in a pseudo malay and malaysian english accent, heavy slang and when i speak to my relatives, i just speak in a chinese malaysian accents with other languages and dialects rojak in it. This makes me proud to be malaysian. Our way communicating is very broad. I'm fortunate enough to be in an international school. So i can adjust my accents to suit for other english speakers. I just found it comfortable for me to speak in a more british - europian asian accent publicly. Since i was from an international school with cambridge syllables and my teacher being british. I picked up bits and pieces frim them and i try to retain them in how i speak. While not losing my original accent. This gradually became an artform to perfect over time. I'm still working on it even now. XD

[@faustinuskaryadi6610]

@@kytzu2608 I am Chinese Indonesian, like Taiwanese Mandarin that spoken by my family and relatives don't distinguish z/c/s and zh/ch/sh. The r is pronunced like J in Jesus if it's initial consonant probably because most Mandarin words that start with r are start with j in Hokkien, but if 'r' is the final consonant it will be 'l' , for example number two is ol (sounds like English "all") in Mandarin that spoken in my circle.

[@taniadisuria3653]

@@faustinuskaryadi6610 Chindo too here. It's really confusing at first. Parents speak with their knowledge without telling about dialect. Now starting to learn Chinese.

[@jamieg2427]

The Sichuan accent is really pleasant. I especially love how they say "ou", like in shihou. Also, I find it sounds nice when someone's accent doesn't distinguish hou bi yin, ng -> n.

[@alisonslat8563]

lol people say that southern (including Taiwan) accents are soft, soothing and adorable because of that feature

[@choaseos2256]

Okay, as a Sichuan dialect native speaker myself, I must tell you that people from Sichuan probably speak Mandarin with somewhat different accents since Sichuan dialect itself has a few varieties with different accents. The difference between these varieties is like that inside the UK English and it will be reflected when they speak Standard Mandarin. For example, I myself do distinguish s/z/c and sh/zh/ch due to my mother tongue retaining this feature, which is lost in other Sichuan varieties and many other Chinese languaged.

[@jamieg2427]

@@choaseos2256 Good points. The people I had met were in Chengdu, but who's to say their family wasn't a minority either speaking a different language altogether---Miao zu (aka Hmong) for example.

[@lukeperez3619]

Sichuan accent is so cute (´∩｡• ᵕ •｡∩`)

[@docn.235]

Really great to have this analyzed! I was living in Taiwan, Yunnan and Tianjin, so I heard and got used to all three of these accents, but after you analyzed them, it became much more interesting and raised so many nice memories. THANK YOU!

[@xiaovalu5190]

This is one of the *best* videos I have seen explaining different Mandarin accents. I've been studying Mandarin for almost ten years and I learned some things!

[@mugi6674]

As a native Chinese speaker, I did know some features of dialects, but I still learn much more from this video.

[@PradeepJohnsonChung]

Great video, a few things on the TW accent shown here: -These examples and how they speak are more like the older generations, but the younger generation nowadays don't speak like that, and tend to speak a little bit softer. The reason for this might be that mandarin and TW Hokkien are well mixed nowadays. There are a large young generation that don't know how to speak TW Hokkien (notably Taipei). Further, even if they do speak native TW Hokkien, the people we meet nowadays don't really speak like that so they don't really adopt the mannerism. In fact, the first video of the old TW lady is exaggerating her accent to be dramatic I believe. Another very common feature of Taiwanese is the use of filler words, that don't really have meanings, such as "oh, eh, uh, huh...", at the end of the sentences.

