Job Discussion Forums

[taipaishan]

I am seriously interested in learning Mandarin, while teaching English in China.
What are some good ins and outs to look for?
What is the best area to go, i.e. North, South?
Any idea will be helpful.
Thanx

[Taiping04]

You should look to live in an area where Mandarin is the lingua franca. Though most can speak it, and all children learn it, Putonghua is mostly spoken in the NE of China. Some dialects aren't too far removed from it, but others [Cantonese, Shanghainese] are very different, particularly in their pronunciation and use of tones. You can easily use Mandarin all over China, but if you want to be immersed in it, look NE.

PS I'm aware of the language/dialect debate. A language is a dialect with a flag. Dialects are mutually intelligible, languages aren't. In China, these two statements are contradictory.

[Dalian Veteran]

Yes, I agree that the northeast is a good place to study Mandarin.

But in Dalian, keep in mind that they add the er sound to almost everything, much more so than Beijingers.

[Ailian]

Most places in the Northeast will had the "er" (er hua yin) to words because that's a part of the Northeastern dialect. If you want to learn some of the clearest Mandarin, I would suggest Harbin -- its accent is clear, well-pronounced, and without er hua yin. Of course, Harbin also gets really cold, and attracts some pretty crazy foreigners (in my and my friends' opinion) but that's the price of good Mandarin.

That being said: Shanghaihua is really cool. It's what I'd like to learn next.