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Thread: The Chinese Language

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[quote=XIAOMAGE                ,29739]We all have our different Chineses.  The problem with such a vague, highly diversified language (geologically, culturally, politically) is that there are many levels within it that may or may not be applicable to all places.I was trained first in the USA in mainland putonghua with simplified characters.  Words often included "er" within them so as to standardize "Beijinglish" for us as "Chinese".When I went to Taiwan and spoke with this Americanized Beijinglish accent, people thought it was funny.  Over the course of a few months I dropped it and picked up a very natural but "standard" sounding tone with my formal Taiwan guoyu, drawing on speeches from Hu Shi largely for a picture of "good" modern Chinese.Then after studying classical Chinese, I found that I either intentionally or unintentionally used classical grammar or vocabularies.  I also started to invent modern words with classical components.  Let's face it, you only can study so much within textbooks and dictionaries...after a certain period of time you need to become creative with your language, and that's what I did.Then I was on the street a fair amount, which, as an older Chinese would say, "polluted" my Chinese.By the time I left Taiwan, my Chinese was a very interesting but sometimes awkward patchwork of classical Chinese (one person said I sounded like a Qing Dynasty official), 1910s-1950s "proper" guoyu, and filling in the gaps with street language.Some thought it was very cool, some thought it was just a bit weird, some people just got confused by it.  In the end though it's *my* Chinese, not the current standard of any political or geographical entity.  It will no doubt continue to evolve, but so long as I can communicate, I am happy with "imperfect" stylized Chinese.[/quote]

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