[@unstoppablezone4980]

Good job! I love this. I learned standard mandarin in university, then went to Taipei in 1976. It was a daily experience of encountering so many dialects...especially the taxi drivers, who could be from Szchuan, Hunan, Beijing, Hunan, Shanghai... you name it. Over time, I adpated and learned to understand them all. I spoke standard mandarin, they understood me. They spoke their dialect...I understood them. For this reason, I think Taiwan is the perfect place to learn and practice speaking and listening to Chinese. Second best place, Shanghai. :)

[@vvelvettearss]

thanks for sharing this. that's a relief to read and yes we can adapt to them all though it's a very weird feeling too ! xD I've just begun learning Mandarin but my speaking partner is from Taiwan and when i speak I'm starting to notice my accent is more like (I presume Beijing) or Northern mainland China and I'm like "wut, what accent am I developing haha?" I notice we are speaking slightly different dialects so at this point I'm not sure what accent I will end up with lol. And I'm a native Brit! :D so I find it funny how much stronger my accent is than hers. Imo the Taiwanese sounds slightly softer and easier than say the guy with the North Eastern accent

[@BambiTrout]

I'm English and had never really noticed different Chinese accents before until I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the first time during lockdown and read about how all of the different actors were using completely different and inconsistent accents. I didn't notice it the first few times I watched it because I was mainly reading the subtitles, but I started learning Chinese recently and because the app I use is based on the Beijing dialect, I suddenly noticed how Chang Chen drops all of the "n" and "ng" sounds at the end of the few words I know - most noticeably every time he calls Yu Jiaolong by name and it sounds more like "Jiaoloh". I know there's a LOT more that I missed, particularly given that Michelle Yeoh doesn't/didn't speak Mandarin at all and Chow Yun Fat speaks Cantonese, but I still found it really interesting!

[@natn41r]

Crouching Tiger was really painful to listen for those of us who understood Mandarin, because of the clashing accents. Most Chinese shows have dubbing for this reason.

[@Kateyangyuqing]

谢谢你创造这个视频！普通话有那么多不同的口音，我还是差不多听不懂口音重的人，连最简单的话也听不懂的！据我经验看，在大陆主要城市里的年轻人一般说得比较清楚，最难懂的大多数都是老年与中年的人，大概因为他们的母语是另一个方言。至于年轻一代，听说在大陆学校，小朋友们都必须用普通话说话学习，在有的学校连和他们的同学们用自己的方言说话也是禁止的。这只是我所听到的，不知道这是否个普遍的行为。要不然，据我所知，大陆人都在学校学习普通话。我有一位来自广东的朋友，她告诉我说过她觉得说普通话比广东话容易多了。她只有和父母说广东话，但和大多数朋友们用普通话聊天。 无论如何，我要告诉你：你把这一切都讲得非常清楚！虽然你看起来还是很年轻的，但似乎已经有不少当教师的经验。或者，还是个真正的人才！我祝你在事业上取得成功！加油！ 订阅了👍

[@Min-Jeong2003]

广东人 广西人 福建人他们喜欢说普通话但是他们的口音太重了，说普通话时的语速很慢

[@wagaboa]

我也是台灣人，看到你用英語如此詳細地分析台灣式國語，我覺得我對台灣的認識又多了一層⋯⋯

[@graemewatson2296]

Thanks for your presentation. I'm a Linguistics grad, Chinese as main second language. I went to Beijing (北平) in 1979 teaching. In Summer holiday I was taken around China by train and boat, and it was fascinating the way the Mandarin changed, and I got to hear all the dialects and non-Han languages. I learned 普通話 first in NZ, so I have had to get used to TW Mandarin. I live in TW now.

[@Alice-on3cm]

Thank you, this video was really interesting! I studied abroad in Tianjin, which I guess has a weaker accent than most places, and what really confused me when I first got to China was the way so many people almost slurred their words by adding 儿 to the end. Especially when I went to Beijing! I've grown to like the way it sounds now though - it feels more natural to me when I speak Mandarin now.

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Alice / Haha yes people from Northern China often add ㄦ in their sentences. You just need to get used to it :P Thanks for sharing your experiences! 💕

[@koutaono9973]

👍🏻

[@crappytourguide226]

Interesting video! 我的母语是 ”Chinglish” Canto+English. But when I speak Mandarin , native speakers tell me I have a thick Hk accent 😂

[@stingyswordfish]

I always wondered why my 中文老师 said "lumber" instead of "number" lol

[@nehcooahnait7827]

Speakers of certain Chinese varieties can’t/don’t differentiate /n/ and /l/ sound. They may pronounce 牛奶 niǘ nǎi as Liǘ lǎi. Speakers of Sichuan dialect have this issue. Does your Chinese teacher also make this mistake when speaking Standard Mandarin?

