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Thread: Accents a problem when learning standard mandarin?
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[quote=GUESTANDILE,499013]Ok well, Mandarin is the most widely skoepn Chinese language (spoken almost everywhere in China). Most of China writes in simplified script (think of them as two different alphabets to write the same thing even though they're not technically alphabets).I would say go learn Mandarin unless you're planning to stay long term in Hong Kong, Macau or to an extent Guangzhou. Most people will understand you if you speak Mandarin, (maybe not HK or Macau) but for the other places, if they don't understand you, it probably means they don't want to talk to you.When with a group of people, just don't expect people to be using Mandarin to accomodate you (it's very hard to swich languages with someone if you've been speaking to that person in a particular language all your life, it's kind of ingrained in your head. Even my dad doesn't accomodate me when he speaks with his friends, with me in the conversation (he has to translate everything) even though we can all speak Mandarin, my family friends perfer to speak in their own language (which my dad did not teach me).Oh, and there are some people who don't understand Mandarin at all because they've only been using their regional language all their lives, but that number is decreasing and you should be fine at least in large cities. Mandarin can be written in both scripts, Cantonese, I'm pretty sure someone probably has figured it out but I have no idea how to write it using simplified script because the simplified characters for it doesn't exist (from what I recall the HK Special Character Set is ony offered in Traditional). I suppose you're a learner so don't worry about this too much, doesn't apply to you I don't think. The other languages (e.g. Shanghainese etc) can be written but it's hardly ever because of the lack of standardisation (also because it's not taught in schools)[/quote]
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