I’m with you on that. I can understand, however, why the people featured in the video don’t.
Guy
It’s mighty difficult to evaluate tones when you’re not a native.
EXACTAMUNDO like I said.
Please elaborate.
They are posting their video(s) publicly, on youtube. I imagine they would prefer not to receive a torrent of idiotic comments from Chinese nationalists telling them that indeed Taiwan is “China.”
Guy
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I like the way the average young Taiwanese girl speaks mandarin
I refer to mainland PRC as “mainland China” because saying “China” alone would include HK and Macau, since they are very much part of China now. To the wrong audience, saying just “China” would include Taiwan too. Additionally, “mainland China” is a very normal term, it is used when one wants to refer to the main land mass of China, without including HK of Macau, and of course, some people use it to refer to China without Taiwan. In fact it is such a popular term, especially here, that most people drop the “China” part of the word, and simply say “mainland”, “大陸”. I would go even further to say it’s rare for a Taiwanese to refer to China as just “中國”, it’s “中國” or “中國大陸” in my experience. Saying “China” alone, can cause a lot of confusion, since you’ll find a large group of the older generation here refer to Taiwan as “China”.
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Life is hard.
Taiwanese flatten tones. But there is no way in the world you can say they get the tones wrong. That’s like saying a Geordie speaks English “wrong”. You can’t really speak your native tongue “wrong”. Although I guess mother tongue Taiwanese speakers have some weird prononciations. Hua for fa. Neng for leng etc.
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Ditto. Who wants to hear sharp tones? Like nails on chalkboard.
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Yeah it’s all about context. Some old guys I know always use mainland and it’s fine
Many people under 40 will just say China. I’d say 90% of people I meet
There are a lot of accents in China. I think the girl in the video speaks really nice and sounds educated
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I’d agree with this but Singlish exists so…
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No no, Geordie people definitely speak English wrong
Her tones are wrong. She butchered 舌頭 she2tou2. She said she2tou5, for example.
The notion that that kind of sharp tone usage is sophisticated is due to GMD brainwashing.
Plus the er-化 is really obnoxious, like you have food in your mouth.
???
Some Chinese accents sound really nice to me, like the educated Beijing accent.
And I don’t remember the KMT brainwashing anyone
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See? That’s how effective it was! 
Guy
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Generations of Taiwanese were brainwashed into thinking that speaking Taiwanese, or speaking Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent, was low-class and uneducated. Many still believe this.
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Yep. My wife, who is far more comfotable speaking in Taiwanese, due to not learning Chinese till she was 5, will never speak it in public because she feels embarrased
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