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What language is best/worst for speaking Chinese ?
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daxia -

Yo

I was thinking about how you can hear from what country allot of foreign Chinese speakers comes
from by listening to how they speak. It seems that people from certain places has allot more
trouble speaking correct Chinese then others. The nationalities I find it easiest to spot are:
Americans, Japanese, Indonesians (can be tricky), Koreans, French and Middle East.

(Of course, there are exeptions like 大山 etc, who speaks perfect Chinese. Allot of ppl even say
that he speaks better then most Chinese)

I think that especially Japanese ppl allot of times have trouble with Chinese pronunciation,
especially the "qu" sound and the "shi" sound (they kick ass at learning everything else though).

The nationality who speaks the best Chinese, in my opinion, are Vietnamese people. In most cases
it almost impossible, even for the Chinese themself, to tell wheter a person is Chinese or
Vietnamese. The fact that they pretty much look the same doesnt make it easier.

What do you guys think about this ?



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heifeng -

As an English speaker here's my run down of my impression...
Americans: I can just hear that their tones sound like English, the chu qu issue is there...
British: just hear hints of a British accent....
Japanese: F+ H, n + ng are a bit mangled, good tones
Korean: yue, yu, sounds akward, z + zh too similar, good tones
Vietnamese: well it seems to me that they often speak cantonese, so if they speak mandarin, maybe
it sounds more Southern accented Chinese.
Thai: the Huaqiao are really good, really can't tell they are not Chinese, but if they didn't
learn it from a young age it's incredibly nasal or something....very interesting sounding...

I've also been able to pick out Russian, Italian, and French students just because they still have
a bit of their native accent on pronouncing some words, but I can't remember which sounds in
particular.

(It would be good to hear from native Chinese that have been exposed to many foreigners who can
speak Chinese though, HOWEVER I think only GOOD Chinese language teachers can actually tell you
which countries generate good Chinese speaking students. )










wix -

I have met some Thai people that speak Mandarin with a terrible accent.

While L1 interference is a problem, I think with good instruction most people should be able to
learn Mandarin without a strong accent. Perhaps speakers of certain languages will have difficulty
with certain sounds though.










HashiriKata -



Quote:

Perhaps speakers of certain languages will have difficulty with certain sounds though.

This is true, but the difficulty can be overcome if one is determined enough.

Heifeng mentioned Thai Huaqiao speaking Chinese, but with regard Huaqiao, aren't we talking about
a completely different question all together ???










Hero Doug -

You know I've talked about this with a lot of native Chinese because I've been wondering which
language has the nicest accent in Chinese. The only answer I've received (and I've asked a lot of
people) is "that [INSERT LOCATION OF CHINA] has the nicest accent."

Each and everytime they picked a regional accent of China, like BeiJing, Chang Sha, the Sounth of
China, etc. Never once has anyone picked the French, or the Japanses. I'm always told that they
can't hear any differences between foreigners when speaking. I think many have had limited contact
with foreigners though.










wannabeafreak -



Quote:

The nationality who speaks the best Chinese, in my opinion, are Vietnamese people. In most cases
it almost impossible, even for the Chinese themself, to tell wheter a person is Chinese or
Vietnamese. The fact that they pretty much look the same doesnt make it easier.


Many Chinese-speaking Vietnamese are actually Chinese people who speak Cantonese all their life
and just happen to be born in Vietnam. I've asked a few with surnames like Nguyen etc, and they
said they are Chinese-Vietnamese and not Vietnamese, so its not any different to ABC, BBC, CBC.










HashiriKata -



Quote:

Many Chinese-speaking Vietnamese are actually Chinese people who speak Cantonese all their life
and just happen to be born in Vietnam.

So, basically they're Huaqiao, just like the Huaqiao from Thailand, and should be excluded from
this kind of comparison.

However, I believe Vietnamese can sound very good in Chinese (provided they've learned enough of
the language), due to the similarity between the two languages.










Language Guy -

There are quite a few Koreans in my Chinese class, and I can tell you that they are just as good
if not better with pronunciation and acquisition of charactars, and are especially more careful
about their tones than Americans.

But as above mentioned, they have a problem with the z/zh and the z/c recgonition and
pronunciation. I personally helped my Korean friend after class one day for about an hour to help
him hear and say the difference.










heifeng -

That's because they need to pass their HSK exams otherwise they will lose status within their
Korean inner circle of friends, let their parents down, and cause their neighbors to gossip!
haha, well they are a bit more hard core about characters and tones.

Some korean students seem to have some difficulty with er hua too.....


(yeah, on second thought Huaqiao should be eliminated from this discussion, although sometimes I
do meet some huaqiao who speak mandarin but it's really southern sounding. Not to be anal about
having to have northern pronouciation, but since you are studying Chinese, why not at least
attempt to have some distinction b/t the z,c,s, zhi,chi,shi....at least just try it out once in a
while)










daxia -



Quote:

There are quite a few Koreans in my Chinese class, and I can tell you that they are just as good
if not better with pronunciation and acquisition of charactars, and are especially more careful
about their tones than Americans.

I actually think that koreans have trouble with tones, especially girls for some reason. Sometimes
they add a falling tone to end of the last word in a sentence. Like "ni2 ha3o6" (6 being a weird
falling tone)

Ofcourse, after studying for some time most of theese problems disapear.

I think that most asians can learn to speak perfect Chinese if given enough time. Allot of
Westerners seems to have more trouble with this. It's like they get to a point where their
pronouciation ceases to improve. It's almost perfect. The tones and the pinyin are correct, but
still there is something there that sounds different.

I, myself am from sweden, but I have pretty much perfect pronounciation. Although I guess thats
becuase I have been living with Chinese people ever since I got here and spoke nothing but Chinese
with them.

A thing that has helped me ALLOT with my pronounciation is :
I watch Chinese movies and then when I hear a catchy phrase or something cool, I train it over and
over and record my voice and keep doing it untill I hardly hear any difference between the movie
guy and my own recording.

It also helps to talk to Chinese people that doesnt know that you are a foreigner over telephone
and in the end tell them and see what their reaction is.












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