When first arriving here, 那个 really, really got me confused. Especially since it's used as 'um' rather than 'that one', so when I first asked someone what they said, they would say, I didn't say anything!

tb

Were you around here when that discussion was taking place? It was one of my favorites.

No...sounds like the sort of intro in china the guide books omit!

tb

The thread in question is a "sleeping dog", but I encourage you to seek it out and soak it in.

The question is, what term should one search under -- the most obvious would not be allowed by FT!

tb

Found it for ya:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...e-me-most.html

An FT classic! Can't believe i missed it first time round.

tb

lol, 那个 and 这个!

I can picture how a Beijing person would pronounce both of those words.
Not that hard to duplicate too. haha

When we first arrived in mainland China, we thought we would be able to speak without any difficulty since we studied PuTongHua in Taiwan.

We decided to attend Mandarin class on the mainland. Our school knew our Chinese was already passable so they sent us to classes where the lecturer was from Harbin, Beijing & one other place where their accents are very different from the accents of Taiwan and the south.

First month, we couldn't understand 90% of what the teachers were saying. We were so frustrated. We are now very grateful that we were exposed to different types of accents because we can understand despite the accents.

Interestingly, many at the university where we studied Chinese say that they wished there accent was more "Beijing". It sounds more educated.

+10000, hilarious.

No way, Shanghainese (at least the old folks) have bad putonghua if you ask me.

I have to say, I spoke about this with some of my students today (none of whom are beijingers) and they were incredulous that the beijinger accent is sophisticated. They were just of the opinion that beijingers sound full of themselves!

Of course, I don't swim in the same rarified circles as moondog, so maybe it depends on whom one is talking with.

tb

True, there are some BJ types who are mandarin dialect snobs. maybe more so if in SH, or in GZ-HK. Actually if in GZ-HK, and if one can't speak cantonese , you might be better off speaking english vs mandarin ( better service & respect).

My circles are far from rarified, sir, but I would like to mention that my friend who came to BJ in order to refine her accent is going to be featured in the next issue of City Weekend; making a buzz in this enormous metropolis is far too easy.