>Between my apartment and the backstreet, three small boys are beating each other with a branch in the late afternoon. They are shouting, and as we have it, the sounds they use to represent the thoughts and ideas we all share to some degree differ from any sounds I can make or understand.
I ask my girlfriend what those kids are saying.
I don’t know. They are speaking the local dialect.
The local dialect. As simple a tonal difference or as large as syntactical differences, local dialects represent regions the same way accents do in America.
Putonghua is standard Chinese. Mandarin is what we refer to when we say the Chinese language. Some people get pretentious and say “She speaks Mandarin AND Cantonese” or “Gosh, I am going to learn Mandarin, right after I finish fine tuning this rocket”.
Mandarin = Putonghua. The Beijing Dialect, if you like, and most college students speak Putonghua.
And the local dialect. Of wherever they’re from.
A student I had from Guangzhou predictably spoke Cantonese. My girlfriend can speak the local dialect of her hometown, and it is this dialect I am going to hear when I go there on the 20.
The adjusted travel plan is as follows:
16 – buy train tickets.
20 – 25 – Spring Festival in my girlfriend’s hometown.
29 – Hong Kong. Duration to be determined.
Some time in February – begin teaching.
Not sure when. Not sure when I’ll know either. If they’re up to speed, then I’ll get an email a day before.
An hour before if they’re really at the top of their game.
>i remember when i was in Wuhan i understood absolutely nothing anyone said to me