[@jessicayiting4217]

@@nehcooahnait7827 i used to have this problem! I’m from hubei which is close to Sichuan so that might be why

[@stingyswordfish]

@@jessicayiting4217 He's from Chengdu so that explains it! Very interesting

[@张蛋疼]

@@nehcooahnait7827 Not only Sichuan ppl have this issue, HuNan HuBei and some other place have same issue too.

[@amandat8755]

Wow so refreshing to hear this explained! So cool mandarin has so much variation. Always remembered being made fun of as a kid in my Chinese-English classes for speaking mandarin weirdly (or bc English was my 1st language) I thought it was because I was bad at the “curled“ sounds of zh, ch- sounds when really I was emulating my mom’s Taiwanese accent this whole time!

[@-hd4yz]

For me, Chinese-Filipino and moved to Canada. Coming to Canada had me question everything I knew about Chinese culture. The food and the language are the two biggest ones. Later on, I would learn that the food difference is because it's actually Cantonese food (and Chinese-Filipinos are overwhelmingly Hokkien) and the language difference is because I was also taught to speak Mandarin by Hokkien people back in the Philippines. In Canada, I continued learning Mandarin under Northeastern-accented Mandarin speakers. My first teacher in Chinese school couldn't get over that thing that you pointed out: I can't pronounce "ü" and in the Philippines, it kind of just merges with "u".

[@-hd4yz]

Addition: So while in most Mandarin accents, 出 and 去 sound different, Filipino speakers of Mandarin may pronounce it with different accents only (1 and 4) like: 出去 vs. 出處.

[@aichujohnson8444]

That explains why you say "Mandaring" throughout the video. Thank you.

[@ellie-the-seagull]

When I first started learning Mandarin, I was working in a preschool classroom with several Chinese-American children. I would talk to them in Chinese as much as possible, because it was good practice for me, and they all seemed excited at the prospect of teaching their teacher. I noticed, however, that when I listened to adults, I would not recognise some words that I had been quite familiar with. I think I was so used to hearing them in little kid pronunciation that the proper, adult ways of speaking sounded wrong to me. Not quite a dialect, but something I found interesting. 謝謝你的視頻！

[@jungleprimitive]

I think it would be great if you could post some videos on HSK 1, 2, 3 etc. words with a Taiwanese pronunciation! There are a lot of videos online, but some have very distinct accents such as the 兒 character or the glottal stop for 3rd tone. Just an idea!

[@applefoodie]

The Taiwanese people sound exactly like my dad and some of my aunts/uncles :D My parents are both Taiwanese, but my mom loves to make fun of my dad's "poor pronunciation" in Mandarin LOL

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

applefoodie Haha it’s so interesting to know! Thank you for sharing!! 😆

[@恩予-y1g]

I think the older generation speak like that more, not our generation much though

[@applefoodie]

@@恩予-y1g Yeah, I agree. Ironically, I have more trouble understanding Taiwanese people my age (especially when they speak quickly, slur, or mumble), but I understand the older people perfectly.

[@NN-fk3cs]

same here!

[@goodwritingbytyler]

Thank you for this video Grace! 👍🥰

[@sinamark-com]

I have so many problems with dialects. I love that you share Taiwanese and traditional characters. I love your videos 💛🧡❤

[@lyah3550]

I learned Taiwanese Mandarin. I always knew I had an accent but I wasn't aware of how strong it was until videos like this 😅

[@mr88cet]

My wife from Harbin and I, a Texas boy, mostly speak Mandarin with her at home. Much to my surprise and delight, a lot of native Mandarin speakers say that my accent is quite good. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for my written-Chinese capabilities! Although Harbin generally has a pretty-standard Mandarin accent (other than some 儿音 - less than 北京 though), my wife’s father was from “the south,” and as such, a few southernisms crept into her speech, like “hǎo cī” instead of “hǎo chī” (好吃), or “xiá zǎi” instead of “xiá zhǎi” (狭窄). So irony of ironies, in a few rare cases, my pronunciation is actually better (or more 标准 at least) than hers!

