Understanding Different Mandarin Accents

Understanding Different Mandarin Accents

Have you ever encountered some people who speak Mandarin with an accent that you’re not familiar with? After watching this video, you will know why there are different Mandarin accents and also I introduced several different ones to you and talked about their features!
One of the main reasons for leaning a language is using it to communicate with real people, so it’s important to understand there are different accents of Mandarin and how to get used to them. :)

⚡️ Time codes:

00:18 Why there are different Mandarin accents
01:27 Sichuan Mandarin accent (typically being influenced by a Sichuan's dialect)
03:44 Northeastern Mandarin accent
04:37 Taiwan Mandarin accent (typically being influenced by Taiwanese Hokkien)

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[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! 💛

[---ivgj]

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

[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

[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. 😂

[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.

[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.

[anw]

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.

[dirkbraby]

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.

[Weejee]

I love your English accent, it's soothing.

[iandavidson]

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！

[willho]

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!!!

[teohrex]

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.

[amberwang]

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.

[docn.]

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!

[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!

[jamieg]

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.

[xiaovalu]

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!

[mugi]

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

[unstoppablezone]

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. :)

[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!