[Kalle]

Quote:

It will color your Mandarin if you don’t go out of your way to prevent that from happening. Some foreigners who’ve learned Chinese in Chengdu (or Chongqing) come out speaking straight Sichuan dialect by interacting with people in teahouses, taxi cabs or other places where Sichuan dialect is more common than Mandarin. If you speak Sichuan dialect people can understand you, but will make certain assumptions about you. It’s like if you speak with a Southern (Louisiana or South Carolina) accent in the US. If you speak Sichuan dialect in Sichuan though, people will open up to you and give you respect immediately.

I’ve gone out of my way to learn and speak Mandarin, so I don’t have any problems communicating with Chinese people from other regions. The only downside of that is that in Chengdu I don’t get extra props from locals for speaking their local dialect. No big deal though, I never had much particular interest in learning Sichuanhua and I was always more drawn to Mandarin.

Great. That sounds fine to me. I speak all of the languages I know currently with a certain dialect / accent so I don’t mind at all having an certain dialect. ^^ What I was worried about was that it would somehow damage my Mandarin. There are some dialects in Sweden for example that no one else except the people speaking the dialect can understand, even though it’s classified as ”Swedish”

And in the end, I will probably do the same as you – attempt to keep it as ”standard” as possible.

Thanks for the wonderful replies man, after browsing some other forums dedicated for other cities, it really looks like it will be Chengdu for me. 🙂

@ Ye Ming, if I may ask, where are and what are you going to study in Chengdu? Just out of curiosity.

Thanks.

[Kalle]

Thanks again for great replies.

@ Charlie, I suppose there are pros and cons. But would you say that living in Sichuan would be harmful when it comes to learning Mandarin or would it simply ”color” my language in a certain way? Can a person with a Sichuan dialect speak to a person who uses Putonghua (spelling?) or are the differences too great? Or maybe more directly asked: Do you have any issues talking in Mandarin with people from other parts of the country because of the influence from living in Sichuan?

@ Towelie Thats cool. To me it sounds great and challenging to try and learn a new language, using the language you are trying to learn. (At an early stage.) Where are you studying?

Ideal situation would be for me:

Go to a school that would allow me to receive financial support from the government.

Work part time somewhere at some point. (After I learned some basic chinese.)

The combined income from these 2 might actually make me more money then I would spend. ^^

Thanks for replies guys, might ask more soon. =P

[Kalle]

Thanks a lot, both of you for your informative answers!

@Towelie, thanks for the heads up about first few months possibly being among the more expensive ones. I hadn’t even thought of it that way.

About foreigners, it sounds ideal to me. I don’t wanna bump into other westerners on every turn, but at the same time it seems if I wanna look them up, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

@Charlie about the dialect, that is something I’ve taken into consideration. But it is also my understanding that people do know how to speak ”proper” Mandarin, and tend to do so with foreigners. China is so vast that it seems that no matter where you go – except Beijing, you will always have some type of dialect.

Even though my main goal is to learn the language, which most likely would be best done in Beijing, I believe my other goals, especially after reading your posts, would be better achieved in Chengdu. ^^

Also I was born in Finland but live in Sweden, I have double citizenship. Both of my countries offer support for people who study overseas as long as the school is approved by the government. That is why it’s easier to find universities that are approved over smaller language schools. (Generally speaking, most universities in the world are approved.)

Heres a new question:

When starting to study, be it university or a language school, how do they teach? Do they teach using English or do they just start with Mandarin and talk to us like children? Like mentioned, I will have experience and can probably ”read” a bit of Chinese prior going there due to experience from Japanese, but other then that, I will be completely new to the language. So to me, it’s interesting to know what I should expect.

Thanks again!

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