# Taiwan Mandarin: tones



## lillebror

Hello,

I've noticed that people in Taiwan speak a rather peculiar variety of Mandarin, which sounds distinctly not like 普通話 to me. I know there's more similarities there and the differences are not critical but they do exist and the way people pronounce certain words is what caught my attention. For example, they pronounce 謝謝 "thank you" differently in Taiwan, with the last xie being stressed more. I'm not sure a shift in tones occurs there too but I know it does in some other quite common words.

Can anyone please comment generally on tone shifts in Taiwanese Mandarin (國語) vs Putonghua and specifically on the differences in pronouncing certain words there.


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## Skatinginbc

lillebror said:


> Can anyone please comment generally on tone  shifts in Taiwanese Mandarin (國語) vs Putonghua and specifically on the  differences in pronouncing certain words there.


To answer  your question, I feel I need to clarify the terminology first.  There is  no tone shift (a systematic shift of a tone) if we compare the  prescribed "standard" Taiwan Mandarin (國語) with the prescribed  "standard" Putonghua although there are differences as a result of  different views to the syntactic, semantic, and etymological analysis of  certain individual terms.  Those cases occur in an unsystematic,  unpredictable way.  Every discovery of such an example is always a shock  to me.  The great majority of 國語 speakers carry a Taiwanese (Min-Nan)  accent, so do many speakers of Putonghua carry a regional accent.   Speaking "standard" 國語 was once considered desirable and prestigious.   However, there has been a shift of attitude since the early 90s when  Taiwan independence movement became a viable political force.  My  personal experiences told me that if you speak "standard" 國語 in today's  Taiwan, people may question your Taiwanese identity, and there is an  unspoken social pressure to adjust one's speech to the Taiwanese accent.  With that in mind, I would interpret the OP's question as "Can anyone  comment generally on pronunciation differences between "Taiwanese  Mandarin" (the so-called 臺灣國語 or Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent) and "standard" Mandarin 標準國語/標準普通話?"   
Here  is the most noticeable tone shift: Changing the reduced tone to the  default tone of a morpheme.  For instance,  謝謝 xie4xie is commonly  pronounced as xie4xie4, 乾兒子 gan1er2zi as gan1er2zi3, 媽媽 ma1ma as ma1ma1, 他們 ta1men as ta1men2, and so on. 
Another difference concerns inter-syllabic tonal contour.  For instance, 較jiao4 in 比 較 bi3jiao4 is supposed to start from high to low.  Speakers with a  Taiwanese accent often start it from mid to low--I mean, the tonal  contour between morphemes is flattened (not as dramatic/clear as  prescribed).
Of course, the lack of 兒化 is obvious.  Even when 兒 is included in a phrase, it is read as a standalone morpheme.  For instance, 一會兒 yi4huor3 (標準國語) is typically read as yi1hui3er2 (臺灣國語), 一點兒 yi4diar3 as yi4dian3er2, 貓兒 maor1 as mao1er2, etc. 
The  tongue position for retroflex consonants are not as curved as  prescribed, so much so that I think an easy way to imitate the Taiwanese  accent is simply not to curve the tongue for any word.  /l/ and /r/  become nearly indistinguishable.  我很樂 le4 and 我很熱 re4 sound almost the same.


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## lillebror

Great! Thanks a lot, Skatinginbc! Everything you wrote helps immensely.


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## miltonese

I'm from mainland of China.
Personally, i think:
Taiwanese like to used exclamation words '啊、呀、嘛' in the end of sentence. Although these words serve no actual meaning, these words do have linguistic purpose. They used these words to express their emotion when speaking. Their accent sounds quite weird to mainland speakers too, because they use very different tone shift from mainland speaker. (it might be that they are conveying emotion through these tone shifts )
 And Taiwanese's local dialects heavily affect their Taiwanese Mandarin, as we all know, Mandarin has four tones, but Taiwanese's local dialects have 8 tones.

there's no a set of rule that how Taiwanese Mandarin's tone shift differ from that of Putonghua.


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## SuperXW

I usually like to compare Taiwan Mandarin to British English(BE), and Northern Putonghua to American English(AE).

1. Taiwanese Mandarin and Northern Putonghua use some different words and expressions, such as "security" 保全-保安, "file" 文檔-文件... Some pronunciations are also different: 和 han4-he2.
2. Taiwanese Mandarin tend to use default tone for each character, while the tone, pitch and rhythm of Northern Putonghua is much more "free" like AE. Northern Putonghua alter the tone, pitch and rhythm more rapidly, also, more "light tone" will be found.
3. Taiwanese Mandarin requires much fewer of curling your tongue. E.g. er->e; zh->z; etc. Northern Putonghua requires a clear distinction among "z,c,s" and "zh,ch,sh", also, much more "r-coloring" will be added.
4. Taiwanese Mandarin tend to use some exclamation words like 嘛, 啦 are more frequently. 

My findings may be not comprehensive or accurate. You may refer to others opinions as well.


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## lillebror

Again thanks a lot everyone!

Could any one say something on the use of Minnan words in everyday spoken Mandarin in Taipei, for example? What are the most common words from 閩南語 that one hears used in 臺灣國語?