[@知-k3q]

Is it southern qi or qia~

[@Idontknow-mp4pi]

I like your learning technic because you used traditional and simplified Chinese for teach us.💓💓

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Shyam Besra Glad to know this! 💕 I’ll keep it up:)

[@dezpinosa]

I don't know if knowing this will make my learning easier or harder...

[@lucasmatias.coaching]

Very good!! This explanation was great, because sometimes I thought my ears were kidding me.

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Lucas Matias.Coach_ Yes! If you don’t know this kind of “sound switching” phenomenon exits. You must feel super confused when you encounter that situation :P

[@choaseos2256]

Our foreign friends probably didnt realize the diversity among Chinese languages. These differences are reflected in their Mandarin accents. These are people who speak different mother tongues trying to speak the same standardized language.

[@lucasmatias.coaching]

@@choaseos2256 actually I did. It happens the same on my mother tongue. I referred to some specific point on speach. Specially when change the tones.

[@supperman8514]

Thank you very much for you explanation I am currently learning Chinese and having listening practice of native speakers. Some times I hear "r" inshtead of (zh,ch,sh) and some time "l" instead of "d" and (z,c,s,l) instead of (zh,ch,sh,r) and some time "in" instead of "ing" and this makes me that either I have hearing problem or my brain has stopped working.

[@youliveandlearn4131]

Oh my gosh girl! I love you so much! You pulled me out of a plateau. 😘 Your videos are awesome.

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Shinkodenkai Danforth Thank you! 😆 I’m so glad you like my videos!

[@ВикторияБесшапошникова]

Thank you so much for your videos! I'm going to watch then all!

[@SkyMist227]

so interesting! thanks for breaking this down so clearly :)

[@ppan355]

Southern and Taiwanese accents sound way more relaxed and pleasant to me than the “rah rah” Beijing and Northern accents.

[@johngalt4657]

Those are beautiful pillows on your couch Grace! You have a wonderful sense of style! Great colors and geometric patterns!!!😃❤❤❤❤❤

[@AverageJoe-gi1ur]

Excellent explanation about different mandarin accents,you must put a lot of effort on studying the linguistics. By the way, I am also a 「台灣鄉親」, so glad to see you producing all of your video clips in English, it will definitely assist foreign viewers learning mandarin.

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

謝謝你！

[@ollieanntan4478]

This was so helpful! Thank you for publishing such amazing content.

[@KL-ww3cv]

看了好多期了，主要是小姐姐英语听着太舒服，而且看着很养眼很耐看

[@ncochran01]

This is very interesting. We have a lot of Chinese scientists as work. I was helping one with a presentation. He was telling me that everyone will be able to read the slides no matter what dialect of Mandarin they speak. But they may not understand the words he says depending on where they are from. I find that everyone sees the same characters, but pronounces them differently fascinating!

[@deisebrsoares]

I'm learning so much from you Grace and I keep coming back to review your videos 😅. Thank you so much for teaching us!

[@JAY-ep7df]

这么有用啊， I watches all your videos recently, so useful, you know (追剧） 😏

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

JAY杰 Wow thanks! I’m glad you like my videos 🥰

[@jonsmith5626]

Nice! Could you cover some other Mandarin accents? Maybe Beijinghua, Shandong, Xinjiang or Shanghai? And just how different is Mandarin in Southeast Asia (i.e. Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) from standard putonghua?

[@andong7748]

Locals in Shanghai speak Shanghainese, which is a dialect of Wu Chinese instead of Mandarin Chinese.

[@choaseos2256]

It's frustrating when you find some Wu Chinese speakers cannot understand each other and they have to speak Standard Mandarin.

