I wonder if you understand anything of this Chinese... (Actually 上海話)

(You can find the lyrics and the English translation under the screen.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBeUw45Sfq0

Interesting...but I don't understand the dialect. Haha! I only know "thank you" in Shanghainese.

Sharing another video of Chinese dialect. This is a Mandarin-Hainanese song by a Malaysian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmS5ug_Lyk0

It's a pity I can't speak or fully understand my own dialect

Hm, for me for the very first listening Hainanese is much closer to Mandarin (than Shanghainese). I think this can be understood for Mandarin speakers.

5 years ago - even 4 years ago - I confused Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese... All the languages around there sounded the same (except Korean as I had Korean friends). - Now I see the difference at once, I mean at once I see if it is Mandarin or not and I see if it is a Chinese dialect.

Sometimes you should force yourself to think in that dialect. Just for practice. Just for fun. - One of the biggest regrets in my life is that I have forgotten the Spanish... It was better than my Hungarian at 6...

Surprised u find Hainanese closer to Mandarin, maybe there are subtitles.
In reality, Mandarin speakers won't understand much of it. In fact, Southern Chinese dialects all sound very different from Mandarin.

You can always pick up Spanish again :) I don't know much about Hungarian...just know that Hungarian names follow Eastern name order. Quite interesting.

I feared you'd be surprised...
At some parts it sounds Mandarin to me... Maybe because my Mandarin is too poor, I don't know, he pronounces 是 as 'shi', while people in Taiwan say 'si', in other words he knows how to pronounce "sh".) Somehow "South Chinese" people don't like this voice.
Shanghainese simply doesn't sound Chinese. If I hadn't known it was Shanghaiese I would have guessed it was Vietnamese or something...

As for Spanish, I unintentionally change to English when I could use it. I can read in Spanish, I can even listen to radio or watch films. At the moment I am much more interested in Chinese, it is a new love.

Yes, our names. I guess I know the reason why it is like that, maybe I already talked here about it...
In the medieval age in Europe people used only the given name. But as big cities developed and many people moved to them to study at the universities, for making difference between them they stated using the name of the place they had come from. Leonardo da Vinci is from Vinci, Vasco da Gama is from Gama. In Hungarian the word order at a "possessor and possessed" is reversal - just like in Chinese.

A man named Peter who is from Oxford = Peter of Oxford

This "Peter of Oxford" would be "Oxfordi Péter" in Hungarian, and I guess this is why in all kind of names (no matter if it describes a quality or a profession) we have this pattern. --- Though, many peole state it is because we are from the East, but I think that is impossible.)

I just listened to the music. 聽起來像->呱呱..呱呱... 鴨子的叫聲.><lll

@ Montanius: The song is mostly in Mandarin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgHZlA_BXoc (News in Hainanese, this Hainanese accent is the "standard" Hainanese-Wenchang dialect)
My family speaks another accent.

Most Southern Chinese don't differentiate "sh", "ch", "zh", "n" & "ng" too well, not just Taiwan. It's the same in SG too.

I can pronounce accurately if I want to, but some people might find such accuracy too "Chinese (China)". Haha!

It's good to know someone who is passionate about Chinese language. Hopefully you can influence more people to learn Chinese.

I read that ancient Magyar tribes could have moved towards the west from the Ural Mountains, but it's highly debatable. I am not going to start a discussion on that. Haha!

@ Kathy: 我觉得还挺有意思。哈哈!

Quote:



我希望這裡沒有從上海來的朋友們...

Ok, sincerely, the news is really "Chinese for me" - in Hungarian we say "It's Chinese for me" when we don't understand something at all...
电台， 就。。。 I can pick only some words. In sounding it seems to be close to Cantonese (for my ears).


"Most Southern Chinese don't differentiate "sh", "ch", "zh", "n" & "ng" too well, not just Taiwan. It's the same in SG too." - Oh, I really didi not know this! Interesting! - Maybe because I mostly listened Beijing programs, when these voices are distingueshed it is much easier to understand (Mixing up 's' and 'sh', and 'z' and 'zh' is my biggest problem). I know many people in the South don't like Mandarin and don't like that 儿, I myself find it very funny.


"I can pronounce accurately if I want to, but some people might find such accuracy too "Chinese (China)". Haha!"

This reminds me the situation when English speaking people try to speak as clear and slow as possible to make themselves understandable. It is so cute.


Hm, most people give up Chinese very soon. As I am mazochist I enjoyed the very first year when I had no any sense of achievement - (now I learn this too: 成就感)
(Well, it was and it is still a kind of magic. And people look up to me when they hear I learn/speak Chinese)

Ok, let me tell you a funny thing about Hungarians:
匈牙利中的<匈> is 匈奴的匈, it must have got to the Chinese from one of the West Europian languages. In the West we are called "Huns" because when we arrived in Europe 1100 years ago by mistaken we were thought to be Huns - we looked the same: Asian nomadic - it took 200 years to melt into the Whites.

I wrote too much, sorry!