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## Skatinginbc

Another noticeable feature of Taiwanese Mandarin concerns the nasal consonants.  <eng> is read as <en> (e.g., 來碗蒸酒 ==> 來碗真酒; 生手 ==> 伸手), <ing> is pronounced as <in> (e.g., 皇上英明 ==> 皇上陰民), and labial + <eng> becomes labial + /ong/ (e.g., 奉 <feng> ==> /fong/, 崩 <beng> ==> /bong/).


lillebror said:


> Could  any one say something on the use of Minnan words in everyday spoken  Mandarin in Taipei, for example? What are the most common words from 閩南語  that one hears used in 臺灣國語?


Here are some examples of commonly used Minnan loanwords in Taiwan Mandarin: 
拜拜: 祭祀 "worship or make offerings to a deity" 
歹命: 命不好 "with a hard life"
哇塞: 天啊、不得了 "My goodness"
呆直: 死板、不知變通 "inflexible"
大俗賣: 大拍賣 "big discount sale"
三八: 女人舉止輕浮扭捏作態 "frivolous"
幹 (profanity): 姦 "fuck" .


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## lillebror

謝謝, Skatinginbc！


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## panzerfaust0

Skatinginbc said:


> To answer  your question, I feel I need to clarify the terminology first.  [...]


This is impressive stuff... Are you a professor in college/university?  Serious question.


miltonese said:


> I'm from mainland of China.[...]


I am originally from Taiwan.  Question for you (since your from mainland China), is it true that celebrities from Mainland China try to emulate the "Taiwanese accent" (when speaking Mandarin), possibly because they perceive it to be a superior, or maybe a more pleasant-sounding way of speaking Mandarin?  Not to offend you, but I absolutely can NOT stand the way a lot of Mainlanders speak.  Especially if they are from BeiJing, and they 卷舌 when they talk.  Makes me positively murderous.


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## abytong

note that the accent stuff isnt that simple as one mainland accent vs one taiwanese accent, there are many regional accents in mainland china.

accents in southern provinces like guangdong/fujian etc are similar to taiwanese accent, not exactly the same, but they all share some major features, such as (as listed in previous posts) avoid using 儿化音 and neutral tone, curve the tongue much slighter or not curve at all etc.


to Skatinginbc

a little disagreements 

I think in taiwan the term "臺灣國語" refers to a nonstandard accent (compared with the taiwan standard) that is with strong minnan accent, it's mostly among older generation of taiwanese people


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## Skatinginbc

abytong said:


> I think in taiwan the term "臺灣國語" refers to a nonstandard accent (compared with the *taiwan standard*) that is with strong minnan accent, it's mostly among older generation of taiwanese people


I  think you are right.  As time passed by, the "Taiwan standard" has  changed.  Those "older generation of Taiwanese people" were once  young.  They went to school and were taunted by some  teachers from the Mainland for speaking "臺灣國語" (Taiwanese Mandarin).  國語  was then a  synonym for 以北京官話為主的官方語言.  標準國語 was of course 以北京口音為主.  Among the Taiwan   residents then including those exiles from the Mainland to escape the  communist control, some but not many were native speakers of 北京話.  The  linguistic landscape further changed during their first generation and  even more so during their second generation.  Those generations grew up  speaking "國語", whose  definition seems to have now changed to 臺灣當地的國語 (Taiwan Mandarin) that  contain many features of once called "臺灣國語".  Those features are now  considered the norm or "Taiwan standard".  To my surprise, the  definition of 標準國語 seems to have changed as well.  I just discovered  以台北為中心的標準國語發音也被稱為「台北國語」 on this website  (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中華民國國語).    It seems to imply that 台北國語 is now the new "標準國語".  I have also noticed  that even Taiwan news  reporters whose speech is supposed to be "standard" exhibit traces of  the Taiwan accent.  
Sorry for the outdated information I gave in  #2.  Obviously, I'm getting old.  I was born and raised in Taiwan and  learned and made it a habit to speak 標準國語 as a good little boy would  do.  Ironically, now I face the risk of being shot dead with a _panzerfaust _("tank fist") because my 卷舌 makes some of my countrymen "positively murderous" (see post #9) .


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## CQy301a

Skatinginbc said:


> My personal experiences told me that if you speak "standard" 國語 in today's Taiwan, people may question your Taiwanese identity, and there is an unspoken social pressure to adjust one's speech to the Taiwanese accent.



I feel really sorry, but this is too untrue.


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## Skatinginbc

CQy301a said:


> this is too untrue.


為推展國語教育，國民政府舉辦「國語文競賽」.  能代表縣市參加全國朗讀、演說決賽並得獎, 其發音應離「標準國語」不遠吧!  在競賽中操「標準國語」是優勢, 但在台灣日常生活中則不見得是美事, 若不遭「非我族類」的歧視, 就給人「裝腔作態」的印象. 旁人先入為主地斷定你是「大陸來的」或「外省人」, 多事者更會「假好心、真不客氣」地叫你說話不要捲舌. 還有無聊者會考你台灣話來驗證你是不是「台灣人」.


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## Youngfun

其实，尝试讲“标准国语”的台湾人（卷舌）比尝试讲“标准普通话”的大陆南方人要多得多。


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