[@hiimcortana1568]

Malaysia uses southern Chinese vocabularies(yes there are some words which are used by southern Chinese people a lot but nothern Chinese people use a different word for the same thing). And They usually do the retroflex sound like zh Ch sh . But when it comes to neutral tone(輕聲）。they pronounce it in First tone just like Taiwan. And mind you,Malaysian Chinese are super good at Chinese and usually on par with native Chinese speakers or even surpass them.

[@RobertHeslop]

I remember when I lived/worked in Taiwan, I had no clue that there was so many dialects there. It was interesting, although as I was learning Mandarin, sometimes I struggled with understanding.

[@khunlinda5]

your teaching is very clear for me to understand

[@alexmacomposer8131]

I'm a native Mandarin Chinese speaker (Sichuanese parents but standard Mandarin) but this was very helpful lol thank you for making this video!

[@an1642]

watching this. i just realized that my mandarin teacher is using a taiwanese mandarin accent! and i kinda have that accent hahahah

[@HaswellCore]

Im studying japanese, still very interesting from a linguistics point of view. You already made a video about slang terms, Id like to know if Chinese people additionally omit multiple words and just dont care about grammar at all while talking in a non-professional environment? How would that sound like?

[@SpicyBoiledErika]

HaswellCore Yeah....In my opinion we would pronounce some words made of two distinct characters just like one sometimes. For example, in the region I live, we pronounce ‘mashang’ (meaning at once)like “marang’ (r is not clear). We do care about grammar but grammar is not same in different areas. I will go first, In Beijing Mandarin, “ 我先走“（I first go）In Cantonese”我走先”（I go first）.The grammar of Chinese is very easy compared to Japanese so when you make grammar mistakes in Chinese, it would definitely change the meaning of the word.

[@MeanBeanComedy]

This is grade-A content right here. I'm telling all my friends who care about Chinese about your channel!! 🤗🤗🤗

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Thank you so much! :D

[@MeanBeanComedy]

@@GraceMandarinChinese You deserve so many more subscribers! You should see if you could work out a deal to get sponsored by some learning resource or service and have them shuttle viewers to you.

[@PINGANTU]

Old-school English KTV favorite in Taiwan: "Hueelings.... Nothing more than hueelings" Great video!

[@miayle9545]

😂😂

[@cantwaitforthismeh5422]

interesting thanks. I am considering moving to China or Taipai to learn Mandarin for few months and I am considering aboht the accents...

[@Metapuff1]

哇辛苦你啦 这么勤奋地找例子做比较，佩服！我第一次去中国都不知道南方人不太会分辨shi和si这两发音，比如说我如果买了一个十块的东西就经常会给店员四块和相反的

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Metapuff1 哈哈好有趣！店員應該不知道為什麼你只給他們四元😂😂 （哈哈好有趣！店员应该不知道为什么你只给他们四元😂😂 ）

[@nehcooahnait7827]

@@GraceMandarinChinese 蛮照顾对方的哈哈哈特别写了简体字 😂👍🏻

[@sasino]

I believe that the fact that strong accents exist (some even changing sounds completely) is an advantage for us learners: we can communicate without fearing to be misunderstood

[@Amaranthyne]

Not really 😅 as an English speaker the easiest part of learning Chinese is the pinyin way of pronouncing things. Unfortunately it isn’t nearly as important as the tones. Changing the initial sound is pretty brutal for understanding as someone who is grew up a monolingual English speaker. N-ng blur is no problem since we also do it, even the vowel change is something we are accustomed to, but that initial change? Brutal

[@RuneTAP]

我的老師來自北京可是我的朋友都來自台灣。The first time I noticed different accents was my friends saying the words 什麼 sounding like Sime and 二 sounding like “euh”.

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Destiny CHANNEL Haha right! I’m actually planning to make a video about pronunciation differences between Taiwanese and Chinese Mandarin 😆

[@ArusHarutyunyan]

i love aaaaaaaaall of your videos. They all are so useful!

[@MeanBeanComedy]

Wait, these people sound like they're saying 四 or 死 when they try to say 是？That's all the time!

