Quote:
|
Originally Posted by walrusbomb
ohayo sailor steve!
unintentionally argumentive to doolittle's points are the numerous accents within Japan. to a trained ear, people in Osaka sound nothing like people in Tokyo.....
Okinawa- and Ainu- peoples have distinct accents as well......
|
Good point! I've lived both on Okinawa and in the vicinity of Tokyo, traveled to Osaka, Kyoto, etc.. At the time, my Japanese was not extensive enough to specifically detect/employ accents/dialects...just
generic Nihongo which works fairly well across the country.
Now, when you have your basic
Mandarin down pretty good, and you go to China.....you'll find insanely varied "accents/dialects". Most people in the West don't realize that "Chinese" really is a
family of 'languages'...about ten
distinct languages, only one of which is Putonghua/Mandarin...but about 70% of Chinese speak Mandarin, naturally (by region).
Chinese speaking any one of these ten major 'languages' basically don't understand Chinese speaking any of the other Nine...it would be like Russian to a Frenchman or Greek to a Norwegian, that distinctly different.
Mandarin
is taught mandatorily in public schools since Mao took over in late 40's, so
theoretically there
should be a common language across the entire country.
It gets more interesting: within
each of the ten or so major 'Chinese' languages, there are
distinct capital "D"
Dialects....in Mandarin, alone, there are a
dozen or so distinct "Dialects". [The Beijing dialect is the basis for generic Mandarin as used in official business, government, etc and taught in schools]. Thus, while traveling in China, I used my generic Mandarin effectively, but had to learn new words and sharply different Mandarin pronunciations as I moved from region to region, and city to city.
For example, Shanghai has its own
very distinct dialect (of
Wu language,
not Mandarin), often referred to, in English, as "Shanghainese" but also their pronunciation in Mandarin is distinct in many respects from Beijing. Out West, in the vicinity of Chongching, much of the natural Mandarin is different in pronunciation from that of Beijing, just as Hsian-Mandarin is different from Beijing Putonghua. Again, a Westerner can get by with generic Mandarin, but it requires repetition and precision, and adapting to new pronunciations as one goes from region to region.....and patience on the part of the Chinese listener. Of course, it is much better than not speaking
any "Chinese" whatsoever as is/was the case with 99.9% of Western tourists whom I encountered (when I couldn't avoid doing so
)
So, in the case of "Chinese", it really
is beneficial to know how to read/write, as the written language is essentially the same across
all of the languages (and dialects) of China....and people communicate by exchanging written notes when spoken language fails.
Okay, that's more than anyone is interested in reading/hearing...I tend to go off rambling when it comes to languages....
