wow that accent brings back memories. used to have a good friend from the northeast. he also spoke like that all the time. 啥啊？有啊，有啊！

This is a really good podcast.

I have a question for you guys. My wife is a 地道東北人 (from 長春), and she often says "w" with a "v" sound -- i.e., 味兒 she pronounces "ver."

She's not really sure why. Any ideas?

@me,

Hi, 北京人 don't distinguish v and w as well when we talk. That is because in the most of north dialects, there is no "v", and that is to say, v is nothing to do with distinguishing meaning of words. As you know, one usage of Chinese pinyin and 4 tones is to distinguish words'meaning. We consider v and w are almost the same (can replace each other) because the pronounces are close and they don't make difference to meanings.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

@stratman1,

haha, that's me.

据我的感觉，北京人的排外情绪要比上海人好很多，我的一些外地朋友曾有过一些很不愉快的经历，他们对我说，有些上海人对某些国家的外国人也很排斥，因为他们是“外地的”。

有时候，儿化音有区别意思的作用，比如“小人”和“小人儿”就是完全不同的两个词。“小人儿” 的意思是可爱的小孩子。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

@echo,

Nevermind, I got it!

@yuehan,

Wanna share your Chinese name with us? Looks a great name from pinyin.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

@岳撼，

这两个字在一起很有气魄 :)

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

John - I'm pretty sure you're the only one I know with that surname. That said, my vote for the strangest last name (not counting the two-character ones) has to be 那 (first tone). Always causes me to do a double-take, as does when people toss the character 一 into someone's name too.

@toneandcolor - Interesting thought. Northeastern accents tend to convert initial "r-" to "y-" in some cases -- a Northeastern friend of mine once laughed at a sign for 臺灣肉造飯 because she read it as 臺灣又造反 -- so I think this is probably just a function of the accent. Then again, the Korean reading of '人' is apparently 인 'in,' so who knows.

@yuehan - This also seems to be a feature of Northeastern accents in general. The stronger the 东北腔, the more pronounced it seems to be - though I remember hearing it even from speakers in Harbin and Changchun who had otherwise pretty standard accents. As Echo mentions, you'll get it (to a much lesser extent) in Beijing speech. The "v" sound isn't voiced (or at least, I don't remember having heard it voiced), so it's different from the "v" sound in Shanghainese.

On the topic of 外地人 and the 待遇 they receive: Stereotypes of different regions could make for an interesting lesson in the future -- some 外地人 have got it easier than others in Beijing. And in a sense, I think that's probably how it should be -- every great world city has got an attitude about people from elsewhere; c.f. New Yorkers, Londoners, and Parisians.

(I'd add in the Shanghainese, if I believed that Shanghai were a great world city, but I don't -- it's just an overgrown colony inhabited by a bunch of self-hating hicks who try to cover up their own insecurities with money, tacky glitz, and attempts to become white.)

I don't know why, but that was hilarious! Love the accent, great acting too.

I live in 上海, and hearing these accents just makes me think of chubby smiling friendly northerners.

◎Echo -- 那 comes from the Manchu 'Nara.' There's more at Baidu Zhidao and Wikipedia, too.

@bryanhassler - updated the site to fix a few problems that were affecting pdf production. New pdfs up for both lessons. If anyone spots any other missing pdfs, drop a line and I'll regenerate them.

--david

@bryan - link on the right column works, so this looks like a problem the system is having updating older pdfs. Should be affecting iTunes subscribers predominantly. I'll look into the issue problem and try to get it fixed today, thx. - Update: appears to have been an issue specific to this lesson. fixed now.

this is possibly the best voice acting job i've heard on the site up til now =) great balance of clearness with true speech...nice dialogue and good levels...one item is that the 'text' page has the line: 我想您似乎不是特别合适吧。as 我想您似乎不是太合适吧。

Regarding the use of 身边儿, is this used as an example of Beijing dialect? My understanding of standard mandarin has it as 身边. As a struggling mandarin student, I hear the 儿 with taxi drivers here in Beijing, but I avoid the 儿 in speaking. Overall, I am enjoying the lessons in popupchinese and laud your efforts and approach to learning. 谢谢

我每次听这个播客就哈哈大笑起来! 演王翠花的角色的那个演员演得特别好！她假装自己不是个东北人即使我们听众们都知道她就是一个土生土长的东北人儿，这种情景特别搞笑！

“啊，北京，北京经典儿。。。可多啊！北京，北京比如那个什么天安门可出名儿啊！还有那个什么那个叫，那个叫什么玩儿意儿， 什么黄鹤楼啊！ 怎么地，怎么地。。。！”

哈哈哈！笑死我啦！

演王翠花的演员是谁呢？我想求她的签名！我想那个超级村姑肯定已经出名儿了吧！

@jinshakira,

I'm not really familiar with Northeast "er". Actually there is no "er" sound in a lot dialects in China. People try to speak Mandarin or Beijinghua sometimes, and they think the most effective way is to add "er" at the end of whichever word they want, and that's why they put "er" at some weird places.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

haha... I've been in the dongbei over 2 years, in a small city north of Harbin, (the first, and so far, only, place I've lived in China) and I'm afraid I've picked up lotsa bad habits... the deep gutteral `h's, and 儿 on the end of everything... actually there seems to be little rhyme or reason to when the 儿 is added. But the worst habit has to be the added `a', ... it just seemed to come so naturally. Monkey hear, monkey speak. When everyone around you is speaking like that you have the tendency to copy them.

@jaq.james,

1. emphatic, colloquial manner of speaking. You'll hear it in other dialogues.

2. 需要的 (that which is needed). The noun is implied and optional. Grammatically, this is the use of 的 to nominalize the phrase which precedes it.

3. 身边儿 = around me (lit. my body). "It's just that I've got a lot of Dongbei friends."

4. 那个 often comes out the way “um..." might come out in English. You'll also hear this in other intermediate level shows.

enjoyed the lesson... really funny!