[@camille744]

Different dialect... They're not speaking standard mandarin and everyone there understands them. "h" is lost a lot in the south + Taiwan

[@ntmn8444]

It’s a different dialect. I learned chinese with someone from Nanjing, and her accent is very different from say, my friend from Guangzhou.

[@fengxiao2827]

可不四吗

[@kankoku1228]

In Malaysia most people pronounce 是 as 四

[@zhuofei888]

Feng Xiao 😂

[@MarkTatsu]

This is spot on and its why I always tell people I speak beijing hua and not mandarin. 去哪儿 , am i right :D

[@prasanth2601]

Prolly a stupid question but how quickly can you grasp Nanjing Mandarin?

[@chrismichael6048]

I am a Malaysian，when I heard my Chinese friends spoke 華語，their accent are quite clear and fluid。The same goes for local 華語新聞 that I watched on TV and listened on radio。For Singaporean 華語 TV drama and Taiwanese 國語 TV news，I can say their accents are equally clear and fluid like Malaysian 華語 accent。However，I must say that the mainland 普通話 accent are quite indistinctive and thick when I heard it from mainland's movies，dramas，TV programs，and even news。 Due to accents/dialects varieties，I began to understand why every Chinese language visual medias had their 中文 subtitles like movies and dramas because it helps the audiences to understand the spoken words。

[@romeoduque7297]

I learned Chinese I Guangzhou so my accent is a bit influenced by Cantonese.....but actually, a lot of people told me I have a sichuanese accent even though I've never been to Sichuan 🤣

[@romeoduque7297]

@ yeah but the funny thing is I was told that by mostly Cantonese people since I used to hang with them most often than not

[@svdvan8797]

you might always pronounce 'sh' 'zh' 'ch' as 's''z''c' , 'n' as 'l'. and almost tone is second and fourth tone.

[@phubaseSiri]

Thank you for your clip Grace

[@ravinosaurus]

I knew it lol. from the moment I heard "Yi Jian Mei", I knew that it was taiwanese before searching it on Google first-hand. It's because of Fei YuQing's pronunciation of Feng (風/风) sounds like "Fong", as well as his pronunciation of Xue (雪) sounds like "Xi-ye" in the old version. This is actually a good video that shows the different mandarin accents.

[@李世鎬]

I am a student studying Chinese language, and literature at a Korean university. My professors speak 東北腔X臺灣腔. They teach 文言文 in Traditional Chinese, and 白話文 in Simplified Chinese, even though I write the all of my assignments in Traditional Chinese, when I write in Chinese.

[@jellysalsa]

This was very helpful thank you!

[@joachimseidel1400]

I would be interested in some links to the clips or where I can find them, if anyone knows. Great video.

[@vanshika9920]

Tbh i'm not learning mandarin right now but i just like watching you explain language stuff

[@fastchinese835]

This looks GREAT!! Keep going !!

[@davidwang9350]

So helpful and well made! 😍🥰

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

David Wang Thank you! 💕

[@juliakrystal19]

Of all the Chinese accents I understand the people from Northeast best 👌🏻

[@casanova-late]

I’m from 哈尔滨(Harbin)China it’s in dongbei(东北）dongbei is northeastern China and when I went to Changsha I was so confused when they were speaking there dialect and even mandarin because it sounded so different I could still understand it enough.northeastern mandarin is not much different from standard mandarin

[@euchboy619]

I always wonder myself is that why most chinese video usually come with subtitle? Regardless of any Chinese accent or dialect, I always prefer to have Chinese subtitle. Mainly also because probably my listening ability is not good and some time confuse with the mispronounce. I remember one time visiting my friend's parent in Taiwan, her dad speak with hokkien accent mandarin, I felt so intimidated listening to him, plus my mandarin vocabulary is VERY limited. I also met online friend from Hubei and Beijing province, and I was able understand their accent, probably because their age are below 30. However, I think I will struggle to listening to northern chinese mandarin. Does mainland chinese or Taiwanse chinese also find difficulties listening to other region accent?

