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Old Jul 19, 2024 | 1:39 am
  #232  
moondog
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Originally Posted by 889
Follow the sign saying "Tones Don't Count that Much" and you'll end up stuck for life in Bad Chinese Gulch.
My Chinese teacher in high school used to refer to that style of speaking as "农民话",,,effective at getting the point across, but crude, or even boorish.

I didn't fully appreciate her commentary about "crude/boorish" until years later when I started having to spend time among poorer uneducated folks in the hinterlands, where some of the accents gave me shivers.

The thing is, they were really weren't any more cringeworthy than listening to white people from McKinsey or BCG giving presentations using exaggerated operatic language.

Most importantly, in both cases, it's possible to to climb out of the gulch. What's more, it's a little mean to criticize foreign language learners because everyone has to start somewhere.
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