Pennsylvania?? lol…I don’t think I would consider Pittsburgh or Philly accents “standard” American English. I’ve always heard that St. Louis is considered pretty much neutral American English.
Anyway, I agree with your point though. Taiwan accent is perfectly fine. I began my Mandarin study in San Francisco and looked down on the Taiwan accent, but now I realize it is an easily understood and fairly standard Mandarin accent. I’ve heard many mainlanders say that they find the Taiwanese accent pleasing to the ear.[/quote]
This got me thinking about how often I hear a Taiwanese or Chinese person speaking English with a discernible “authentic” accent. I haven’t really paid attention to it, but my sense is “very rarely.”
To clarify, I would exclude ABCs, BBCs, and other persons of Taiwanese or Chinese ethnicity who were born or largely grew up in English speaking societies. Such persons naturally would have authentic accents in their English. Likewise, I’d imagine that a Taiwanese person who may have moved to the U.S. as an adult but has lived here for 30 years may also have picked up a noticeable American accent in their English.
But for most Taiwanese or Chinese people in Taiwan and China, who studied English in their schools and maybe through some private courses as well, but who haven’t lived in an English speaking country for any significant period of time, I’d be hard pressed to name a single instance where I noticed an “authentic” accent on their English. Usually, I just “hear” English with a Chinese accent, with no hint as to whether they learned American, British or any other variety of English. Perhaps if I paid greater attention, I might be able to detect some underlying accent (and my American ears probably automatically filter out American accents).
Of course HK and SG people are somewhat exceptions as well given that both societies have long standing policies of English education and use, and have developed their own authentic/native accents for English (although, clearly they are still largely influenced by Chinese).
Although my accent has long since faded, I was born and raised in Boston. I’ve always wondered how a hard core Bostonian, with our famous habit of dropping Rs, and adding them back in unusual places, would deal with speaking in the various Chinese accents. Would a Beijing er-hua 哪兒sound like “naah”? Would a Taiwanese inflected 哪裡 come out like “naleer”?