[@cellfractionation]

Hello,mainland native speaker here, when educated individuals attempt to speak standard Mandarin, they are usually easily understood, but I guess some Northerners think they are speaking standard Mandarin while they are actually just speaking their regional dialect. Generally, however, I find it easier to understand Northern speakers, no matter if they are speaking standard Mandarin with their own accents or they are speaking their regional dialects. The huge variety there exists in the South makes some dialects very hard to understand and the influenced accents might be a little harder to decipher and speakers might use words that don't exist in Mandarin. Just as a side note, Beijing is considered North and Hubei is kind of in between North and South(usually considered South but not quite) As of regional accents that are hard to understand, I don't find any accents really incomprehensible, probably because I come from the Sichuan area, where people speak in very heavy and iconic accents.

[@choaseos2256]

In the past Taiwanese didn't speak Mandarin at all. Kuomintang brought Standard Mandarin to Taiwan from the mainland and through compulsory education they managed to learn it and they probably speak better than most mainland Chinese. The sheer linguistic diversity among Han Chinese makes the difference between Taiwan mandarin accent and mainland mandarin accent completely nothing. You'll probably understand what a Taiwanese speaks on TV but find the local dialect of your neighbor city like a foreign language.

[@compasslg4233]

感觉我一中国人看你的视频也能学到很多东西，以前从来没有这么系统的考虑过中文的发音和口音呢

[@rirrian]

@GraceMandarinChinese whats the show from “Taiwan mandarin accent” called?

[@jckbquck]

Good job, Grace! I enjoyed your video! Based on what I've learned (mostly from a Western perspective), Chinese is not a language; rather, it is a language group. What people commonly refer to as Chinese "dialects" are actually different languages. (There are rules most linguists use to determine if something is a distinct language or a dialect of another language; albeit, not all linguists agree on these rules.) According to Western linguists, what is spoken in Sichuan is considered a dialect of Mandarin. On the other hand, Western linguists consider Hakka and Min (Nan) spoken in Taiwan as two distinct languages, separate from Mandarin. So, the man in your video from Sichuan was perhaps trying to speak a more standard Mandarin with a Sichuan Mandarin accent. Whereas, the man and the woman in your video from Taiwan were trying to speak standard Mandarin with accents from two other distinct languages. The American equivalent could be a man from Boston trying to speak standard American English vs. someone from Germany or the Netherlands trying to speak English.

[@MikeInliters]

What you're saying is true, but even Hakka and Min are language groups, not individual languages. There are a few different Hakka languages that are not mutually intelligible. Same for the other main branches of Sinitic. As far as I can tell, the total number of mutually unintelligible Sinitic languages is between 50 and 100. It's hard to find accurate info about this topic. Also note that there is a big difference between the Sichuanese dialect of Mandarin and the Sichuanese accent of Standard Mandarin. The former is like comparing US English and Scottish English, with some real struggles in intelligibility, maybe 80-90% mutual intelligibility. The latter is like comparing a Texas accent of US English and a New York accent. The mutual intelligibility is about 99% but the accent differences are very noticeable and systematic.

[@jirenuniverse116]

In my opinion Taiwanese accent also apply to Xiamen(厦门), Quanzhou（泉州), Zhangzhou(漳州) mandarin because they speak hokkienese too. Zhangzhou hokkienese are closely similar to Overseas Chinese Hokkienese (Singapore, Malaysian, Indonesian, etc) I once spoke in full hokkienese to elders from Tulou(土楼), in Zhangzhou prefecture (漳州) my hokkienese Medan hokkien（棉兰) it was quite an experience. I found Xiamen, Quanzhou, and Taiwanese Hokkien are closely similar to Hokkienese from another parts of Indonesia. Tulou villagers also speak Hakka(客家话). Must go destination for Overseas Chinese

[@jono_bates]

So interesting! Thank you Grace!

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Jonathan Bates No problem! 😄😄 Glad you like it!

[@basilpyc]

yo this was actually really informative, great video uwu

[@rosevaldez6184]

Thank you for teaching I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS

[@paultv4364]

Should send this video to other Taiwanese that CAN'T even pronounce ZH CH SH R to learn how to pronounce it correctly. But most of them don't care how to speak Mandarin correctly. I know you Taiwanese but your Mandarin and English is pretty awesome.

