To Talk the Talk in China, You Have to Know Where You Are

Foreigners see China: you dialects it is thanks to a number, but toThe of Megan Panther (USA) / Wen Chen Yize / compile
First semester teaching in China, and an American with friends on weekends to ride the train north to play China's capital, Beijing trip. We only buy standing tickets, then assume that the journey will not be how fatigue. However, we were wrong. When we take the train 12 hours after arriving in Beijing, we are really excited and fatigue.
When being in the streets of Beijing, we were surprised to find yourself listening to understand, then the Beijinger around about almost. Even the most simple exchanges, such as asking for directions and to the a la carte restaurant and can not communicate with the locals. Slowly, I discovered, the speech soon Beijingers with the voice of children. When we told the taxi driver to take us to pre-set a good hotel, we spent a very big effort, he could not understand him, in return for his supercilious. Finally, we find the trick is you want to bring a child in his speech voice. In this way, the taxi driver suddenly understand our words.
Of course, since then, I also found that the Beijing dialect fundamental not only with child voice is so simple, I went to Beijing, spent nearly a month's time, but think Beijing, then more and more difficult to understand. In fact, the Beijing dialect is still very standard, very close to the Chinese Putonghua.
, Written in the Chinese language is very standard, in different regions, with characters have the same meaning, but the pronunciation is vastly different. Many readers may already know, the Chinese spoken by a good variety of dialects, each dialect are difficult to understand. Chinese people travel to different regions, they often encounter problems is difficult to talk about the local dialect people exchanges and communication.
I returned to the United States last year, I found that they still do not understand the Chinese people about eating in a restaurant in Chinatown, then I feel very disappointed. A lot of Chinese people in the United States speak a dialect of southern China, mostly Cantonese (Cantonese) and Hokkien (Minnan). Cantonese is China's second largest dialect. The southern region of China and Hong Kong mainly speak Cantonese, the eastern coastal areas of China speak Hokkien.
I teach students in Wuhan often speak in tongues to make things difficult for a roommate. A student once told me that her roommate speak the dialect sounds like a foreign language, and listening to the French and German as confusing.
China's official language is Mandarin. , Mandarin various places in China to promote and popularize. In China, all schools, from kindergarten to university, with Putonghua teaching.
Fortunately, the gap between the the Wuhan dialect and standard Mandarin is not very large, so the obstacles I encountered in Beijing and Beijingers also not too great. I class 24 hours a week, but my real classroom in the streets of Beijing. Restaurants, shops, buses, taxis, and dialogue and conversations on the street, and rinse slowly went to the Wuhan dialect, speech unwittingly bring a child voice.
(The author was carried out over a one-year teaching and learning) in Wuhan and Beijing.