Mandarin mastery poll. choose 2

With a few exceptions, their accents are mostly horrific. I start cringing after about five seconds.

Accents are interesting. Henry Kissinger has native speaker level English but was never able to shift his strong German accent.

You get a pass if you’re fluent at that level. Of course, lots of Germans (Dutch, etc.) are extremely fluent in English.

I’ve never been able to confirm if it’s true, but there’s a story about a bunch of 18 year olds from the Netherlands and the UK who were given an English language test (IELTS). The Dutch kids scored higher.

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That wouldn’t surprise me the least bit. :sunglasses:

There are several possible jokes there. Which one are you making, so we can laugh accordingly? :smirk:

Hate Mondays… and I hate people who can speaking Chinese even if it’s at baby level. I’ll install some app today (again!).

The joke is in the dirty mind of the beholder.

They sound fine to me

Their accents are mostly fine.

Maybe you have low standards for foreigners. Their tones and enunciation are all over the place.

Your standards sound high! Proper enunciation is hard for everybody and tones are extra tough for them farreners.

Technically Chinese would have been my native language along with Korean. But when I moved to the US I just never used it. My parents spoke to me in English, my mom mixes in Korean. I had no friends that spoke Chinese. So I just never improved past what I learned at a elementary level.

Of course I have low standards for foreigners. The point is they sound very clear.

what is tone

I had a guy who got really insulted and went on a rant about how I’m insulting him by speaking to him in English instead of Chinese.

聲調

The other one is “You assume because I’m white I speak English?”. Their argument kind of falls apart when they speak in English.

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是什麼

I’m like you’re insulting me, because I’m Taiwanese looking (I don’t even look that Taiwanese tbh) I must speak Chinese and can’t speak English? The guys Chinese was better than mine so. I prefer to converse in English when I can, it flows easier.

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