[@pollinad]

New subscriber here, thank you very much for this informative video!

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

pollinad Hello! Welcome;) And glad you like the video!

[@christofat2704]

It the chinese mindset are languages spoken by the Han Chinese are considered as dialects. But in fact northern Eastern or sichuanese are in fact mandarin dialect. Where as Minan hakka or cantonese are in independent chinese languages.

[@squashdevicer]

It is even more complicated that that. Even within a dialect group such as the Hakkas, can be very different within that group. That means some Hakka cannot even communicate with some other Hakka groups.

[@choaseos2256]

We often find that even speakers of different Mandarin dialects have a hard time understanding each other.

[@christofat2704]

@@squashdevicer . That is why hakka is not a dialect but a language . a dialect can not have sub-dialects except in the chinese mindset . Catalan and Castillan ( known worldwide as Spanish ) are spoken in one country but we would never said that they are spanish dialects but spanish languages .

[@carychang510]

Fantastic examples!

[@zohoney9288]

I still learn the putonghua and watch this make me overwhelmed

[@wywalay]

嗨！：） 我一開始學習中文就是普通話（我老是來自北京），學習2/3個月的普通話後遇到幾個台灣人來到我的城市，我那時候真的聽不懂他們的口音 哈哈。現在呢，我比較喜歡台灣的口音。

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

best idea 哈哈很高興你後來適應了台灣的口音！ 真的蠻多細節和北京腔不一樣的。之後我打算來做一集台灣與中國在發音上的不同！😄

[@wywalay]

@@GraceMandarinChinese 我認為中國北部的口音太重了。好期待看你多的新影片 ^^ 對了，我想問你，你會不會閩南話？我最近開始學習了閩南話。有一天你可以來做一集關於閩南話的影片。辛苦了！加油！

[@wywalay]

​@@GraceMandarinChinese 因為在KZbin上沒有很多資料學習閩南話

[@jelenabojovic4671]

omg i wanted to start learning mandarin... this will take many years TT^TT

[@zhubajie6940]

So true. I've heard many Sichuan and Hakka speakers with the sh-->s shift. Emei Mountain (Shan) turns to Emei Three (San). Similarly, I've heard the ren-->len shift going from north to south along the coast. Still, what can you expect from a large country? American English has quite a few varieties also from the sing-ing to sing-ging to sing-en; from Car to Cah; Library to Lie-Berry and Ask to Axe and Push and Poosh.

[@faustinuskaryadi6610]

I think from sh to s is a common phenomenon in Southern China.

[@sheareracuna896]

I spent time in Guiyang (Guizhou) and one of the key things I noticed with my very basic Chinese was that sh was pronounced almost the same as s to my ear. So, for example, the difference between 四 and 十 was just the tone.

[@z344871531]

It is easy for people like me from Beijing Tianjin Hebei .Standard Mandarin is sampled on these area. I can always correct my wife's pronunciation. She comes from South China

[@joelrivardguitar]

I was just watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Chow Yun-Fat speaks with a very distinct style, very breathy from the front of the mouth. Hard to describe but very noticeable. At 4:27 he says "come with me to Beijing" that way. He uses it throughout the entire movie, it isn't how he speaks usually. Is that a more classical or traditional way of speaking?

[@madokanever6386]

As a foregeiner I get told alot I have a very good Chinese accent and I don’t sound more foreign aswell as this lady told me that she can ACTAYLLY understand me

[@MiniChinese]

She is so smart and beautiful^^ love your pronunciation

[@lanjieke]

Usually, I can understand people my own age (I'm 25) pretty well, but on the street, trying to talk to an old Shanghainese bloke? Not a chance! 😂

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Jakk Kasra Haha I guess it applies in some other areas as well :P

[@rzbrj]

Jakk Kasra Definitely, unlike Sichuanese and Northeastern dialects, which are sub-dialects of mandarin, Shanghainese is a different language other than Mandarin.