I'm reminded of the old Punch cartoon that went something like this:

CHILD: "Daddy, is Punch as good as it used to be?"

DADDY: "It never was."

funny - this was actually the second take. In the first take I think they actually started out saying stuff like. "What's up with the kids these days!"

Baifan is a pretty cool guy, and a great artist. Hopefully we'll have some more of his artwork to show off soon.

不错，很好，70 后，80后 90 后

@maxiewawa - I'm not good enough to understand this recording, but I'm firmly in the camp that is pissed off by Shanghai attempts to speak standard mandarin. I spent a few months there on study abroad last summer and a few months in Beijing the summer before. It was night and day in terms of a learning experience.

The thing that pissed me off about Shanghai having been elsewhere was that even our *teachers* didn't differentiate between zhi/zi and jin/jing when they spoke unless they concentrated on it. Sure that is how people down south speak, but it's still screwed up: the closest I can think of in English would be failing to differentiate between long and short vowel sounds.

The Beijing irhization may get overblown when you're speaking to local cabbies, but even at its worst it doesn't interfere with comprehension the way fucking up basic syllables does. It's closer to the way Shanghai people add yaaaa on the end of everything. Something you can focus on if you want, but not something that impairs communication.

This may also have just been development in the run-up to the Olympics, but Shanghai was also filled with foreigners who couldn't speak Chinese and had no interest in China but were drifting around the city clubs and sports bars hoping to find a fat expat package. I hope it works out for them, because then they'll stay there. I think they're in for a rude awakening if they ever move to another city in China.

YMMV - and the foreigners I knew there who actually knew Chinese were pretty cool as they go.

I very much love Beijing, but Shanghai is a lovely city too. The french concession is always beautiful and the city has a major advantage at this time of year: is it warm enough to walk around outside.

Also, Shanghai is close to Hangzhou, which has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.

@gaford

I didn't realise that the Shanghai accent gave beginners so much problems! I didn't think of it that way.

But my point is that while we often get Northern non-pinyin pronounciation in lessons like this one, we NEVER get lessons with Southern accents.

It's definitely important to learn these little idiosyncracies of language, but I think that we focus too much on Northern Putonghua at the expense of other accents.

what is this product? can't find anything more about it:

A generative audio review that gets you speaking. A pioneering and mind-bending product.

@bbishop,

Podcasts emphasize passive listening. Our audio review is designed to get people actually speaking Chinese. If you're new to the site you should be automatically invited to upgrade to a free trial the first time you try to access any premium features.

http://popupchinese.com/users/account

There's a brief discussion here about The Fix on the thread below if you want to read unsolicited community praise about it (thanks for that, guys...).

http://popupchinese.com/community/archive/toneandcolor/popup-chinese-fix

I love how foreigners argue more over Shanghai vs Beijing than the Chinese do. It seems like a psychological malady to me -- an attempt to recreate the East coast/West coast, New York/LA animosity. Just have a break-off and be done with it.

Anyway, as someone married to a southerner (Chinese southerner, that is), I like the fact that popup chinese is more Beijing centered. The biggest problem I have with northern accents is not so much the pirate-hua as the fact that most men (and it does seem to be sex specific) talk like they have a handful of marbles in their mouths (no offense). It's the mumbling more than the er's.

现在我住了在河南，郑州。 郑州人也有一个"pirate accent".在北京我初学者的中文去年。所以我是习惯了北京人儿口音。

在郑州我听说过几个人说“那儿里”. It sounds exactly like gnarly!

还有我最喜欢的北京单词说是“瓶儿”。 And I always emphasize the 儿 at the end

-小虎

@paglino9 - I always passed through Zhengzhou on the train. Anything worth seeing there?

Tiger indeed. I'm several years in at this point. A lot of the urgency of language study goes away after a while, but it's still good to have something that keeps you on your toes, which is why I still use the online stuff.

in my Pleco dictionary 洋画儿 is shown as 4th tone on both words, however, I see in your list that it is 2nd tone (yang) 4th tone (huar). Can you provide any clarification?

Thanks :-)

咱们那年代，身上带个BP机已经很了不起了。。 :)