One-on-two and Chinese Accents

While certainly not the most challenging of my four classes, my one-on-two class was easily the most fun. The class consisted mostly of memorizing dialogues and drills and going over them with a teacher and a fellow student. I worked well with my one-on-two partner, Kenny. Zou Laoshi was an excellent teacher as well. Our dialogue topics ranged from Harbin's history to the Siberian Tiger Park, and from drinking tea to China's polluted rivers. We were able to learn from each other's mistakes to improve our spoken Chinese.

I felt teachers in Harbin, especially Zou Laoshi were very willing to teach local colloquialisms and really gave me the tools I needed not only to speak very standard Mandarin, but also to understand the Northeastern accent. In contrast, teachers in Taiwan often discouraged being influenced by local accents. All of this made me think a lot about the idea of standardization in language. Mandarin, what I study, is the national language both of China and of Taiwan and was created at the turn of the last century as a National Language for the Chinese people by taking the Beijing dialect of Chinese, which is mutually intelligible with dialects spoken by over half of China, as far away as Yunnan in the Southwest and Harbin in the Northeast, modifying it, and then teaching it in schools across the country. However, each region still either has its own dialect which is mutually intelligible to Standard Mandarin, or its own completely separate dialect, in which case Mandarin will be spoken with a regional accent. In such a diverse environment of accents, how important is it for me to hone my own accent? Should I try to speak with the most standard of accents or should I adapt my accent to what I hear around me in various regions. Back in the US, particularly in New York where most Chinese are of southern stock, should I speak with a southern Chinese accent or a Beijing accent? I often thought about such questions while studying abroad and I encourage future Light Fellows to do the same. Answers may depend on what one's goals are. If someone plans to work in Taiwan and San Francisco, learning to speak Chinese with a southern accent might make the most sense. If someone wants to teach Chinese in America, learning to speak with a Beijing or Harbin accent would make the most sense.

This leads me to another thought: if I was teaching English to someone, what accent would I want them to imitate? Many people in China study the English spoken in the UK as a model of Standard English. Many people in America might consider the English spoken in the Midwest as the most standard. However, as a New Yorker, I naturally feel the English spoken in the English-speaking world's largest city and the world's economic and cultural capital should be seen as the most standard, laugh though you may about how we say the word "coffee."